Remote meetings that engage, Agile training availability update, Boost turns 21 and the consuming passions of Tom McCulloch.

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Boost. The power of positive impact

7 September 2021

Make more of your day

Here’s our latest selection of news, tools, tips and ideas for ways you can make a bigger impact every day.

  • Do more with less by beating cognitive bias — Agile guide
  • Remote meetings — keeping them engaging
  • Agile training availability
  • The consuming passions of Tom McCulloch
Baby pointing at a single Lego block.

Do more with less by beating cognitive bias — Agile guide

Cognitive bias is the tendency to make calls in ways that aren’t optimal. Well-known examples include anchoring (our decisions get skewed by random numbers) and framing (we’re influenced by how a situation is described).

Now researchers have found a new bias: we tend to solve problems by adding stuff not removing it. Since this is often less efficient, we need ways of countering the bias. This is crucial if we want to follow the Agile principle of simplicity by maximizing the amount of work not done.

With that in mind we’ve put together a blog post on the subject. It looks at how Lego led researchers to identify the new bias. Then it digs into ways you can consciously counter the bias, so you can maximise your results and minimise your effort.

Do more with less by beating cognitive bias  →

Boost turns 21!

Last month Boost turned 21. Sadly, the COVID-19 lockdown meant we didn't get to celebrate in person.

In those 21 years, the company has gone from a two-man team in Wellington to a company employing dozens of people across three continents.

A huge thank you to everyone who’s made it possible — Boosters past and present, our wonderful clients and the whole extended Boost family. Plus, of course, our founder and CEO Nathan, whose baby has now come of age.

Our team and our history  →

Boost Zoom hui August 2021

Hello from home

With New Zealand in lockdown, the whole Boost crew have joined our colleagues in the Philippines and France in working from home.

If there’s anything you need from us, just give us a yell.

Cat sleeping on desk during a Google Forms remote retro

Remote meetings — keeping them engaging

Last lockdown Ruka tried out using Google Forms to run a remote retrospective. We wanted to see how useful the tool was as a shared digital space when working remotely.

Pretty handy, it turns out. Here’s what we learned:

How to run a Google Forms remote retro

Ruka did this with the Agile Welly group, who were testing a range of tools. The focus was on remote retros, but the findings are relevant for other meetings too.

Ideas for remote retros that engage — Agile Welly

Rebecca and Ruka running an Agile Professional Foundation course.

October Agile immersion course filling up fast

Spaces are filling up fast for the Agile Professional Foundation course we’re running in October.

The APF is an online Agile immersion course. It runs over 12 hours spread across four mornings, from nine to noon. This gives you the afternoon to consider the day’s material and take a break from Zoom.

You get a comprehensive grounding in the Agile mindset and methodologies. Seeing how you can immediately put these into practice can give the energy levels a real kick.

Super helpful...I'm really excited to get stuck into bringing some cool ideas and thoughts back. — Bridget Carrell, Creative HQ

An awesome four mornings...I am inspired. — Arlene McMorran, Plastic Studio

These are the sessions available this year:

  • Mon 11 Oct – Thu 14 October: Book now
  • Mon 6 Dec – Thu 9 December: Book now

Free 2-hour Introduction to Agile

If you’re new to this Agile thing and wondering what all the fuss is about, why not join us for our free Friday afternoon Introduction to Agile.

Also run online via Zoom, this is a fun and interactive way to get to know what makes Agile tick.

Select a date and secure your seat  →

Tom

Consuming passions

Tom McCulloch is looking forward to the creative opportunities offered by his new role as a developer at Boost.

“I really enjoy the fact that you’re building stuff every day. There are always so many different ways to do it and the discussions with other developers about different approaches are so interesting,” he says. “It feels very creative.”

The chats started even before he got the job, with the Test-drive Boost hiring event.

“Everyone from Boost was really friendly and it set the tone. Then I spent a day working in the office and chatted with pretty much everyone there — it feels like a really good way to understand the actual work that's done at Boost.”

He’s no less creative at home.

“I'm basically obsessed with food,” he says. “I'm quite happy spending multiple hours preparing a meal.”

And that doesn’t include the time spent foraging in local forests for ingredients like edible mushrooms.

“It’s such a neat feeling. You’re in this grand place with great big trees, and you're quietly walking through it all, searching for something.”

Our next Agile Professional Foundation runs on 11–14 October
Get the skills to deliver more value, faster.

Sign up now

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Te Aro Wellington 6011 New Zealand

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