I saw Brian Hackerson and Michaele Gardner speak on Agile self-care at Agile Twin Cities last night.

This was my first foray into this meetup.com group which meets at Improving's (yes, they are here too) Twin Cities office in Bloomington. There was an emphasis on a poll which suggested that 57.16% of individuals in the survey said "Yes" to "Are you currently suffering from job burnout?" which drives the desire to pen some self-care principles. The authors took the existing 12 Agile Principles and rewrote them with self-care in mind. The dozen new principles follow. One. Our highest priority is to be our best self and enable others to be their best selves. Two. Welcome change with curiosity, even late in development. Three. Deliver self-care frequently, by building daily habits. Four. The most effective way to be your better self is to be mindful and intentional. Five. Engage your trusted circle daily. Six. Build your life around a motivated self. Give yourself and others the environment and support they need and trust yourself and the process. Seven. Active self-care is the primary measure of progress. Eight. Self-care is sustainable when we prioritize 'being more' over 'doing more' so you can maintain an integrated balance. Nine. Continuous attention to scientific research enhances self-care agility. Ten. Simplicity-the art of maximizing the amount of work not done-is essential. Eleven. The best architectures, inspirations and insights emerge from self-organizing communities. Twelve. At regular intervals, reflect on how to become more effective, then tune and adjust behavior to be in alignment. ...what else was said that was interesting? Agile Karaoke conceptually has to do with being given a topic and a slide deck you've never seen (that someone else put together) and winging your way through a presentation. International Coach Federation or ICF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to coaching. Cy Wakeman suggests that you probably shouldn't vent your frustrations aloud at work. Brain Hackerson sited both a Dr. Michael Gervais who presses the importance of "being activated" and a Dr. Jeff Sutherland, one of the inventors of Scrum (Ken Schwaber is the other guy), who suggests that you should change work so that it isn't soul-sucking. Both of these suggestions are of course relevant to the burnout. Jeff has a book ("Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time") which Brain vaguely referred to as "The Red Book" in his commentary. Michaele Gardner spoke to calming the Monkey Mind which is a generic term for thoughts aswirl too much and ambivalence, etc. She tries to just sing to music on her way into work instead of thinking about her day ahead.