Lisa Sieverts

Thinking about planning out my Agile class. This is year 4 for me at this school, so it’s time for some significant changes. There’s a lot that I like from prior years, but I feel that there is enough room in the schedule to add in some new material. For my planning process this year, I used Curio, a visual planning app for the Mac. Even though I know the importance of a picture when communicating the overall structure of a project, I was surprised at how helpful it was to make this picture. I’m sure it will be too small to view, but I’m doing this to share the method, not the details. Color, text, boxes. I went through many iterations of laying out the course in different ways. The end result seems so obvious, but there were 4 significant changes to the structure and schedule of the course before I arrived at this one. Of course, since it is an Agile course, I fully understand that things may change over the semester. But I am so grateful to have had the time in August to do this deep thinking about the course so that once it begins in January, I’m ready to roll.

Morning walk yesterday #nofilter. Loving these end of summer days in New England. 📷

I was a guest on a podcast yesterday. Listening to it today, I am pleasantly surprised at how cogent I sound. My years of Toastmaster training have successfully eliminated most “filler words,” that is, the ahs and ums that can be so annoying to the listener. In addition, when I am knowledgeable about the subject, it’s easy to put together complete sentences. In many ways, I would rather speak my ideas than write them. Hence the goal of making myself write and making myself publish something (anything!) regularly.

The money part comes into it because I know that by remaining invisible on the larger Internet, I am diminishing my chances of obtaining great work. I seek work where I can assist others — specifically to teach skills that make work easier and less stressful — while not adding unduly to my own stress.

Hanging out in Vermont 📷

View from the train while passing NYC 📷

That New York mix of old and new at St. Patrick’s 📷

Seated at the show no one has heard of: Molasses in January. It’s about the Great Molasses Flood that took place about a century ago in Boston. Somehow these folks have made a musical about the event … 📷

Eclair on my NYC day 📷

A day in NYC! This country mouse is looking forward to a day of eating well, gawking at skyscrapers, and catching a show no one has heard of – Molasses in January.

Breakfast at Blue State Coffee. I’m in Boston for a Project Management Institute gathering for Chapter leaders. PMs are an odd, often introverted, bunch, and they are my tribe. I learned a lot at this Region 3 summit.

I love the @dcpace posts. It must be the project manager in me. What an amazing project.

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Atmospheric and foggy walk the other day 📷

First post, second micro.blog. Decided I like this enough to pay for it. I’ll keep playing around with A Social Folder but an actual micro.blog seems so much more straightforward.