If It's Painful, Do It More Often

I've worked with a number of teams who couldn't deliver. They could write code all day long for months on end, and they'd do just that. But then they'd spend a month or three shaking bugs out and still not be able to get the product into production. In many of these cases, the programmers just want to program. They don't want to or know how to do the messy task of deployment. Install and upgrade is not their core competency.

It's instinctive to cram more features into the release when it is just so hard to deliver. If you get few chances to deliver improvement, you want to cram as much in the release as possible. But that just makes it harder. More beautiful garbage to push over the goal line. This raises the inventory of unfinished work, the amount of work in process, which further delays deployment and hides the real problem.

I'm reminded of the Israelites when Moses instructed them to not save the manna that God provided from one day to the next. Do not keep an inventory of the stuff. But some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. But by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. Software development with too much WIP is exactly like that.

Anyway, Lean software development reduces work in process in order to surface problems and reduce costs.

I like this illustration from page 7 in Mary Poppendieck's book, Implementing Lean Software Development. When you first look at it, your reaction might be "No! RAISE the water because there are rocks!" But the rocks are still there. Some day you are going to hit those rocks. Better to hit the rocks and deal with it in a dingy than in a yacht. Better to deal with the inability to deploy using a small release than a big one. It's better to lower the inventory, surface the issues and work to resolve them. Don't leave them there, lingering.

In eXtreme Programming we say that if is something is painful, do it more often. What we mean is that we should not avoiding dealing with problems. Solve them right away.

Getting Your Team to Take Short-Cuts

I was once in a software product company teetering on the edge of financial problems. And who in this business hasn't been? We had only one customer of consequence and they were unhappy with the cost of what was essentially custom development. This turned into pressure to deliver more features per dollar of cost. I.E., to develop the features faster. Right away. Pronto. How do you make a team of programmers immediately faster?

I had already looked at our process and had evaluated our use of best practices and our quality. We were following XP well, so if you subscribe to XP being a good set of best practices, we had that covered. Our development speed was average for enterprise software vendors using Java/Swing. But our quality was best in class. I am basing my evaluation mainly on the work of Capers Jones' recent books and metrics gathered from the team's history. That's about as objective as I could get. I also considered what I know of the industry and other groups, a more subjective measure. From what I've seen since, that team's velocity was actually quite good. To get the performance boost, there was only one thing left to do.

You may be able to get a short boost of speed at the expense of incurring technical debt, or, more technical debt than normal as your case may be. But to do that, to get a short boost in the rate of delivered features, you’ve got to paint a good picture of the situation to development. Why? Because you’ve got to get them to understand the seriousness of the situation and give them a vision of how long or how much or how many of what is needed so that they can buy-in to changing their habits and their preferred, ingrained and natural method of working. Saying "preferred way of working" makes this sound like a choice. A team's preferred way of working is indeed a preference, but it isn't much of a choice. It's a compulsion. You must realize when you demand speed, when you ask the team to take short-cuts, you are asking them to work-differently. You are asking them to work in an unnatural manner.

To illustrate: You are most likely right handed. Pick up your pen with your left hand and write a long letter to your spouse or your mom. Get the picture? The unnatural is difficult to achieve.

In Complete Control and Not Controlling

My regular followers know I post on lean/agile IT topics as well as bicycling and faith-based views. You agile IT guys – hang with me and I’ll tie a little agile into this before the end.

One of my favorite bloggers is Joe Gibson, co-author of the Ant Developer’s handbook. I like his opinionated writing on topics of interest to me: Java, Scala, Groovy, Ruby, Lisp, Koine Greek and religion. His own translation of old Greek manuscripts and commentary on other translations are quite interesting.

Joey posted a few days ago on how those who use the Bible too often "selectively edit scripture to fit a particular message, or to fit nicely with a pithy saying." This is essentially eisegesis (to draw in) rather than proper exegesis (to draw out). That is, reading stuff into the text rather than more appropriately getting out of it what the author intended. I was passionately into his post, in complete agreement.

Now Joey and I don’t see eye to eye on a number of matters of faith. Yet even when we strongly disagree there is usually some point in his writing that I strongly support. So I was with him right up until he said this:

...the minister was going on about how we need to "stop worrying" and just know that "God is in complete control" and blah blah blah… I’ve always hated that way of thinking. I despise the Sandy Patty song, "God Is In Control," because I do not believe that is true. (Bold emphasis added.)

So I crafted a nice and timely, intelligent, thorough and sound response. Joey’s blog seems to have a multi-step click-post, preview, click-post-again are-you-sure, captcha phrase kind of process that I obviously flubbed because my response never made it to the blog. Time has passed and now I’m here rambling on, many times over what I so eloquently put in my initial response.

So back to Joey. Joey’s next statement shows a misunderstanding of "complete control" and he has made quite a leap.

...if you believe that he is in "complete control" then you have to take that to its logical conclusion. If you believe that every good thing that happens to you is because God wanted it to be that way, then you must also accept that every bad thing that happens to you is because God wanted it that way.

The error here is the assumption that to believe that God is in complete control is to believe that everything that happens to you is because God wanted it to be that way. Let me explain. My kids run wild at times. This is not what I want. "Hey kids! Run around the house, fight some, and drive your mother and I crazy." It’s not what I want, but that’s what happens. I give them some room to exercise their free will. Notice I said some room. I have boundaries and my kids test them. I’m not controlling my kids, at least not most of the time. At least I try to not be controlling. Anyway, I assure you I’m in complete control of the situation at home and am quick hand out corporal punishment when boundaries are reached. In control, but not controlling.

A good agile manager or agile architect does likewise. They aren’t controlling. Rather, they set some boundaries, and otherwise let the team self-organize. They give the team much latitude to decide how to get the work done within some boundaries. Rather than hand out tasks, they encourage the team to select their own work tasks. Yet they remain in complete control.

[Sorry – I have no analogy for you bicyclists. I control my bicycle, but am never fully in control, much to the disappointment of my Dunwoody Cycling buddies.]

Notice that God told Adam that he is free. Free to eat of any tree in the garden but one. God gave man free will. But God also set some boundaries. So Adam was hanging out in this cool garden in complete fellowship with God Himself. But Adam poked God’s boundary so Adam and all of us now suffer the consequences. God’s will is for man to love God and obey his boundaries. God sends no one to hell. God’s will is that no one perishes, but that everyone accepts his free gift of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone. But for love and obedience to be real, there has to be a choice. A choice to disobey. Therefore, God is not controlling our every action and decision. And we will all suffer the consequences of my sin and your sin and Adam’s sin and the sin of others. God does not wish this on any of us.

Witness Job. God allowed Satan to bring disaster on Job and his family. But God set boundaries for Satan. "Go this far and no further" in effect. So God certainly allows bad things to happen, within boundaries. I wouldn’t wish Job’s trials on anyone, but I’m sure glad it happened. There are a lot of lessons for us to learn at Job’s expense, in particular, that God is in control.

Boundaries – God is not going to allow us to interfere with his plans. We can’t blow up the earth, for example, and kill everyone. We can’t wreck the environment such that we all die. Unless, of course, that is God’s plan for how the "first earth" will pass away (Revelation 21). But in that case, there is nothing we can do to stop it from happening either. But in any case, we’ve got boundaries and God is in control. We can certainly kill many and do big-time damage. But we can’t mess up his plans. God will intervene.

God does directly intervene at times. See 1 Kings 22:23 -- "You see, the LORD has put a lying spirit into the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has pronounced disaster against you." The Bible says that what Joseph’s brothers meant for harm, God used for good. And there are the New Testament miracles.

This is getting long and a bit rambling, and my argument is beginning (or perhaps continuing) to trail off, so rather than wrap it up and put a nice bow on it like Joey does, I’m just going to quit here.

It’s The Values That Matter. Or Maybe It’s The Culture.

Mechanical Agile^[1] is when one tries to follow the process with no understanding of the theory behind the practices, with no understanding of why it is designed as it is. Daryl Kulak wrote the most excellent post "Five Symptoms of Mechanical Agile". Any team exhibiting the conditions represented there, certainly need help. But truly, any team having those problems is pretty far along. They are trying to be agile but are misfiring on some point. Many teams don’t get that far because they just don’t get it.

As with XP, Scrum can be followed mechanically, without any understanding of why. Have some iterations, estimate in points, make a pretty burn down chart, do a demo, and maybe a retrospective every other sprint “because we just don’t see the value of doing it every sprint”.

And they totally miss the point of agile.

Ken Schwaber said that teams implementing Scrum need to "...recognize the even higher degree of control, risk management, and transparency required to use Scrum successfully. I estimate that 75% of those organizations using Scrum will not succeed in getting the benefits that they hope for from it." (Emphasis in original.)

I agree with Ken. More is needed than is evident to most teams. In the context of the quote, Ken is pointing out what is needed to supplement Scrum in lieu of "controls and safeguards of waterfall and predictive processes." And there is more needed beyond just that.

Same thing with Kanban: model the process, put some swim lanes on the wall, and maybe put some WIP limits in. Visualize the workflow and break a log-jam from time to time.

And totally miss the point of continuous improvement and the metrics that enable such.

In his article, Daryl wrote that if you fall into mechanical agile, "[only] addressing the attitude of thinking of people as machines will help you." Daryl touches briefly on the topic of culture in his article, suggesting that cultural issues can be a problem and the need to change the culture as a solution.

Jeff Patton says that "Agile development is more culture than process". That is, if you ain’t got the culture, your Scrum/Kanban team may not be agile. Pay close attention to agile values and mismatches between those and the organization’s values.

That’s the key ingredient: the agile values. Or maybe it’s the agile culture. Not sure if values drive the culture or whether it’s the culture that influences the values. Either way, they go together.

When I teach XP in a time-limited situation I’m always torn between focusing on the four core values versus the practices. The practices are easier for people to understand. They add some value by themselves. They are concrete and give the audience something they can grab on to. But picking up the practices don’t make one agile. It’s the XP or Scrum or agile values that give you a fighting chance of understanding what you are doing the practices for. But starting with the values leaves most people scratching their heads. They don’t resonate with the average software practitioner.

The best chance you have of changing a culture, then, is with successful agile projects, mechanical or otherwise, punctuated with judicious and timely explanations of the values.

1. Dr. Hong Li coined the term Mechanical Agile which was first used publically by his co-author in an upcoming book, Daryl Kulak.

Pair Programming, the Breaststroke

I’ve been working on my swimming for a few years. When I first started attempting the butterfly stroke, I found it very difficult. It required a lot of strength and technique that I did not have. I was lucky to make half a lap. Test Driven Design is like that. If you haven’t been shown some techniques and aren’t real strong with refactoring, with useful design patterns and with SOLID design principles, TDD is difficult to pick up.

In each case, you need a good coach. While struggling with my butterfly, I watched a few videos and read up on it in an attempt to improve my technique. But it’s just not ‘there’. And it never will be. My TDD skill is the same way. Underdeveloped. No amount of reading will get me where I would need to be with either topic if I depended on programming or swimming for a living. Hence the need for a coach. A coach will examine what you are doing and supply what you are missing or overlooking. A coach will help you build technique and strength.


Other strokes are easily done. Take the breaststroke for example. Anyone can do it. It’s not that strenuous. For years, I did the breaststroke only for fun or to cool-down or to swim to the bottom of the pool. It wasn’t for “serious exercise.” I never saw any benefit as a fitness routine. But then a swimming coach happened to stop by my house and commented on my stroke. I was doing it wrong. My strokes were too long and slow. Wow, what a difference a little technique makes. I couldn’t see my mistakes without a coach. Now, with a more effective pull, I’m quickly winded and building strength.

Pair Programming is like that. There are so many little things in this technique that can render it ineffective. What do most people do with an ineffective development practice? Typically, they drop it. At worst they keep doing it the same useless way, or they quit and then disparage it publicly. But at best, they get someone to improve their technique. Hence the need for a coach. I can watch a pair for a few minutes and usually give them half a dozen improvements right off. Chairs, posture, distance, and desk. Surface, keyboards, monitors and mice. Smells, habits, distractions and dirt. Communication, collaboration, cordiality, and care. Promiscuous, driving, navigating and alignment. A coach will examine what you are doing and supply what you are missing or overlooking. A coach will help you build technique and strength.

You break your stories down /when/ ?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pointshoot/ / CC BY 2.0

I've had a revelation. The other day I was talking to Mike Cottmeyer about Scrum and how I don't like the idea of tasking out and estimating all stories at the start of the sprint and then signing up for tasks, all before committing to the Sprint backlog.

When I first started doing XP in early 2000 we tried that and it was painful. Painfully long. Painfully tedious. And it felt painfully like Big Design Up Front even though it was for one or two weeks worth of work.

One team I was with for a handful of years broke our stories down into small 1 to 6 hour sized tasks and we pair programmed (up to 10 of us) on a limited number of stories (preferably 2, normally 3-4, but it could get up to 6-8 near the end of the iteration if something got blocked and if we had lots of abnormally small stories in the iteration). One person with an optional pair would design a story just in time and then walk the team through the details and proposed tasks and get their input. All the tasks were written on the whiteboard and this drove all development. Tasks were small and explicit:

• extract foo.class from fred.class
• extract bar#makeGenerous from #makeMagnanimous
•  introduce strategy pattern to someOther.class
• create someNew.class
• domain/persistance/patch for someNew.class
• write the acceptance test
• etc.

That design work could take up to a day or two to do for some of our stories. There is no way it would make sense to design all of our stories at the start of each iteration before committing to the iteration. That's how we did it using XP.

Tasks in Scrum, however, seem to be around 8 to 16 hours long, according to what I'm reading. And that was the new insight I gained. Some teams do things differently. (I'm slow sometimes, but I usually catch on.) With tasks that size, you could easily identify the tasks and estimate them before committing to the sprint. Further, teams that don't pair-program or that have too much specialization or too much code ownership need to break their tasks down by specialty and assign each task to the person that can implement it. Such teams would need to do this step before committing to the sprint.

I was blinded by my experiences being so similar to one another for such a long period of time. Help me see. How big are your story's tasks and how and when do you estimate them?

Printing Story Cards from VersionOne

VersionOne doesn't provide a direct way to print your stories on index cards, but it can be done. I'm going to tell you about the browser approach and the export approach. For the browser approach, getting set up to print your stories on index cards is a matter of figuring out what URL to hit to get just the stories you want to print. Then you can bookmark that URL for later reference and print the cards directly from the browser. The disadvantage is that it's a few steps to change your browser's print setup each time and you'll want to reset your browser's print settings afterward. But you can print on standard stock index cards if your printer will allow. I'll give you the details in a moment.

The export approach involves downloading Avery's print wizard and setting up a template. Then each time you want to print your stories, go to the view in V1 that has the stories and columns you want to see on cards. You'll then do a few steps to export the stories into a spreadsheet and use the Avery tool to format the stories (into another document) and then print them on special Avery stock. The advantage to this approach is being able to select which values you want on the card and where you want them. That's all I'm going to say about this approach.

The Browser Approach

To keep this from getting too complex, I'm going to describe what you need to do if VersionOne is hosting your instance. If you are hosting it yourself you should be able to figure out what to do by reading the original post.

Generally, we are going to get all the stories formatted as cards on a web page, then we're going to print from the browser onto cards. To see all of the stories in the system, use this URL:
https://servername/v1instance/rest-1.v1/Data/Story?xsl=/s/custom/storyCards.xsl
For this and all the URLs below, you will need to replace "servername/v1instance" with your actual server and instance name. (Hint: look a the URL you use to access V1.)

Of course, you most likely will rarely want to print every story card. Thankfully, you can add some filtering. I'll provide some examples. You may have to do a little guessing, experimenting and URL manipulation, but I'll tell you how to approach that.

You can control which stories are returned by adding some query strings to your URL. For example, to see the stories for "Sprint #1", use the URL
https://servername/v1instance/rest-1.v1/Data/Story?where=Scope.Name='Sprint %231'&xsl=/s/custom/storyCards.xsl
Note the %23 in place of the hash symbol. You'll need to handle special characters in your URL appropriately.

To see the stories for "Iteration 7":
https://servername/v1instance/rest-1.v1/Data/Story?where=Timebox.Name='Iteration 7'&xsl=/s/custom/storyCards.xsl

To see the stories for "Sprint #2" that are OPEN (64):
https://servername/v1instance/rest-1.v1/Data/Story?where=Scope.Name='Sprint %232';AssetState='64'&xsl=/s/custom/storyCards.xsl

To see the stories for Iteration 6 that are OPEN (64):
https://servername/v1instance/rest-1.v1/Data/Story?where=Timebox.Name='Iteration 6';AssetState='64'&xsl=/s/custom/storyCards.xsl

To see the stories for Iteration 6 that are CLOSED (128):
https://servername/v1instance/rest-1.v1/Data/Story?where=Timebox.Name='Iteration 6';AssetState='128'&xsl=/s/custom/storyCards.xsl

You may want to do more filtering than in the examples here. To see what all the attributes and values are, leave the xslt out of the URL as follows:
https://servername/v1instance/rest-1.v1/Data/Story
There might be something useful to you in the Meta:
https://servername/v1instance/meta.v1
And you may need to refer to the Meta API and the ReST API documentation for V1's sdk as well as the article Getting Started with the API.

Now for Printing

Now that you have the stories you want to print formatted as story cards in your web browser, it's time to print them. This xslt we are using is set up to print two stories per page on letter size paper. If this is acceptable to you, you'll likely need to scale the print job to 80% or 90% when you print. Alternatively, you could go the extra mile and set up your browser to have no margins and no header or footer. But if you do that, you'll likely want to reset all of that once you are done printing.

That is certainly the easiest approach if you have a paper cutter handy, but with a little more effort we can print those directly onto stock index cards. To print those on a 3x5 card, set your browser as follows:

• page setup: landscape, no margins, no header or footer
• print, properties, paper: 3x5
• print, properties, effects: leave set to actual size
• print preview: scale 50%

Put the index cards in the printer in portrait orientation. And print.

Question of the Day

Have you found any other approaches to print story cards from VersionOne?

Pair Programming is Infectious

Those who are proficient at it say pair programming makes them faster and more thorough with their testing and refactoring. It improves their design skills and the quality of the application. Real good promiscuous pairing quickly spreads best practices, rhinoviruses, knowledge, influenza, bacteria, techniques, tips and tricks throughout the team. Not all things are good in an environment that excels at spreading things.

Thank goodness I'm seeing more and more team members actually go home at the first concern of getting sick, and managers in support of this. A cold can decimate an entire team.

Sharing a keyboard and mouse can help those new to pairing get the hang of it through the explicit "you drive" keyboard push. But once beyond that stage, use two keyboards and mice. They’re cheap.

You can keep plenty of alcohol based hand sanitizer and wipes around; a box of tissues on every desk and signs in the restroom encouraging hand washing. I'm starting to see restrooms with small paper towel dispensers by the door for the express purpose of giving you something to use when opening the door. One team I’ve seen sprays their keyboards and other surfaces with Lysol once or twice per week.

From the Chateau Grand Traverse men's room, Old Mission Peninsula

Eating well and getting exercise is commended in the places I've been.

But beyond those things, how can we convince our teammates to stop picking their nose? "I don't pick my nose!" they say. Ok, rubbing your nose. Biting your cuticles. Chewing on your pen. Whatever it is, keep your hands and other objects away from your face.

I guess sneezing into your hands is better than into open air and onto the desk, but go wash your hands afterwards. "Oh, bless you! A sneeze like that deserves a hand-washing."

I've been thinking about this a lot, to the point that empty beverage containers lying around creep me out. "Whose is this? Should I throw it away? Do I want to touch it?"

To combat these bad habits and their contagion in my teams I'm trying every approach I can come up with. I use humor when I can and the direct approach when it's all I can think of. And by the way, throw your used tissues away, will ya?

Pair Programming Stinks

What smells in your environment and what you can do about it.

Someone on your team has a keen sense of smell. Let’s call him Martin. Martin is annoyed by the smell of popcorn, can't stand scented deodorant and loathes air fresheners. Febreeze is sheer torture. He buys unscented laundry detergent. Only certain dryer sheets will do. Perfume gives him a headache. Baby powder makes his eyes itch, as does some hand soap. He is allergic to newsprint. Wintergreen to him is air pollution. Juicy Fruit and smelly feet make him nauseous. He can’t concentrate in the presence of these distractions.

Someone on your team smells. Let’s call him Andy, or maybe we’ll call her Andi. It’s his shoes. It’s her perfume. A little cologne. He smokes. She smells like the coffee shop she stopped by before work. His jacket smells like the bar he went to for lunch or the curry they have at home. The poor girl has halitosis and periodontal disease. Andy will wear the same shirt a few times between washings. Andy’s got gas.

Of course he can't smell this. He is used to it by now. He has, after all, been living with the smell for twenty years. It started gradually, innocently enough. It stnunk up on him. No one has ever told her to lay off the perfume. No one has told him about his smell. If he is aware, he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Few people have all of Andi’s smells or Martin’s sensitivity, but their conditions do exist in many forms and to varying degrees. It likely affects someone on your team. In a pair programming environment, these things hinder effectiveness. This isn’t just an unfortunate personal problem for Andy or Martin. It's part of your team; it’s now your problem. We who are leaders must address this issue. The benefits of pair programming are worth the effort.

Here are some tips you can share with your whole team:

• Many smells are caused by genuine medical conditions that require a doctor’s or dentist’s attention. Make an appointment.

TOP

• Use and share breath mints, but this should not be the 1st and only thing done for your breath. Sugarless gum can be effective since it stimulates saliva production more so than mints, and saliva combats bad breath. But remember that not everyone likes wintergreen and Juicy Fruit. Stick with cinnamon and mint.
• Chewing on a sprig of mint works as does a simple drop of lemon juice.
• Drink more water.
• Don’t be embarrassed to brush your teeth at work. Be a trend setter. Also brush your tongue.
• Flossing every day is mandatory for those on a pair programming team. Brushing your teeth is important, but the smell is coming from the rotting gunk that only floss will remove.
• Many companies provide a mouth wash dispenser in the restrooms. If yours doesn’t, you could ask them to or provide your own. However, the ADA says that most mouth washes do not have a lasting effect and recommends the other solutions as more effective.

TO BOTTOM

• Wear different shoes, ones that breathe better. Try shoes that you can slip off for a few minutes every hour to air out before the smell starts. But consider this carefully because removing your shoes could make matters worse.
• Air out your shoes over a vent each night -- be creative. Rotate your shoes. Don't wear any one pair of shoes more than twice per week.
• Change your socks during the day. Take a fresh pair with you each day or leave a few fresh pairs at work. But don’t leave the used ones lying around.

• Buy new socks. Try wool socks. Throw away the nylon socks. Try a thicker pair of socks. Start wearing socks if you normally don't.
• Stop wearing socks if you normally do. That is, try flip flops or sandals to avoid the whole sock/shoe airing out problem.
• Use an odor absorbing insole.
• Wash your feet with antibacterial soap every morning. Completely dry your feet after showering, particularly between your toes. Use a hair dryer. This has the added benefit of preventing athlete’s foot.

• Use foot powder on your feet. Use foot powder in your shoes. For those who have never used it, it might not have occurred to you that you can sprinkle some powder in your shoe, shake it around, put your toes in the shoe, sprinkle powder on your toes, put your foot in the shoe, and wiggle it around before putting on your socks. That really gets a good coating on everything. But note that this could backfire. You could end up smelling too much like foot powder. You want just enough to tackle one odor without introducing another. Try different brands. The sprays weren’t effective for me.

AND IN BETWEEN

• Wear deodorant, but preferably unscented.
• Wear a clean t-shirt under your golf shirt every day. Under ideal conditions you may be able to wear a pair of pants a couple times between washings, but make sure you keep count.
• Gas. Yeah. I’m just going to refer you to the National Institutes of Health.

Before you dismiss this as stuff everyone already knows, remember that we programmers are a peculiar lot. I’m not so proud to think that I don’t need to be reminded of these things.

ADDRESS IT

Set a good example. Let it be known that you are trying to turn over a new leaf. Get it out in the open.

Decide whether you can address this collectively. If there are many scent wearing individuals, consider an email to the organization asking everyone to refrain from wearing cologne and scented hand lotion. “Please keep smells as neutral as possible to help those with allergies.” It would help to switch to hypoallergenic hand soap in the wash room at the same time.

Otherwise, confront the issue with Andi one-on-one. Be direct and speak in a kind and helpful way. Most people are glad to know. The conversation may be uncomfortable for both of you, but just as he will thank you for pointing out food stuck in his teeth or something stuck to her dress, he will eventually appreciate your sincere desire to help.

Of course, the repugnance might not be a person at all, but an old chair or the carpet. I’ve seen a small leak in the restroom impact the offices on the other side of the wall. I’ve seen messy eaters leave spilt food on the carpet. Get down on your knees and smell. Wait until everyone is out of the office if you must; get someone from facilities to do it if you can. But if you are a leader in the organization, the environment is your responsibility.

SMELL YA LATER

Someone on your team has a keen sense of smell. Someone on your team smells. If you aren't the first person, think about it. You may be the second.

Use Chemical Hand Warmers for Toes?

I have been using chemical toe warmers in my cycling shoes for for a while and really love them. They are just the thing to keep your toes warm. I've been using the Grabber brand which are thinner than the little Hotties brand. (Just bookmark that link. Little Hotties is not something you want to google for.)

I picked up 8 pair of the Grabber toe warmers for $11 from www.joessports.com (12/2008). That's not a bad price, but it's just enough for me to make sure I really need them before opening up a pair. So I was tempted when I heard that Costco was selling a box of 40 pair of hand warmers plus 3 pair of toe warmers for $16 (1/2010). Any time I can get something for a third of the price, I'm all for it.

Well, you do get what you pay for. The little Hotties are great hand warmers, but they are less than ideal as toe warmers. They are the thickest of the three products shown here. I was able to put this over my toes and ride without thinking too much about them. But the flatter product is better. I'm not sure how the hand warmers would feel under my toes. Haven't tried it. Not sure I want to.

The toe warmers also have an adhesive backing which helps you get the warmer where you want it and keeps it there. And, they are larger, which helps spread the heat better over your toes.

Bottom line: Chemical hand warmers are a cheap and usable substitute for toe warmers, but they are not as enjoyable or effective.