Hyper Shift Left
What if we were to move the current “Shift Left” initiatives much further ‘left’; to the inception point itself; the team.
The product is a reflection of the team, and if you want to improve the quality of the product, then improving the team will give you the best return on investment.
How to improve the team in a measurable way is outlined in this PNSQC 2025 paper.
I got an education in music mostly because my grandfather (on my mother's side - Cassim Seetal) was a musician but did not want any of his kids to learn music - because it is a very tough profession. Hard to raise a family on a struggling musician's wages. So my mother was determined that all of her kids would learn to play a musical instrument.
I started learning the piano from Mme Naina, who lives further down on la rue Dauphine. My mum got our first piano was from a Mr Rosette, who lived on la rue l'Arsenal. He was an usher at the Royal College of Port-Louis.
I took the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music exams and failed. Turns out Mme Naina was not that familiar with the syllabus, so on to the next teacher; Mme Bax, who was the music teacher at my mum's school; Muslims Girls College, in Mauritius.
I think it was Mme Bax who then prodded us to get a better piano. We got our next piano from Mme Bax's son in Curepipe (?). When Mme Bax stopped being the music teacher at Muslim Girls, I moved on to Mr Cyril Joseph, who played in the police band and also had a choir. A few years later, I wanted to learn the violin, and we found a teacher, Mme Jamet in Curepipe. For my first violin exam, Mr Cyril Joseph could not come to accompany me on the piano, so we asked Mr Olivier, who gracefully volunteered. He was the music teacher at RCPL.
While growing up, I also used to visit Yip Tong, a Piano shop, to admire the gleaming new pianos.
The piano we bought from Mr Bax was eventually donated by my mum (Aissa Gareeboo) to l'Atelier Mo'zar in Roche Bois.
I have been dealing with a "bad back" since around 1980. I have a lumbar herniated disk (L4-S3) which occasionally causes sciatica down my left leg.
Cobra pose (yoga) helped me in the initial stages.
Also these 2 steps repeated as I can/feel comfortable doing:
I have also recently tried applying heat or cold to the area affected. (I used this belt to keep the heating/cooling pads in place.) I applied heat first and that had some positive effect. Then I tried cold. It worked better for me. I tried alternating and then just settled with applying cold.
Finally, over the counter NSAIDs really help. I take Ibuprofen for a few days and that reduces the pain significantly.
This next exercise is more preventative – so do it regularly after you recover:
Standing up relaxed, breathe in and stretch your arms up and try and 'pull' your spine straight by raising the crown of your head as high as you can. Hold this 'stretched' pose and your breath for as long as you can. Repeat as often as you can/feel comfortable doing.
This book - Back Mechanic - by Stuart McGill - comes highly recommended. I haven't read it, but a friend recommends it highly. Let me know what you think if you do read it.
This fruit used to be very common when I was growing up. We used to be able to buy it from street vendors - they were sold in paper bags, often with disel piment (salt and chilies). I think they used to grow on the sides of the mountains. One issue with them is that they would stain your clothes and it was hard to get rid of the stain.
The fruit is also called:
I am presenting a session at the Toastmasters District 84 conference in May 2021. The session is titled Communicate to Heal. I have a survey associated with the session.
Travelling during the pandemic is a tricky proposition. Airports are said to be transmission hot-spots. Airplanes are potentially also super spreading sites. Trains and buses are likely as risky as flying. Driving your own car is likely safer, except when you stop for food, gas, rest, etc...
A simpler solution is to just not travel physically, but instead travel virtually ! With Youtube and other sites hosting free videos of people travelling all kinds of exotic locations, you can just travel virtually from your own home.
My process for virtual travel is:
Pick a place
Go to youtube and search for “Virtual Travel <place_name>”
Pick up to 5 videos and watch them.
I also have another screen with:
Google maps and
Browser
to look at maps and the history of monuments and places featured in the video.
Here is a link to the places I have visited virtually
Let me know if you find other great videos for virtual travel !
(Picture from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McCarthy_(author) )
A few years ago, I came across the "23 1/2" rules of software development from Jim McCarthy. I found the rules to be full of wisdom and started to use them. I recently came across a later list of 54 rules.
I enrolled in a mailing list related to the rules, and heard about a TeamWork BootCamp that Jim and Michele McCarthy ran. The purpose of the camp is to create a team that ships great products starting from a group of individuals; in a relatively short time. The full in-person boot-camp is ~ 5 days.
If you want to create a great product (or service), I highly recommend the BootCamp.
The theoretical basis for the program is described in their book – Software For Your Head.
McCarthy TeamWork BootCamp main site is http://www.mccarthyshow.com/
Tom DeMarco wrote a review of the BootCamp, and here are some other useful references:
