Getting Back to Blogging

It is good to be back.

Long absences deserve an explanation.  Being a blogger while holding down a full-time job as a technology leader requires a significant time commitment.  Blogs need to be written and promoted via social media.  The twenty-four-seven media cycle is ravenous, and keeping it fed is exhausting.  It makes me wonder how more successful internet influences can keep up the pace.  Today on my blog, I feel I should explain my absence. 

I have been off-line for seven weeks.  During that time, I moved from my old house to a forever home with someone I wish to grow old with.  Picking up your life and consolidating with some else is hard given the most ideal circumstances.  In my case, my partner and I each had to sell a home and pooled our personal possession.  I was a feast of riches when it came to cookware, but it was a hassle getting it from our storage units into our home.  Additionally, we had a COVID-appropriate holiday with family and friends.  All the while, we were both working full time and working out of boxes.  Something had to give, and my blogging had to wait while I unpacked and developed a new routine.  

I am still unpacking, but I am settled enough to start writing seriously again.  The last seven weeks were a spectacle of poor leadership, resentment, grievance, and outright rebellion.  I feel compelled to comment on it, but I will keep my promise to avoid commentary like this because much better discussion exists on the political left and right.  My opinions will not provide any more additional illumination to the current cultural or political situation.  What I can contribute is my experience and wisdom relating to project and product leadership.  It is what I dedicated most of my life to understanding.  

The intermission has allowed me to think about how I will approach my little slice of the internet in 2021.  I would like to concentrate on the basics of agile.  Each week, I want to discuss the basics of agile from the daily scrum, to backlog coaching and refinement, to the standard of care.  Each week we will cover one of these topics and provide my readers with a foundation to build their own agile practice. 

The agile reformation is entering its twentieth year.  I have been part of it since 2009.  I have learned a few things along the way, and this year I will commit myself to share that wisdom with you.

Until next time.