It is worth it!

The work is worth it.

I have been doing plenty of reflection.  I blame the dispiriting winter season in my hometown of Chicago.  The cold winter nights force you to confront your past and ponder your purpose.  My friends and social media contacts are asking me plenty of questions about my weird profession.  These kinds of existential moments make me want to do a little explaining.

I joined the agile reformation in 2009.  I was working as a contractor for a family run medical supply company.  I was thoroughly miserable.  I had no job security and little hope. I spent each day grinding out code for capricious people who treated everyone not family as medieval peasants.   Family disputes would boil over on to the sales floor, and anyone caught in the crossfire could lose their job.  It was such a dispiriting place to work.  I witnessed the ten-year-old grandson of the founder tease a salesperson saying, “Daddy says you are fired.”

In the middle of this night of the soul, a project manager decided the team should try “agile.”  It began with daily stand-ups and doing releases in two-week chunks.  It ended with unemployment.  The project manager left for a better job.  The IT Director realized I had more credentials than he did so I was a threat, and it made me expendable.

Between job searches, I did research and the more I learned about Agile, the more I realized it was a better way to lead software projects.  I also realized that the concepts while simple to explain were hard to implement.  Thanks to the Agile Manifesto and the early proponents of the scrum, there was a way to perform technology work without abusing people and providing better value to the business.  I would spend the next four years as a developer spreading the word about this new approach.

Things finally came to a head when I left my last role as a senior developer and became a scrum master full time.  I was no longer some developer mentoring others.  I was leading other teams and setting an example.  I thought I was ready.  I was wrong.  Over the last five years, I have been tested and challenge in numerous ways.  I have succeeded in public ways and failed in equally public fashion.  I am not the scrum master I was five years ago.  Everything I have learned along the way has made me better.

I keep thinking about a quotation from Dave Burgess I tweeted out last week.

"It is not supposed to be easy- its supposed to be worth it!" Nice wisdom for scrum master from #tlap #agile #leadership

— (((Ed Wisniowski))) (@eeeThree_ed) February 13, 2018

The last nine years of my agile journey have been challenging, but it has been worth it.  I am a better leader.  I am a better developer.  The software is getting shipped on time, and the office is a little less capricious.  I do not have entitled ten-year old’s threatening to fire me, and the business community seems to be catching up to my way of thinking. 

This hard journey is probably worth it, and I am proud to be sharing it with you.

Until next time.