As I mentioned back in the Spring, I’ve been leading our web team’s transition to scrum. Since then we’ve been working with Agile/scrum training coaches Bob Hartman and Darian Rashid, and they’ve done an amazing job helping us make the transition a successful one.

Before starting with scrum we had poor visibility into our future work – planning was extremely difficult. Now we’re getting better visibility, and it’s something of a “be careful what you wish for” situation. I’ve been working nights and weekends for the past month, getting a handle on all our projects and our schedule, so I can manage expectations for both my team and for our stakeholders. Work is the first thing I think about when I wake up, and the last think I think about before I go to sleep at night. It’s going to stay that way for at least a few more weeks (possibly months), as we get through this transition.

We have several goals: improving quality, teamwork, etc. But our first is to improve our planning: to align our workload with our actual capacity, establish a sustainable pace, and create reliable expectations for our stakeholders. With scrum’s velocity measures and other metrics, my ultimate goal is to clearly demonstrate to our stakeholders what our team already knows: that we do an incredible amount of quality work with a very small staff, and that if we’re expected to do even more, we need more people.

You can bring your own drinks to Tokyo Dome, but you have to give up the cans – they pour the drinks in cups for you You can bring your own drinks to Tokyo Dome, but you have to give up the cans – they pour the drinks in cups for you04-Jul-2010 00:26SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 125

These girls running up and down the stadium steps with kegs on their backs made me think of soldiers in boot camp These girls running up and down the stadium steps with kegs on their backs made me think of soldiers in boot camp04-Jul-2010 02:24SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.01 sec, ISO 320

Red Alert! Somebody spilled a drink! Clean it up! Clean it up! Only in Japan… Red Alert! Somebody spilled a drink! Clean it up! Clean it up! Only in Japan…04-Jul-2010 02:17SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.01 sec, ISO 320

Japanese baseball has cheerleaders – here they are before the game, getting ready with kids who volunteered to join them in some pre-game dancing Japanese baseball has cheerleaders – here they are before the game, getting ready with kids who volunteered to join them in some pre-game dancing04-Jul-2010 00:40SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.013 sec, ISO 1000

So many fans are dressed up, it’s hard to tell the stadium from the team locker room So many fans are dressed up, it’s hard to tell the stadium from the team locker room04-Jul-2010 00:32SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.02 sec, ISO 1000

The indoor-outdoor mall next to Tokyo Dome, which is also an amusement park The indoor-outdoor mall next to Tokyo Dome, which is also an amusement park03-Jul-2010 23:52SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.006 sec, ISO 100

As an American attending a Japanese major league baseball game for the first time, it turned out that the most fun part wasn’t watching the game, it was enjoying the highly choreographed, non-stop cacophony of alcohol soaked cheering and singing from the fans. The game itself was good, and was very much like watching two good major league American teams play. It was the Yomiuri Giants vs. the Hanshin Tigers, who have a long-running rivalry like the Yankees and Red Sox. The big difference from American baseball is the rituals the Japanese bring to the game. When you combine Japanese baseball fanaticism with their obsessions over convenience, cleanliness, and group activities involving alcohol, you get a unique experience.

Convenience begins with buying the tickets – we didn’t buy tickets until the morning on the day of the game, so all that was left were standing room only tickets. But we were able to buy them at the convenience store down the street from our hotel, for only 1000 yen (about $11) each. Convenience stores here sell tickets for just about every major event in the city, with no surcharges like those obscene TicketMaster “convenience” fees. Getting to the game is also convenient on the subway, which takes you within a stone’s throw of the Giants’ home stadium, the Tokyo Dome. I didn’t even see a parking lot – if there is one, it must be small.

Cleanliness is apparent the moment you walk in the stadium. You’re allowed to bring in any food and drink you like, including alcohol. However, there are paper cup stations at every entrance, where you are required to give your drinks to a uniformed guard, who will pour them in cups for you, as they want to make sure all the metal cans and plastic bottles are recycled, and to minimize any mess. And there is no mess: every stairwell, hallway, stadium seat, and toilet is spotless. The stadium had an almost antiseptic feel to it, like a hospital: as an American, it felt utterly antithetical to any previous stadium experience of mine. Maria and I had to restrain a fit of laughter partway through the game, when a man sitting across from us spilled his beer (by then we had snuck into some empty seats in the nosebleed section behind home plate). Not only did he immediately get up and run to report the spill to a stadium attendant, the attendant than grabbed another attendant, and they rushed back to his seat with a pile of paper towels and a plastic bag to frantically clean it up.

Like in the US, beer is the drink of choice for many at baseball games, but hard liquor is also for sale. The people working hardest during the game aren’t the players, it’s the beer girls. They’re all young and pretty (presumably a requirement for being hired), and they carry small kegs on their backs, with a tap attached so they can serve draught beer. They are in constant motion, huffing up and down the steep stairwells, serving beer and dripping sweat, but always with smiles on their faces. It was like watching marines doing basic training, but high on happiness pills. I felt exhausted just watching them. I noticed none of the same girls were around for more than a few innings, so presumably (hopefully) they were allowed decent breaks.

Video – visiting Hanshin Tigers fans cheering, in Tokyo Dome

Video – visiting Hanshin Tigers fans cheering, in Tokyo Dome04-Jul-2010 05:08

The most remarkable thing was the choreographed cheering, which started before the first pitch and went on continuously throughout the game (see the video on the right for a sample). Actually, there were a few brief breaks when the cheerleaders – yes, cheerleaders for baseball – came out to dance (so they should call them dancers instead, since they were definitely not cheerleading). The left outfield seats were occupied exclusively by the Toraki-chi (crazy Tigers fans), and the right outfield was for the Giants, and then fans for both teams were mixed together in the rest of the stadium. Each side had chants they sang when their team was at bat, and the other side mostly would stay deferentially quiet, except for especially good defensive plays. The stadium-wide coordination was impressive. Each team had a specific way to express their enthusiam for home runs. For the Giants, aside from an explosion of cheering, every fan has a small orange towel to wave, and in the center of their fan section were people waving two enormous flags (see the video below). Unlike in the US, nobody brings home-made signs. I thought it was all really a lot of fun for the first few innings, but by around the sixth inning the constant cacophony became numbing. But I wasn’t drinking, so that was probably a big part of my problem.

Video – Yomiuri Giants fans cheer after a run, in Tokyo Dome

Video – Yomiuri Giants fans cheer after a run, in Tokyo Dome04-Jul-2010 05:41

What also stood out to me was the lack of an announcer. Not a word was ever spoken over a PA system. The name of the current batter was usually incorporated into the crowd’s chant, so everyone was following the state of the game just fine without an announcer. My favorite chant was for the Giants’ American player Edgar Gonzalez, whose name is impossible for the Japanese to pronounce, but they did the best they could, chanting “Ed-o-ga! Ed-o-ga!”

Which reminds me, I did also pay some attention to the game The Giants clobbered the Tigers 10-2, mainly because the Tigers opening pitcher gave up 7 runs in the first few innings before they finally took him out. Here are the game’s full stats if you’re curious. Since we were still a bit jet lagged (it was our 2nd day in Tokyo), it was a pleasant way to relax on the 4th of July, and have an experience that felt both American and uniquely Japanese.

It’s the 4th of July, and since we can’t have burgers on a grill in someone’s backyard, we’re looking for at least some type of American experience today. We’ve decided to see a baseball game, which is also a uniquely Japanese experience. We’re seeing the Yomiuri Giants against the Hanshin Tigers at the Tokyo Dome (the Giants are like the New York Yankees of Japanese baseball). There’s a lot of fun stuff going on today – for us it was a tough call between the game, the international breakdancing competition Battle of Year preliminaries in Kawasaki, and the Shonan Hiratsuka Tanabata matsuri (I really wanted to see the festival, but it’s a 2 hour train ride each way to Hiratsuka, so we decided to skip it).

I may not have many opportunities to blog while we’re here, but I’ll do my best to at least upload pictures. Keep an eye on this post, as I’ll try to add photos each day to the album below. So far I have pictures from our first day yesterday – Tsukiji fish market in the morning, lunch with friends we made through Kai’s school in 2007, and a wonderful dinner at Nozaki Shuten.

2010 – Tokyo79 pictures Tokyo, JapanJul 2, 2010

My sister just won the best female bartender award, from the Newport Mercury

Here’s a better copy of the picture:

Nicole at Fastnet. Photo by Dave Hansen

On the road to Newport

Saw the USS Saratoga on my morning jog. It was decommissioned in 1994 and will be scrapped

An old picture of my father and uncle29-Jun-2010 10:10SONY DSC-W55, 5.2, 18.9mm, 0.05 sec, ISO 320

Eidan with his best friend, Brady29-Jun-2010 10:11SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 100

A beach the way I like it – nobody on it29-Jun-2010 11:46SONY DSC-W55, 11.0, 16.3mm, 0.006 sec, ISO 100

Eidan climbed the rock29-Jun-2010 12:23SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100

View of Hazards’ Beach29-Jun-2010 12:23SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100

Busy executive at the beach29-Jun-2010 12:40SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.002 sec, ISO 100

Making a sand fortress29-Jun-2010 13:49SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100

Eidan and Kai making a sand castle29-Jun-2010 13:51SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.002 sec, ISO 100

Beer – helping ugly people have sex since 1862!29-Jun-2010 17:39SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.04 sec, ISO 320

We had a good drive to Newport on Monday, and spent the day at the beach yesterday. As you can see, the boys had a great time. We also made a quick stop at my Dad’s house in the morning, and had dinner with my step-father – the beer sign was at his house. (Actually he’s my ex-step-father, and he’s getting re-married in July. I realized the only way I can describe his new wife, in terms of her relationship to me, is that she’ll be the new step-mother for my half-brother. I don’t think my family could be much more complicated…)

I probably won’t post again for a couple days. We’ll spend the day in Newport today, then tonight Maria and I will drive to Boston, and leave the boys with my father. We’ll stay at my aunt’s house in Boston, then leave very early tomorrow morning for the airport, for our flight to Tokyo!