ReThinkandFocus

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[19-Jan-25] The week 03-2025 summary


The term "skeuomorphism" combines the Greek word "skeuos," meaning vessel or container, with the English suffix "-morphism," indicating form or structure.


In order to gather some insights from your reader perspective and to collect new topics for the future, I did create a small questionnaire today. Thanks a lot in advance for your voluntary participation, very much appreciated. Please use https://ahaslides.com/RETHINK25


Two quotes from the 2 pictures today:


  1. Why is the save icon in your software a floppy disk that no one has used for over 20 years? And that phone icon looks nothing like your mobile phone when making a call. These are both skeuomorphs.

  2. What about Pilates? No one ever promised it’s fast or easy. It’s deliberate, difficult, and demands effort and commitment. But it’s also effective and sustainable because it builds mental and physical strength and flexibility over time. That’s the mindset shift required to make lasting change. Scrum is Pilates, not a chocolate shake.


The headhunter story is still proceeding. In the meantime I had four different people contacting me for jobs in the same company, two separate jobs as I realized lately, but both do not fit at all to my profile. I do get the feeling that the approach is somewhat AI driven, by using different LinkedIn profiles? Only one is related to a headhunter activity and company, the rest in different industries. They either do freelance work besides their official job or it might be fake profiles, who knows? 


The coming week will be the last week before we finish the current 3-month project phase. After this week we will have our System Demo followed by 5-days of training, knowledge sharing and exploration tasks. Before we kick off the next 3-month phase with a 2-day planning ceremony. Maybe be the last time due to our operating model change, but this is not finalized yet. Anyway, changes come and go, we just have to handle each properly, be open for it and make the best out of the adjusted circumstances and environments.


Have a great week ...


  • The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week (17-Jan-25)

  • Think Your Team Is Afraid of Feedback? Think Again.

  • Essential HR And Recruitment Trends For 2025

  • Learn the Difference Between Data Warehouses and Data Lakes!

  • The right TED Talk at the right time can genuinely change your life. Here are 7 examples

  • Forget "Strategic Planning". Strategy and Planning are very different things. 

[18-Jan-25] Mahakumbh 2025


A once-in-144 years phenomenon


Imagine being part of something so rare that the last people to witness it were your great-great-grandparents. The Maha Kumbh 2025 at Prayagraj is not just an event; it’s a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle that occurs only after 144 long years... Now, would you want to miss something this rare?

It is said that the location of the Kumbh Mela is decided by specific celestial alignments. When Jupiter is in Taurus and the Sun and Moon align in Capricorn (Makar rashi), the Kumbh Mela takes place at Prayagraj, coinciding with the Makar Sankranti period.


Hosting 400+ million visitors in 45 days is a real challenge that can only be handled in a digital way. Here some Facts and Stats.


Just now the first Divisional Round Playoff in the NFL is starting. Have a great weekend.


[17-Jan-25] Keep it simple and brief


Simplicity is much more difficult than complexity 


BREVITY = a quality that speech or writing has when it is short and contains few words


In the moment you keep something simple and brief, you might be saving a lot of time that you had to invest before, to better understand the topic, as mentioned by Albert Einstein.


"If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now." -- Woodrow Wilson


Today I did get another headhunter email with an exciting opportunity - it did not fit at all!! But was a good relation to the James Clear article -

Why Trying to Be Perfect Won’t Help You Achieve Your Goals (And What Will). When you just try enough and contact as many people as possible, you might find a good candidate who is interested to change the job.


  • Visualizing the Global Population in 2035, by Generation

  • Dan Rockwell: 15 Practical Ways to Ignite Commitment

  • Communication gap (a classic infographic)

  • Achieving organisational excellence means mastering multiple dimensions that drive sustainable success

  • Make Lean Work for You

  • Drowning in ideas? Let affinity diagrams organize the chaos. Collaboration becomes effortless when you spot patterns fast

  • 8 Game-Changing Manufacturing Trends That Will Define 2025

  • 6 Free Leadership Courses: From Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth.

[16-Jan-25] Have a productive day ...


Another great infographic from Justin Mecham


Some stories just go on and on.


Today I was contacted by another headhunter with "an exciting career opportunity". I have seen the job description before from a different headhunter, and it did still not fit to my profile. I do not have any SAP skills, do not really like the tool and GUI. Must be a bad AI or bad reading and not doing the homeworks before. Anyway, I stick to my guardrails to give some feedback, hoping that it will improve the quality of the contacts over time. Possiby not for me, but for all the others out there.


And the MURPHY story with the starter battery did proceed as well. I was at the dealer in time on Monday, but the new battery was not delivered. Next day I was in the office and my wife had to go to the garage. All did work out fine, finally. Only the dealer had now four batteries of the same kind. Good for other customers. 


Both stories are nothing that you would expect from a productive day, but it is not always only in your hand.


The WEF report is offering a lot of interesting insights, details, data and infographics, as you can see today. Some more or less related links as well:


  • 20 Skills you need to stay ahead by 2030

  • The Future of Jobs: AI, Skills, and the Transforming Workforce by 2030

  • Top 5 Project Management Trends Shaping up in 2025

  • We've curated an incredible lineup of free courses designed to help you master AI, no matter your experience level

  • The Insidious Poison of Excessive Regulation

  • Marketoonist by Tom Fishburne: How we Brief


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[13-Jan-25] Insights from 2025 to 2030


The Future of Jobs Report 2025, World Economic Forum (WEF)


Technological change, geoeconomic fragmentation, economic uncertainty, demographic shifts and the green transition – individually and in combination are among the major drivers expected to shape and transform the global labour market by 2030.

[12-Jan-25] My week 02-2025 highlights


It all started with a quote ...


I did ask Google Gemini the following question today - What were the top 20 most commonly used famous quotes in 2024? - and did get this answer: Unfortunately, there isn't a definitive, publicly available list of the top 20 most commonly used famous quotes in 2024. After one more question I did get some examples and the Nelson Mandela one was included.


Then I requested starryai to generate some pictures based on the Mandela quote. The first result is on the left side. After several iterations and with the help of Salvadore Dali and Andy Warhol Art style, I came to the one on the right side. Interesting evolution ...


Tomorrow we already have the Sprint-4 demo for this 3-month project period and in the afternoon the car finally gets a new battery, will improve the reliability a lot. Have a great start into your week 03-2025.


[10-Jan-25] Some small updates ...


More about AGILE and the Headhunter topic


I am still keeping an eye on the AGILE and Headhunter topics after my previous posts, either on Substack or here [date], see:


  • Are you ready for an adventure or safety? What is going on in the Agile world right now? [05-Jan-24]

  • Better use of AI? The good, the bad, and the ugly headhunters ... [07-Jan-25]


Below some more links, I even did find a "good" headhunter article, not everything is bad, it is just a matter of priorities:


  • To all my fellow recruiters: How do you handle the dreaded “No”? And to job seekers: What’s the most memorable way a recruiter has turned rejection into an opportunity for you?

  • From PMO to Agile VMO: Customer-Centric Flow and Strategic Agility

  • How Many Story Points Are In One Day?


Then three articles from Scott Ambler about Applying AI in Agile Software Development:


  • Part 1: What I Would and Wouldn’t Do

  • Part 2: Valid Use Cases for AI-Augmentation in Software Development

  • Part 3: AI Augmentation of Agile Software Development


And some CES 2025 highlights:



Plus several AI topics:



Finally some diverse content:


  • 9 New Books on the Science of Reaching Your Goals

  • Tanmay Vora: How I Discovered Visual Thinking. A few experiences that led me to visual thinking

  • Dan Rockwell: The Novice Advantage

  • How Canada Would Rank as the 51st State


"The IT department of every company is going to be the HR department of AI agents in the future." -- Jensen Huang (CEO of NVIDIA)

[09-Jan-25] Murphy's Law


Yesterday was the day ...


My sisters and I agreed to take my parents out for a visit to a Gospel Choir concert as Christmas present. We planned to go together with them to make it a family event. Yesterday morning the first message from one of my sisters, as she was ill, her ticket became available. We could not find a replacement, so decided to just go with two kids and the parents.


Due to potential traffic jams in the evening I planned to leave at 06:00 PM, the concert started at 08:00 PM. My wife used our car before with no issue. I did go into the car, wanted to set the target address in the navigation system and needed to switch on the interior lighting, to read the information from the ticket. Suddenly a humming noise for some seconds, two warnings on the screen and everything switched off. We tried a lot to get the car back to life, but nothing worked out in the end. Finally I had to call my sister to tell her that I will not be joining as well - MURPHY's LAW. What a bad day!!


Today I found out that the starter battery was dead, happens on average every 3 years, and has to be replaced. The battery has a very special design to fit in the space in the trunk and two different size connectors to avoid a mis-connection of the cables. Really difficult to get a new one. The dealer got one in 3 hours, but it was not 100% correct. The right one will arrive next week Monday. More MURPHY today.


"Airplane Law, The: When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer to is on time." -- Paul Dickson


  • Productivity Game video: Top 5 Insights from 25 Books on How to Find Purpose
  • TED Talk Jun-24: How to feed 10 billion people — without destroying nature by Andy Jarvis

  • Spotify’s CHRO Hits All the Right Notes, Adapting to Change and Creating an Inclusive Culture

  • The Value of the Global Semiconductor Industry, in One Giant Chart

  • What Indicators Should We Watch to Disambiguate AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) Timelines?

  • Personality Types (Know Your Team Better to Lead Them Better)

    Credit to Eric Partaker


Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity. Everybody’s buying far too many clothes. I mean, I know I’m lucky, I can just take things and borrow them and I’m just okay, but I hate having too many clothes. And I think that poor people should be even more careful. It doesn't mean therefore you have to just buy anything cheap. Instead of buying six things, buy one thing that you really like. Don't keep buying just for the sake of it. -- Vivienne Westwood

[07-Jan-25] Better use of AI?


The good, the bad, and the ugly headhunters ... 


Since last weekend the NFL playoff picture is ready for Super Bowl LIX on 09-Feb-25, see the picture.


In the mindset of a selective awareness, some more AGILE status links. Might also be depending on who I follow:


  • Agile: Less Is More But More Is Less

  • The Agile Training Industrial Complex: Why Certified Scrum Masters Are Set Up to Fail

  • 21 Things Declared "Dead" by LinkedIn Pundits (That Aren’t Dead)

  • There Are No 'Best Practices' in Agile (There Can't Be)

  • The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) stirs up, shall we say... strong emotions.


Coming to the headhunter topic. I am 62 years old now and have 34+ years of experience in different job positions so far, when you read my LinkedIn profile. I am very well established in my current role and happy in my daily work. So no need to think about a change, even with the restructuring that is currently ongoing. Anyway, I do get regular emails and LinkedIn messages about "dream" jobs and great companies waiting for me.


Between 2017 and 2019 I did work 2 years as self-employed headhunter, so I know a little bit about the industry, customers and the daily ways of working with potential candidates. You need to find the right balance between quantity (to find as much as possible new potential profiles every day) and quality (you need to contact the right people, who might be of interest for your customer, not waisting anybodys time). 


Using AI should be very helpful was my assumption today? I did export the experience in my visible LinkedIn profile to a PDF file and asked Anthropic Claude 3.5 to propose some great jobs for me. Here the results, just the name of the position, I skip the arguments why - shared from Claude as well:


  • Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or IT Director

  • Global Program Director

  • Digital Transformation Leader

  • Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Consultant

  • Agile Practice Leader / Enterprise Agile Coach

  • Engineering Systems Architect


Not so bad for 5 minutes effort in total, including the PDF file export. When I still would be looking for a new position, the 6 examples above would be of interest for me. BUT the requests/proposals I get are different:


  • A junior position in IT Service management
  • Several Freelancer positions
  • Application manager with minimum 5 years of SAP experience
  • An Application Director position remote, for people living in the USA

 

Just by reading my profile it would be clear that I am not a fit for these positions, but people are not reading and their search algorithms seem to be really bad. Only focus on quantity and NO quality, what a waste of time for all involved parties. As I believe in the general learning interest and capabilities of people, I always share a small feedback to all these crazy requests. Surprise, surprise, I did not get a thank you note so far.


Anyway, I keep going ...

[05-Jan-25] The week 01-2025 summary


Are you ready for an adventure or safety?


There are good arguments for both and in the end it is your personal choice. In the Agile world a similar discussion is ongoing in the moment. From "Agile is Dead" to "Just use it the right way" you can basically find all variations. I did already share two links yesterday, some more examples below:


  • Agile Mindset: The Hardest Part and the Last to Change

  • The Agile Community has lost it's way

  • Agile Alliance Joins Project Management Institute (PMI)

  • Developing a resilient, adaptable workforce for an uncertain future

  • NEVER TRUST YOUR LLM - it's much too much human ...

  • Struggling with recurring problems? The 8D method ends the cycle. Learn how to solve problems for good with this proven framework

  • 17 Subtle Rules of Software Engineering

  • How to Sabotage an Agile Implementation (So You Can Say Agile Doesn't Work and Have Everyone Think You're Awesome)

  • Say Goodbye to These Five 'Harmless' Team Habits in 2025


I am going back to work tomorrow and the Agile yes/no topic will be there waiting for me as well. As mentioned earlier, we are preparing a new Operating Model that is potentially going live in May-25. It will be less SAFe, but still making use of an Agile mindset and ways of working - maybe Scrum, Kanban, ScrumBan or anything else ...


  • The Best 6 Agile Methodologies: Which Type Fits Best Your Needs

  • Top 7 Agile Frameworks

  • 300+ Agile & Scrum Statistics


The challenge and opportunity will be, to select an approach that is not too far away from the status quo, but still adds some value due to streamlining the process or less administration effort for agile ceremonies. Maybe let the teams decide separately, what works for them, and just agree a common ground and timing for planning and dependency discussion/alignment. Our next three month phase starts in Feb-25, could be a good possibility to do some trials? We will see ...



“Visualization is daydreaming with a purpose.” – Bo Bennett


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[04-Jan-25] Prince Luke is now the King 


Teenage sensation Littler storms to historic World Darts Championship title


My wife and daugther were right and I was wrong with the prediction for the final outcome of the World Darts Championship yesterday evening. Much faster than expected OR at the earliest possible time, Luke Littler became the World Darts Champion for the 1st time with the age of 17. A historical day in the world of Darts.


Combining any of the 12 Goal Methods with the idea to get just 1% better every day in the the next 365 days could bring a lot of positive change, what do you think? Have fun and a little bit Luke spirit and confidence ...


  • Lukas Timm: “Scrum is the least agile of agile methods.”
  • Shawn Wallack: The Daily Scrum: Stop Asking the "Three (Wrong) Questions"


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[03-Jan-25] The match of the ages


35 year old Michael vs. 17 year old Luke


King Michael, the three times crowned World Darts Champion against  Prince Luke, the last year finalist who did win 10 titles between then and today. I am for Michael, because Luke still has a lot of years coming. BUT we will see shortly ...

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  • TED Talk: How to reclaim your life from work by Simone Stolzoff (Oct-24)
  • CBINSIGHTS: 2025 Tech Trends

  • The 25 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024

  • Cloud Services Comparison Cheatsheet
  • Jurgen Appelo: Why 2025 Will Both Suck and Be Fantastic - The Stockdale Paradox

  • 7 Myths of Artificial Intelligence: How Generative AI is Changing the Game

  • The most powerful leadership tool costs $0. And you already have it.

Some interesting material for the rest of this week:


  • The Blueprint for a Happy, Engaged Team in 2025
    12 months of ideas to make 2025 your best year yet...
    Author Justin Mecham

  • TED Talk: Can AI master the art of humor? by Bob Mankoff (Feb-24)
  • TED Talk: What I learned when I conquered the world's toughest triathlon by Minda Dentler (Nov-17)

  • The Foresight of Charles Handy by Tanmay Vora

  • Dan Rockwell: Habits Unlock Your Day
  • Frank Sonnenberg: Feeling Overwhelmed? Your To-Do List Might Be to Blame!

  • This Is the Year for HR Leaders to Become Chief Disruption Officers

  • The most successful people decide 3x faster.

[02-Jan-25] Welcome to 2025 ...


Getting ready for the New Year


I did check my 2024 JAR this morning, to review the positive and negative notes I collected over the last year. To be honest, I did not noe down a lot this time. Highlights were:


  • Hosting several workshops at work and in the school once a year

  • The positive feedback about the 4th Data & Analytics Meetup (the LinkedIn post has 3,028 impressions in the meantime)

  • Over 3k "5-minute learning" posts on our Intranet company social media platform
  • Giving a motivational book as birthday present - Areté: Activate Your Heroic Potential
  • And a nice Netherlands holiday with my wife for our 20th wedding anniversary from 2023 in Jan-24


As I finished my 7th eBOOK for 2024, I was looking for a smart way to get a quick summary of the main topics. Here what I found:



I personally prefer FREE tools during the initial testing phase that do not require a lot of effort to start with, even without a login. I like TLDR This a lot, because you can reference a URL or TEXT to begin with and then start a Chat with the AI to get details, see:


What are the top 10 topics covered on this URL?


Based on the conversational summary provided, the top 10 topics covered on this URL seem to be:


  1. The changing nature of work and the concept of "New Work" - discussions around flexibility, work-life balance, creativity, and challenges like isolation.
  2. Agile frameworks like SAFe and the role of a Release Train Engineer (RTE) in leading Agile transformations.
  3. The ongoing issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft and NASA's reliance on SpaceX.
  4. Highlights from the Paris 2024 Olympics, including viral moments and performances.
  5. The use of AI tools and language models like ChatGPT and Gemini for various tasks.
  6. Discussions around personal development, productivity, and leadership principles.
  7. The impact of strikes and transportation disruptions in Germany.
  8. Trends in the retail and small business sector.
  9. Reflections on New Year's resolutions and the value of long-term planning.
  10. Technical topics like Linux, browsers, and software development.


The summary covers a wide range of professional, personal, and technology-related themes in a conversational manner.


Not so bad, but you can double check with the 7th eBOOK :-) and do your own summary ...

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[31-Dec-24] Getting ready for 2025


Some housekeeping to be done for my BLOG ...


  • My 7th eBOOK covering all 2024 posts is now available for FREE download
  • To speed up the performance of the main BLOG page, all 2024 posts have a separate page now, see Blog 2.24
  • Quick reminder for my Substack and Wordpress pages


2025 will be the year of the SNAKE, to explain the picture a little bit more.


I wish you all a great start into an interesting, surprising and successful year 2025.