Anyone can lead change- a lesson from Gorbachev

In the United States, a barbecue and family time seems more urgent than the latest hot take on business transformation.  It is hard to be inspired when confronted with a three-day weekend.  The last official weekend of summer is more appealing than sitting down and focusing on something to say which has meaning to many people.  Something happened this week that you might have missed.  Mikhail Gorbachev died at the age of ninety-one.  For those who don’t remember Gorbachev, he is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Time Magazines Man of the Decade in 1990, former president of the Soviet Union, and, oddly enough, the star of a vintage Pizza Hut commercial.

It is hard to explain to young people today the terror you felt growing up in the 1980s during the end of the cold war.  The nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union confronted each other with a hair trigger.  Planes were flying round-the-clock missions, so the launch codes for a counter-strike would be ready if the other nation attacked.  The number of nuclear missiles ready to extinguish all life on the planet numbered tens of thousands.  A misunderstanding could kick off a series of escalations each day, eventually ending all life on the earth.  It was a scary time with the future promised to no one, but you still had to do your algebra homework if you wanted to go to college. 

The Soviet Union was communist and, between 1982 and 1987, had gone through three presidents.  Brezhnev was corrupt but wanted to get along with the west.  Yuri Andropov was a hardline communist who made his reputation in repressing freedom movements in Hungary.  Andropov was confrontational, but his poor health meant he spent most of his time in a hospital bed.  Andropov’s successor, Konstantin Chernenko, was in even worse health and died of emphysema and heart disease less than thirteen months after he replaced Andropov.  Gorbachev was young by communist party standards, in good health, and the ultimate insider, rising through the ranks of the communist party with smiles and handshakes instead of bullets and threatening to deport people to Siberia. 

When he took over, Gorbachev confronted a colossal mess.  Crops were rotting in fields.  The Russian computer program could not compete with western systems run with a new-fangled technology called microchips.  The war in Afganistan had devolved into a stalemate.  Finally, the Soviet Union faced destruction at the hands of the United States.  If it wanted to survive the cold war, the nation had to be protected from attack and provide basic economic necessities to its people. 

According to people who work with alcoholics, Gorbachev had “a moment of clarity.”  The nation would starve from within or face a nuclear attack from Americans unless something changed.  If it were any other person, they might have picked fights with the west and ignored the situation at home while enjoying the trappings of power.  Gorbachev wanted to put long-term fixes into place to preserve the Soviet Union for future generations.  It meant reforming the communist party to be more accountable to the citizens, creating an economy that could meet the basic needs of its people, and foreign policy, which reduced the likelihood of war.  It would be the ultimate transformation project of the Soviet Union into a modern power. 

It was an incredible gamble.  If anything went wrong, the entire nation would collapse.  What made this gamble more spectacular is that Gorbachev was born and raised in the system and advanced through the ranks, saying the right things.  The intimacy with a corrupt system and the power it gave him could have blinded Gorbachev to what he needed to do.  Instead, he decided to institute reforms hoping to save the only way of life he knew. 

Glasnost and Perestroika are footnotes to history, but they represent a reasonable faith effort to reform a flawed system.  I have no illusions about Soviet Communism, which killed millions of people and enslaved half the world in the aftermath of World War Two.  Nations under communism required over thirty years to integrate with the World economy, and Russia today behaves more like a corrupt petro-state than a great power.  

If you are wondering what any of this has to do with agile, it is this; to make a change in corrupt systems takes courage, and it is up to all of us to have moments of clarity and incite change.  Influential people need to experience moments of clarity, and the agile movement has the moral credibility and technical experience to make the change.  Corruption and failure happen if we allow them to happen. 

The world is a better place, thanks to Gorbachev.  The number of nuclear weapons has decreased by a factor of six.  A war that will extinguish the human species is still possible but will be a conscious decision instead of an accidental blunder. The world has faced a global pandemic with halting success, and the war in Ukraine has not boiled into a worldwide confrontation. We are concentrating on more long-term problems like climate change and wealth inequality.  

It is the legacy of Gorbachev.  A safer world with fewer nukes and more cooperation.  It is far from a perfect world but allows us to concentrate on longer-term problems and make reforms.  People can, in good faith, institute change, and it is up to each of us to act.

Have a great labor day, and until next time. 

The known-known of Donald Rumsfeld and agility

I took some time away from the blog to be with family and friends during the American Independence celebration.  Unlike George Packer's stereotyping of the professionals like myself, I am intensely patriotic, which made it pleasant to watch fireworks and listen to a marching band.  I encourage people to take time off.  It allowed people to set work aside and concentrate on the family and friends we neglect during the workweek.  While I was away, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld died.  His passing made me want to reflect on his leadership style and what that means for the people left behind.  

I'm not particularly eager to write about politics on this blog.  There are better voices about the subject on both the liberal and conservative end of the spectrum.  I also feel that if I am going to contribute to the conversation of making life better for others, I feel that concentrating on project management, agile, and business culture are areas where I can provide meaningful insight. I used Rumsfeld and his quotation about ambiguity and uncertainty to discuss what scrum masters should be looking for when they join an organization.  You can read the original post here.  

Now that Rumsfield is gone, it is time to take a serious look at his leadership style.  Secretary Rumsfeld is a formidable person; he graduated from an Ivy League institution, completed a Navy ROTC scholarship, and was a member of the house of representatives for three terms.  You do not accomplish those things unless you are intelligent and rugged.  I will also point out Rumsfeld is a fellow Eagle Scout.  

One thing that stuck out for me when I review his biography, he was a naval aviator and did not see any combat while he was flying.  He understood the reality of being a naval officer but never had shots fired at him by a communist in a Mig.  He also never commanded sailors at sea.  In most areas of his life, he had tremendous authority with little responsibility for the outcomes.  It is a crucial hallmark of his life in public service and private business.  It transformed him into an individual with tremendous arrogance and a shallow understanding of things unrelated to his advancement.

It drove Rumsfeld to fits of anger when asked about his motivations or influences.  Someone could not question him because he assumed he was always right.  Soon, Rumsfeld was surrounded by people who could not say no because their careers depended on making the boss happy.  It created a bubble where regular inspection and adaptation to changing circumstances became impossible.  Numerous generals risked their careers to point out flaws or nuance to Rumsfeld's decisions.  One general, Eric Shinseki, was relieved of duty when he pointed out the occupation of Iraq would take more soldiers than the ones involved in the actual invasion.  

The most prominent example of Rumsfeld's leadership style is the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship or LCS.  The U.S. Navy requires large crews of specialists to operate their combat ships.  Professions diverse as plumbers, mechanics, and fuel technicians keep the Navy afloat. Vessels have specialization with some sweeping for mines. Others are missile cruisers designed to shoot down enemy aircraft, and aircraft carriers are floating airports that could project American power anywhere in the world.  It is expensive in both people and money to operate a giant navy.  The LCS would work with a fraction of the crew, hi-tech computer systems, and a modular hull which allows the ship to be reconfigured in port depending on its mission.  It was the brainchild of Rumsfeld.

It became apparent the LCS was a bad idea.  Crew members would shift from cooking meals to operating weapons.  The goal was to allow the U.S. to have a bigger military punch with fewer sailors and ships.  The reality of the situation was a mess.  Since none of the sailors assigned to an LCS had engineering experience, no one checked the engines for oil levels or seawater contamination.  The modular system never worked in practice, and LCS ships spent more time in port than at sea.  Finally, the vessels broke down when on duty and were towed to port because no one on the boat could do repairs at sea.  The Navy learned plenty of lessons about the LCS; they were reluctant to act on those lessons because it was Rumsfeld's idea, and even though he was gone from the department of defense, his shadow loomed large over the project.  Currently, the U.S. Navy is planning to retire the LCS Freedom-class, considering the program a failure.  

Based on his biography and papers, Rumsfeld comes off as a traditional leader who never wanted to hear bad news and expected his ideas to be implemented magically by the people he was supposed to serve.  People who were not obedient to Rumsfeld and his ego would be swept aside as he moved forward with stubborn persistence.  It is the mindset of a naval aviator who never had someone try and shoot him down.  The entitlement and arrogance are clear to see.  

Toward the end of his life, Rumsfeld published his "rules" for successful leadership.  If you followed his process, you would achieve greatness.  The funny thing about technology and reality is it humbles your greatest ambitions.  I doubt he ever learned that lesson, and it is up to coaches and scrum masters to remind leadership not to follow Rumsfeld's example.  

Until next time.

Ten Years Ain't What It Used to Be

Yogi Berra, the beloved manager of the New York Yankees, was a great baseball player and a reputation with the press for providing entertaining quotations.  Reflecting on previous Yankee teams, Berra observed, "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be." Once the joke sank in, everyone at the press conference had a good chuckle and moved on with their lives.  The quotation survived to be recycled in commencement speeches and by numerous writers, including me.  I have been thinking deeply about the past, and it occurred to me I have been blogging for the last ten years.  Along the way, I have learned a few things.  Today, I think it is good to examine this blog's long strange trip, and I have traveled.  

I started this blog in response to some sad events in my personal life.  I was going through a divorce with my spouse.  Confronted with career frustration and my personal life imploding, I decided to found a software as a service company E₃ systems.   The blog would promote the company, and in a few years of struggle, I would become a full-time entrepreneur and big shot.  I wrote some great software, and people liked it. The downside is everyone would not pay me for my services.  

If an entrepreneur cannot get paid for their efforts, they are behaving like an amateur.  My business would become another example of the over 90% of the startups who fail.  Along with the title of software developer and scrum master, I would distinguish myself as a failed entrepreneur.  The social media presence I created was promoting a company that had no paying customers.  The company still exists, but I now use it for personal consulting rather than a vehicle to become an internet unicorn.  

I have mentioned that failure is the best educational process a person can experience.  The adventures of the last ten years have exposed me to plenty of failures and given me the chance to share the wisdom I have gathered along the way.  As I see it, I have the battle scars so you can avoid injury.  The blog becomes a pivot where I shared information about agile, coaching, and technology.  It was a natural reaction to disappointment.  

I migrated from promoting my business to fostering more participation in the agile reformation.  I highlighted controversies and talked about my journey as I strove to become a better scrum master and agile coach.  If you pay attention to trends over the last ten years, you discover a few things.  

• Agile is not a fad:  It is becoming the dominant way to manage an IT business but suffers from bad agile implementations.
• Corporate environments are overwhelmed with fear:  Fear of failure and fear of change are the dominant emotions in corporate cultures.  Only the creation of psychological safety by business leaders will change these situations.  
• Technology is eating the world:  We don't have enough workers to feed the beast.  Something will have to give.  
• Microsoft has evolved from an evil empire to your cool uncle:  I am glad I got to witness this change.  
• Talented jerks still linger in this business:  If we want a better and more diverse technology sector, we need to expose these individuals to sunlight.  
• Finally, dedicated professionals will continue to lead change:  I have met plenty of great folks in the last ten years.  All of us committed to making work less awful. 

Failure and tragedy happen.  In business and technology, when a failure occurs, it costs people their careers.  The days of a straightforward career path up the corporate ladder are gone.  For people who make their living in this unforgiving world, each of us must share our experiences and help others learn from our wisdom.  It makes this blog a travel log of the emotional and technical labor it takes to keep the global economy spinning.  I hope you have learned a few things along the way.  I know that I have.  

Yogi Berra was right; nostalgia is not what it used to be.  Looking back at the past should be clear-eyed, honest about our failures, and ensuring we strive not to repeat those failures.  I have attempted to do that during the last ten years on this blog, and I am deeply grateful for everyone who has joined me along the way.

Until next time.  

Professionalism and Developers Part 1

Developers see the world differently.

I have spent a long time working in the software business.  I was not very good as a software developer until I did it professionally for ten years.   Today, I still consider myself a mid-level developer in terms of skill.  What set me apart later in my career was the professionalism I brought to the job.  Documentation would get written, time cards would get filled out, and I spent a lot of time over-communicating with management and stakeholders.  As I moved into project management, scrum mastery, and leadership, I noticed that software developers struggle with professional behavior patterns, which other business professionals have internalized.  We should discuss this.

The subject of professionalism is a touchy one in software engineering.  If you look at the history of the profession, it is easy to see why.  Bill Pflegin and Minda Zetlin, in their book, “The Geek Gap,” points out business people and technology people see the world from two different frames of reference.  A business person wants to be likable and profitable.  If you are agreeable, others are more receptive to your product which you are selling.  Thus, business people are very focused on being likable.  Engineers are not concerned with being likable.  The most important thing for an engineer is to make sure things work.  An engineer spends most of their time wrestling with the rules of physics or computer science to get things to work faster, better, and more reliably.  Something works, or it does not, and this binary view of the world and their career is often disorienting to business people.

Next, developers since the 1950s have a deep affinity for counter-cultural movements.  Beatnik, Hippie, Anarchist, Libertarian, and Punk mindsets permeate the culture of programming.  The let it all hang out attitude of developers is similar to the approach of Jazz musicians.  Hair color or politics does not matter; what matters is technical ability and the respect it generates.  It is why we have engineers with “UNIX beards” because they honor other engineers for the work they have done, and they do not care what business people think.  Someone like this does not have to care about being likable because they build things that work and keep the organization going. 

Finally, developers are more creative and intelligent than the average business person.  Creative people are alienating to people who are not.  Creative professionals are deeply suspicious of authority and rules.  Combine these two factors, and it is natural to see how business people and engineers distrust each other.  It is also why engineers chafe at the rules, regulations, and notion of professionalism.  To the engineer, professionalism is the curtain that hides the inability to solve problems and make things work.

There are three key reasons why developers and engineers do not behave as professionally as other business people.  First, they see the world differently and judge their value from a different frame of reference.  Next, developers embrace sub-cultures that do not respect authority.  An engineer or developer appreciates accomplishment or skill.  Finally, developers being more creative and intelligent, often chafe at rules made by others.  These three ingredients combine into a perfect stew of unprofessional behavior.  I will talk about how to work with these realities in my next blog.

Look forward to seeing you then.

Until next time.

 

Call out Trolls Before They Destroy Your Business

Spot trolls before they hurt your business

The biggest challenge in Servant leadership is working with the disinterested, dishonest, and disrespectful.  Each organization harbors these individuals like weeds in a field of grass.  People like this seem to revel in their bad faith efforts to undermine others, avoid work, and act as parasites to everyone around them.  Throughout my career, I have confronted these individuals, and it never gets easier.  We should be brave enough to call out poor behavior.  

I spend plenty of time on LinkedIn. It is an excellent service because I can catch up on colleagues, get the latest news from the business community, and many of my fellow travelers share information about what is new. I was surfing along and read the following post from a coach and scrum trainer. The emphasis is mine.  

“I am a project manager having 15 years of experience and 5 years exclusively in project management. I do hold a PMP certificate too. My company is adopting Scrum-based delivery and it seems there is no role for the project managers. There are 3 roles in Scrum but none of them is for me. 

I can’t be a Product Owner because it will get filled from the business/customer side. I am not hands-on so I can’t be a part of the Development Team.

Scrum Master seems to be a very junior role for me. Many Scrum Masters are just a part-timer or working previously as Team Lead/ Tech Lead etc. There was a point when these people were reporting to me on my projects.

I also have an issue with the Servant Leadership style. It is not that I am a command & control person and you can ask my colleagues. Everyone will say how good I am with empathy, situation leadership, and self-reflection. But servant leadership sounds to me either head of the Servant or becoming Gandhi and Mandela. 

What will you suggest? Should I look at some different roles if yes then which one? I have also heard a lot about Agile Coach though I don’t know much how is this different than Scrum Master.”

I had a lot to unpack in this message.  It is an excellent example of how NOT to do Servant leadership.  I have said in the past, that ego is the enemy of good leadership.  Additionally, Servant leadership is more about leading by example than attempting to behave like a saint.  Scrum mastery requires kindness, and it often requires going beyond the call of duty. 

Being a scrum master is not a junior role.  It is a managerial role with tremendous responsibility and little authority. You are the person in the Taupe blazer who must inspire others to get work done.  At times you are a therapist, and at others, you are doing code reviews.  Often you are a square peg in a round hole.  Scrum masters are not junior; instead, they are essential to the success of your organization. 

The arrogance associated with the post was very telling.  What made it shocking was that it came from an instructor from Scrum.org.  I could expose this individual, but that would make me no better a coach or scrum master.  I am sensitive to harassment and doxing concerns on the internet.  I want the satisfaction of calling out a troll and exposing them to shame and ridicule.  The reality is they do not care.  A troll does what they do for the attention and outrage.  Instead, I would rather point out the attitude of these people so that we can be on the lookout for this behavior.  People like this are going to hurt your organization, so it is best to make you aware of them and not give them a chance.  

I take a great deal of pride in what I do.  As I continue to advance my career, I do not want to forget where I came from and the lessons I gained along the way.  Being a scrum master and product owner is hard work.  Developers and people in the organization are under tremendous pressure to deliver value to their customers and organization.  In the global economy, we are all servants, whether we like it or not.  Insulting other professionals as junior or beneath you is not how you participate in the agile reformation.  It is a form of elitism that has sparked backlash around the developed world.  

Today, I wanted to call attention to an attitude that will hurt your organization.  It is elitist, and it comes from a position of arrogance.  Do yourself a favor, find these people, and make sure you never hire them.  

Until next time. 

A Hard Lesson in Agile Leadership from the U.S.S. Roosevelt

Agile leadership comes in all shapes and sizes.

The current pandemic and stay at home order continues to linger.  For those of us with careers which give us the privilege to work at home it has been a strange experience. I confess I feel like a grounded teenager stuck at home.  The reality is that many of us are stuck at home.  Plenty of others are less fortunate because they lack adequate shelter, or they are performing essential jobs risking increase exposure from the disease.  I have made a point of keeping informed but not wallowing in the 24-hour news cycle.  One news story did catch my attention, and that was the tale of the U.S.S Theodore Roosevelt.

Theodore Roosevelt is a Nimitz class aircraft carrier.  It is a floating airbase and city which can travel around the world.  It served in Desert Storm and provided continuous support for America’s ongoing efforts to fight the war on terror in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.  It is a symbol of American power.  It also became an example of how that power is vulnerable.  The ship and its sailors had an outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.

Navy and Marine officers have two significant responsibilities; they accomplish their missions, and they look after the safety of the people under their command.  Everything else is a distraction to sailors and marines.  The commander of the ship Capt. Brett Crozier sent pleas for help and supplies via e-mail up the chain of command.  The navy did not answer those requests but they leaked to the press.  One hundred sailors contracted the disease, and the ship’s commander was asking for the evacuation of the sick to prevent more people from getting ill.

The chain of command exposed for its slow action began a medical evacuation of the ship.  It then relieved Captain Crozier of his command, effectively firing him.  The acting secretary of the navy said he had lost confidence in Crozier’s leadership.  As he left the ship, his sailors cheered and supported him.  We can gather plenty of lessons from this experience.  As an agile coach and scrum master, you should apply them to your practice.

First, look after the wellbeing of the people you lead and serve.  An aircraft carrier is a floating city powered by two nuclear reactors and has a fully functioning airport.  Over six-thousand people live in close quarters on the ship, and it operates night and day.  An outbreak of one-hundred sick people can quickly become a thousand in a matter of weeks.  If the carrier was going to remain combat effective, the sick had to relocate to a naval hospital.  The commander was acting in the best interest of his crew, the United States Navy, and America.  The thought of six thousand sailors sick and dying in the middle of the ocean is the stuff of nightmares—a plague ship that runs on nukes.

In the next lesson, do the right thing even if it is not popular.  Captain Crozier knew he would cause trouble if his messages became public.  He sent the messages anyway because the lives of his sailors and combat effectiveness of his ship were more important than his career.  When senior leadership relieved him of his command, Crozier accepted the decision and stepped aside rather than protest the injustice of his treatment.  He even took the time to make sure his second in command was ready to take over.

Finally, leadership means being with the people doing the work and making you successful.  Captain Crozier has COVID-19, so he had contact with the sailors and marines under his command.  Instead of sequestering himself on the bridge and giving orders, he met with the sick crew members and learned first hand from his ship’s doctor what was happening.  He put the health of his crew above his own.

I think the navy has made a grave mistake in relieving Captain Crozier of his command.  Acting Secretary of the Navy is showing poor leadership in his actions because it is more about keeping appearances to the commander and chief than looking after the safety of sailors and marines.  Being a leader means dealing with bad news, and it means accepting responsibility.  Thomas B. Modly, the current acting secretary of the navy, could have acknowledged the situation on the U.S.S. Roosevelt and admitted the navy was slow to act.  Instead, he fired Crozier sending a clear signal to other officers not to make the navy and the Commander-in-Chief look terrible.  It is a self-interested policy that will cost the lives of sailors and marines.

Being relieved of command effectively ends the career of an officer.  Crozier, if he survives his COVID-19 infection, will be passed over for a promotion and then asked to retire.  If you are a corporation, having someone like Captain Crozier on your leadership team will make your organization better because he will practice servant leadership and look after the people he serves.  He will do the right thing when circumstances require it.  Finally, he will get involved and get his hands dirty in times of crisis.  He may not be commanding an aircraft carrier, but to this agile coach and scrum master, he has shown exceptional leadership.  We need more leaders like Captain Crozier in our organizations.

Until next time.

I am not going anywhere

My youthful self.

The business world can be cruel and unfeeling.  Millions of dollars move around the globe each second, and decisions in particular portions of the world can create waves of disruption.  The impersonal nature of global capitalism often makes people feel like cogs in a giant machine.  It is easy to feel lost.  The alienation we feel at work does not have to happen.  It is one of the reasons I am attracted to the agile reformation.  It is a better way to work. 

When you work in an office, you are often doing repetitive work. We cash checks, generate invoices, and service customers.  We put policies and procedures in place, but they often stifle innovation.  Managers micromanage because they are afraid to look like they have nothing to do.  It is a dreary existence that encourages people to be mediocre and perform just enough to avoid the scrutiny of the micromanagement class.

I lived that life for over twenty-five years.  I promised myself that I would try to help others avoid that trap.  It is also why I embraced the agile reformation because it felt like a more sustainable, satisfying, and safe way to work.  Leadership is hard, but if you do it right, great things happen.  I reject cruelty, alienation, and the unfeeling nature of global business.  It is why I am a scrum master and agile coach.  I will keep doing it until my time is past.  I am not going anywhere. 

Until next time.

Looking Forward to the Next Decade

Back for another year in review.

Being a blogger opens you up to scrutiny and criticism.  I use this forum as a way to share knowledge about the agile reformation.  I attempt to argue in good faith and provide others with a voice.  I am a passionate advocate, and that passion clouded my reason leading to some big mistakes.  Fortunately, my discourse avoids bitterness so when I eat my words; I do it gladly.  The most treacherous blog of the year is my annual predictions.  Sometimes, I am an oracle with an accurate vision of the future.  Other times, I blunder like a drunken person in a dark room; time will tell if any of my predictions are correct.

The “Breakup,” of Big Tech-

Continuing issues with Facebook, Alphabet, and Microsoft will prompt regulators in the United States to pursue anti-trust suits and legislation to regulate the technology industry.  The efforts by congress will create tremendous pushback from the technology industry.  I expect to see billions of dollars spent on lobbying efforts.  Additionally, political candidates will fundraise and stump for votes by publicly bashing large tech companies.  The technology business does need oversight but I am afraid 2020 is going to have little meaningful reform.

Fighting Corrupt Agile-

As agile becomes more prevalent in organizations, bad actors and corrupt practices will flourish.  The article, “Agile is Whatever Management Says It Is,” was one of the most insightful articles in 2019 business press.  The article discusses how management professionals will demand behavior and process changes from others while clinging to their self-destructive practices.  It is up to us in the agile community to fight this corruption.

“Radical Candor” in the New Decade-

Kim Scott wrote an excellent book on the topic of business communication.  I feel that is will be used by business leaders to improve their performance and the performance of the people they serve.  The difference between “radical candor,” and “manipulative insincerity,” are going to be crucial for leading a successful global business.

I look forward to spreading the word.

The Awful Election of 2020- 

I steer away from politics on this blog.  The internet contains better takes on political rhetoric.  If you are a conservative or liberal, there are plenty of authors on-line to provide insight and perspective.

The presidential election is going to be awful.  The pugilistic style of President Trump and the cultish behavior of the GOP is going to make the election an exercise in pain tolerance.  Democrats will be accused of socialism, infanticide, and having over-due library books.  The very nature of what and who Americans are will come into question.  It will be ugly.  In victory or defeat, the president will be petulant, and regardless of the outcome, our nation will seem smaller as a result.  I hate feeling this pessimistic.

I hope these words are not too bitter.  I am sure I will have to eat them someday.  Thanks for spending the year reading the blog, and I look forward to more writing in the next decade.

Until next time.

Be on the Look Out for Workism

Even Elves need some rest.

The Christian holidays are close and it is easy to become caught up in the bustle of parties, shopping, and family gatherings.  The biggest challenge is weighing the exclusive demands of family and career.  Derek Thompson wrote an excellent article about the subject earlier this month.  As a member of the agile reformation, I want to remind my fellow professionals of the danger of workism.

Speaking for myself, I become a software developer for two reasons. The first reason was I was chasing the hype and wealth of the first internet boom.  It was a giddy and stupid time where Bill Clinton was president, and anyone with a “.com” at the end of their company name wasted millions of dollars.  I wanted to be one of those twentysomething or thirtysomething millionaires writing code instead of being told to smile more while casino patrons blew cigarette smoke into my face.  The other reason was I was good at it.  I became a wizard with Microsoft Office and was soon glancing at Visual Basic code like I was reading the morning news.  My dream of working afternoon drive at a classic rock radio station evolved into becoming a web developer.  The pay was better and it gave me a career that I did not enjoy in my twenties.

Looking back, I realized I joined the technology during a dramatic period of expansion.  I was one of the numerous anonymous workers who helped construct the contemporary internet we enjoy today.  I was an early consumer of social media with a MySpace page.  I was using a smartphone before the birth of Android.  I witnessed the evolution of Microsoft from an evil empire to an innovator in Cloud computing.

It was not an easy road to travel.  I failed numerous times, working for every type of business imaginable.  I became an entrepreneur and failed, and each setback and disappointment set the stage for more significant success.  These experiences helped me coach other professionals so that they avoid the mistakes I made in my career.

It is also a profession where less than one percent of the world population can do it successfully.  It often means cramming various amounts of work into a single workweek.  Developers and network engineers work long hours keeping the global economy working.  It is intellectually demanding and detail-oriented.  Imagine a world where checks do not manifest, or shopping on-line comes to a stop. It is a nightmare world I would not like to live in.

The lucrative work and the shortage of people who can do it successfully translate into long hours.  Thompson in his essay in the Atlantic talks about workism.  It is a career focus that puts family, friends, and community at arm’s length.  High skill workers benefit from long hours in ways that low skill workers do not.  If you work in technology, you are expected to work long hours because it is cost-prohibitive to find people who can do the work.  It is also the only way for a professional to advance in their career.  As Thompson says in his essay,

“At many firms, insanely long hours are the skeleton key to the C-suite and partner track.  Thus, overwork becomes a kind of arms race among similarly talented workers, exacerbated by the ability to never stop working, even at home.  It’s mutually assured exhaustion.”

Executives enjoy exploiting this arms race to get more out of their employees.  In the agile world, we need to push back against this exploitation.  Countless studies point out overwork is counter-productive.  Workism has severe consequences for employee health.  It hurts morale.  It also undermines the quality of the work.  Agile is about “Healthy Ownership,” a sustainable pace and delivering value to customers at a more reasonable pace.  Anything else is waste and exploitation. As an agile coach or scrum master, please be on the watch for workism.  It is a path that leads to poor quality and burnout.  The better way is Agile which is a more sustainable, satisfying and safe way to work.

I want to finish this blog by wishing all of my readers a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and a joyous Kwanzaa.  I am sure I am missing some other holiday but I hope each of you enjoys time with your families and take some time for reflection.  I will back next week with my end of year predictions.

Until next time.

Have the Courage to Be Agile

The wealth of nations, the success of
agile requires courage and Adam Smith.

Technology is not a profession for wimps.  It requires hard work, intelligence, and creativity.  The profession also requires a level of courage you do not find in many white-collar jobs.  I want to discuss what type of courage it takes to be successful as a scrum master and coach.

One of my most popular blog posts talked about why some firms resist the agile mindset.  I place the blame upon a lack of psychological safety at most large organizations.  Additionally, I blamed the fear and uncertainty, which is inherent in a global company.  These factors combined create a toxic stew where everyone does the bare minimum and tires to remain invisible until they leave the company.  It is depressing and resembles the grim environment of a Franz Kafka story. 

To address the alienation and lack of initiative which festers in this environment, managers, put into place processes which if followed, have a better chance of yielding better results.  The processes become rituals and deviation from these rituals creates a reaction similar to blasphemy in the middle ages.  The process becomes the purpose of the organization.  In reality, the mission of any business is to create products and services which help customers.  Helping a customer creates revenue, and revenue should generate profit.  The description above has existed since Adam Smith and remains the best articulation of capitalism we have.  I think many people who work in business forget the simple principle of serving customers leads to profit.

The early days of software development reflected the spirit of Adam Smith.  Business people learned software development, and they used computers to address business concerns.  The first generation of programmers were the ones who helped automate payroll systems; they created the Saber travel system and provided the mathematics necessary to make the space program successful.  As computing became, more complex and specialized business, people began to abdicate their involvement in the systems which automated their business.  Project managers became go-betweens technology and business professionals.  Projects got more prominent, and the failures got bigger.  Millions of people had their potential squandered.

It was this waste of human capital, which leads to the creation of the agile manifesto.  I am part of the reformation which began on a ski trip to Utah. Many things unite us, but the main trait we all have is courage.  We all dare to go into the office each day and make a difference.  We are courageous enough to point out areas of improvement.  The agile reformation relies on the courage to be visible and vulnerable to our peers.  It takes courage to bet your career each day to make improvements.  It is easy to become invisible at a large organization; it takes courage to make changes.

I hope that I can maintain this courage for the remainder of my career.

Until next time.

More difficult than crayons

Crayons are easier to create than software.

When you spend your career helping people deliver software, it quickly becomes apparent that the biggest challenges you face are not technology problems.  The biggest challenge is working with messy people.  Machines can make pencils and crayons by the thousands each hour, but before that happens, someone has to design the product for manufacturing.  The people who do this are engineers and product designers.  Software relies on Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and software developers.  The creative process is the same, but it is much easier to manufacture crayons than software.  Today, I will try to answer why it is so hard to write software.

Software has only existed since the aftermath of World War Two.  The first documented “bug” was a moth which died among the vacuum tubes of the first computer.  In spite of technological advances, the way we write software is still primitive.  Developers continue test code on local machines and then push that code to remote servers to see if they work.  Testing is manual, and the ability to automatically push code through the web or large enterprises is limited.  The software craft movement is making progress in this area along with the DevOps movement are helping with this antiquated process, but it is still a long, tedious trudge to get software written.

The key adverb here is “written.” The writing of software is a creative process.  People take the vague directions of others and translate it into web pages or client-server applications.  Unlike traditional prose, software contains code, markup, and data.  The disciplines working with each is different and filled with plenty of nuances.  Business people compensate software professionals generously because it is such a rare skill to cultivate.  Developers are also under tremendous pressure to ship code and work long hours to do it.  Imagine, Earnest Hemingway, attempting to write “A Farewell to Arms,” with management standing over him demanding updates each day. Furthermore, imagine the Nobel laureate is required to write one character’s dialog in English, another in Spanish and finally hexadecimal code for each letter on the page for a different character.

If the above was not challenging enough, the people paying for the creation of software are not actively involved in its production.  Software projects often begin with a problem which does not have an answer.  A marketing executive blurts out, “I need a client website!” or a Human Resources professional asks if it is possible to manage timecards online.  The business set aside money hired consultants to do the work, and begin writing software with no idea how it should work.  Agile fixes this problem by requiring rapid time boxes.  Often, lack of participation and vision from business partners thwarts the benefits of agile.

Combined with the difficulty of writing software and the apathy of the people how to pay for the software, the final challenge is the hypercritical nature of everyone who cannot write software have for the people who can write software.  It is similar to the Austrian Emperor mocked in the movie Amadeus whose only criticism of Mozart’s opera is, “There are too many notes in it.”  Many people have opinions about software and provide critiques, which is either nitpicking or unhelpful.  As a developer, a color pallet I used for an application caused controversy, and we spent countless meetings reviewing color chips.  It extended the life of the project by three months and made it over budget.  In a different episode, punctuation on a page sparked hundreds of revisions and emails.

The reality is like a committee of proofreaders, executives, and people not involved in the creative process demanding edits to Hemingway’s work.  The final straw might be the demand that “A Farewell to Arms,” not have one of the main characters die at the end of the book.  The entire narrative arc of the book changes because of the “suggestion,” but if Hemingway does not make the changes, he does not get paid or published.  Considering this type of feedback, Hemingway would have consumed more alcohol than he did.

So this is why writing software is so complicated.  It is a creative process.  Next, the people who want and pay for the software are not actively involved.  Finally, if customer partners are in the project, they provide feedback and guidance, which is often removing value from the software rather than adding it.  I have been in this career for a long time, and I know how to write and deliver software.  It is much more complicated than creating crayons.

Until next time.

Transform at the speed of the Team

Coaching is more than presentations.

Software development is not rocket science; it is a branch of engineering but, it is not rocket science.  I say that because rocker science depends on the laws of chemistry and physics which have not changed since the big bang.  Software development is changing daily.  Javascript libraries are constantly being updated and going in and out of fashion.  Versions of PHP change and open source code is in constant flux.  Finally, software development is dependent on the fickle demands of consumers who use it.  The level of chaos and change are staggering.  It is why software development is such a challenging profession.  As a scrum master and coach, you must understand those challenges and guide development teams through the process.

One of my favorite pieces of journalism is Bloomberg’s weighty essay entitled “What is Code?” It talks about the person in the taupe blazer and the frustrations of software developers.  It also does a great job talking about the headaches the executives who manage software developer face.  The essay captures perfectly how smart people struggle daily to get dumb machines to act intelligently.

The world of software has tremendous power, but that power belongs in a small subset of the world population.  I calculated that less than .05% of the global population of 7.4 billion could maintain software and computer networks.  Many of these individuals work in the quiet recesses of government and business keeping things running.  They go home to families and friends.  They pay bills and try to live their lives as best they can.

Because of the laws of supply and demand, computer professionals receive large compensation, but the compensation comes with a trade-off.  The trade-off is long hours on uncompensated overtime and business leaders expecting them to perform magic.  It creates conditions which lead to poor quality and burn out.  I have experienced this situation as a developer and as a manager.  As a customer, I have stumbled on numerous situations where fatigue, complexity, and unrealistic expectations have combined into a poor product.  The history of the internet contains plenty of companies which had a few pixels and an unhealthy dose of hype.

Technology professionals have lived in that world since the early 1990s, and you can excuse them for being suspicious of new approaches to doing things.  For every Amazon.com there are hundreds of companies like Pets.com.  So bringing ideas like Test Driven Development, S.O.L.I.D. programming and Agile is going to face resistance.  As a scrum master or coach, I recommend you begin slowly introducing concepts letting people test out an idea to get comfortable with them.  It also helps if you understand and recognize the pressures the team faces.  Are they distracted by requests which are urgent but not important?  Do you have a healthy cadre of product owners or is the role being performed by a manager?  Finally, are they working with a brittle technology stack? Answering those questions will determine how fast you can go during your agile transformation.

Software development is not rocket science.  It is a challenging field prone to error and burn-out.  Only by paying attention to individual challenges each software development team faces can they be coached into an agile way of doing things.

Looking Ahead to 2019

Happy New Year!
 Looking back and forward.

The Christmas holidays are a blur of family, friends, and food.  The last week has been an exercise in sleeping late, snacking on food which is bad for me, and drinking a variety of fermented beverages.  It is also a time to reflect on the last year and look forward to 2019.

I got a few predictions right in 2018.  The battle between Amazon and Google did get fiercer.  I purchased smart lights and expanded the number of Google devices in the marketplace.  It is also clear Google is starting to pull away with a better quality product.  As of August 2018, Google was starting to pass Amazon in sales.  I hope this forces more innovation and lowers prices.  It would be nice if these smart speakers were the cost of a contemporary clock radio.

I was partially correct about politics in the last year.  Democrats did make a comeback, but the GOP leveraged its structural advantages to retain the U.S. Senate and some state house governments.   It was also clear the two parties are tragically unable to compromise.  Authors pointed out these differences were not a question of ideology but epistemology.  When Christine Blasey Ford, provided credible accusations of sexual assault against a Supreme Court nominee GOP senators saw someone who was “misremembering” a teenage event to destroy a career.  Democratic senators saw it as behavior toward women which was disqualifying.  In light of these events, it is clear the GOP, and the Democrats see women and sexual assault in different ways.

Last year was not just the spectacle of politics and commerce; I made some significant changes.  I decided to concentrate more on my brand.  I presented to the Agile 2018 conference, and I am working on my 2019 white paper for next year.  I spent time at the London 2018 coaching retreat and have given more discussions on Healthy Ownership.  It is a good start, but I have more work to do.  I have to concentrate on my coaching certification with the Scrum Alliance.  I am also returning to work, so I am looking forward to working with new people and challenges.

So what does 2019 look like?  I have three predictions.

The Messy Repercussions of Oversight – 

With Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, oversight of the executive branch will begin.  It will create numerous uncomfortable conflicts around the emoluments clause, nepotism and petty corruption from the executive branch.  I feel this oversight is necessary to hold powerful people accountable.  The aftermath of this oversight will be increase distrust in government and the deepening of the epistemic divide between the two major political parties.

Chubby Capitalism –

The American economy is chugging along creating jobs and wealth.  I suspect much of the growth is the result of low interest rates and mergers.  Gross domestic product is increasing, but there are troubling signs the good times are going to slow down.  I affectionately call the situation, “chubby capitalism,” as large companies bloated with market share and stock buy-backs struggle to adapt to the changing global market.  Some of these “chubby” companies are going to get eaten alive by faster competitors.  Others will be forced to shrink or face extinction.  Caught in the middle will be workers facing more risk and insecurity caused by the binging and purging which will happen next year.

Agile Tribes – 

I have noticed serious disagreements among the members of the Agile community.  The feud between the “No Estimates,” crowd and those who are skeptical is becoming bitter.  Kanban is growing in popularity, and this creates friction with Scrum professionals.  Finally, businesses are creating these quasi-roles for scrum coaches, senior scrum masters, and junior scrum masters.  I want both the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance to put down their collective feet and insist that scrum mastery and coaching are complementary skills.

So that is 2018 and a look ahead to 2019.  I hope everyone has a safe and sane New Years.

Until Next time.

How I became a Pirate Bear

I am a pirate bear. 

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you understand that I have been an outspoken advocate of Agile and Scrum.  It has become the central focus of my career.  I am one of those eccentric and creative people companies want but do not know how to utilize.  I am an anomaly in the business world, and I am comfortable with it.

Like any other technology professional, I spend my free time learning new skills.  In preparation for the Scrum Coaches Retreat in London, I spent some time learning how to use #slack.  To be honest, I am still struggling with the platform.  It feels alien to me.  I have not mastered all the tricks, lingo or etiquette of a #slack community.  I think the same way I did eight years ago when I started using Twitter.  I was able to master that, and I will be okay with the new platform.

When you join a new social network one of the more important things you do is choose a name where others can quickly identify you and touch base.  The same is true with #slack and since the network does not allow for duplicate names people rapidly get creative coming up with handles.  I decided to give myself the moniker “The Pirate Bear.”  I posted a color picture of myself in a fez and began my journey in #slack.  I was swapping information, slide decks, and gossip with other agile coaches for a few weeks when someone from England asked why I chose “The Pirate Bear.” I did not have a chance to answer the question then but feel compelled to answer it now.

Since I began my vocation as a technology professional, I have been heavy.  I blame this state of being on the nature of the profession and by using food to cope with the pressures most technology professionals confront.  I am both big and tall.  It prompted the woman who loves me to label me her bear affectionally.  Additionally, many of my LGBTQ friends and colleagues say that I would pass as a “Bear” in the gay community. I felt awkward about this at first, but I embraced it as good-natured teasing from friends.

Piracy has been a significant theme in the zeitgeist since Johnny Depp wore the costume in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  Piracy has been the banner many rebels and outcasts have embraced since the age of sail.  Illegal radio stations sailed the North Sea offering programming the BBC would not provide. It became a pirate radio which has been copied by numerous radio stations around the world.  When Steve Jobs put together the product team of the first Macintosh, he told each of the engineers, “It is better to be a pirate than to join the navy.”  The secret pirate crew then changed personal computing forever.

It sounds very glamorous. The swashbuckling and mythology of piracy is quite appealing.  The reality is that a pirate’s life was dangerous and cruel with significant shifts between poverty and wealth.  A pirate sailor often faced execution if captured and often succumbed to illness at sea.  You chose piracy for many reasons, but the main reason is that you did not fit in anywhere else.

In the sclerosis of most corporate environments, if you are going to make a change, you will have to be a pirate.  You will have to be smarter, nimbler, and more unconventional.  You will suffer from being an outcast.  You may also fail in an embarrassing and ignoble fashion.  On the off chance none of that happens, you will cut a romantic figure in front of black sails and wallow in gold and rum.

Given a choice between the routine and tedium of a professional career and being a pirate; I choose to be a pirate.  It is why I am the pirate bear on #slack.

“Roar!”

Incomplete leadership is good leadership.

The world has plenty of leadership styles there are leaders who inspire fear and others who foster deep admiration.  The spectrum streams from the sublime to the ridiculous.  My thoughts on the subject have evolved over the years.  I have experienced many forms of leadership and what strikes me most is this notion of the “mask of command.”  According to this theory of leadership, a leader must create a persona of command which conceals weakness from people who they work. This week on the blog I would like to do a little unmasking.

I was an early proponent of the “mask of command.”  I would have an air of authority and credibility.  Anyone who has worked with engineers, creative professionals, and medical workers will quickly realize this is folly.  All of these groups are exceedingly smart, and all of them have been trained to be skeptical.  They know when you are putting on a mask and when you are inauthentic.  Once this lack of authenticity is detected, these kinds of professionals will tune out. 

Since professionals are not receptive to the mask of command, there has been a myth created around leadership.  Leaders of organizations must be “complete.”  They must have experience in the industry, work their way up the organization, and have the perfect mix of personal traits to succeed.  It has fostered a leadership style which discourages innovative thinking.  Bland and uninspiring leaders advance because they reflect the status quo of their organization.   They are not leaders but rather caretakers of their organizations.  The corner office and perks of executive leadership are enough to keep these individuals content.  If they are lucky, they will retire and let someone else do the necessary organizational change.  It is how organizations wither and die.

If the mask of command creates inauthentic leaders and the desire for perfect leaders creates uninspiring leaders what should a scrum master or agile coach aspire?  I have been thinking about this for some time.  It did not become clear to me until I read Deborah Ancona's essay in the Harvard Business Review, “In Praise of the Incomplete Leader.”  In her essay, Ancona talks about the myth of a perfect or complete leader who in her words is a “…flawless person at the top who’s got it all figured out.”  Today, organizations with their inherent complexity and global reach require “incomplete,” leadership who can delegate their weaknesses and play up their strengths.  Leaders do not have to be the perfect fit instead they should be good enough to help the organization.  Instead of the emperor or general, a leader is more like a therapist or pastor to support the organization see a better way. 

Ancoma goes on to describe four leadership skills every person has in varying degrees: sensemaking, relating, visioning, and inventing.  Those traits overlap each other, but it is clear to me that if you are equally good at all four of these areas, you are not good at any individual area.  Steve Jobs was fantastic at visioning; he was lousy with people and relating.  George Patton had great sensemaking and scared the pants off the German generals.  He was also insubordinate and bad at relating with his troops or commanders.  Meg Whitman took the chaos at HP and used her sensemaking and relating skills to improve the organization.  Not any of the leaders, I cited were “perfect.”  They were flawed and human.  They were good at certain things and delegated everything else.  It is why I think Omar Bradley was the best thing to ever happen to Patton. 

As a leader and scrum master, we need to accept we are imperfect.  I excel at sensemaking and visioning.  I will admit my shortcomings. I struggle with relating and inventing.  Only by acknowledging these vulnerabilities can we build trust, and to succeed trust is essential.  We also need to accept that each leader is incomplete.  Some will hide behind the mask of command, and other leaders will feign equal competence in these four areas of leadership. 

I have a different vision of leadership.  It is one where the masks fall away, and smart people work together for a common goal with a sense of trust.  It may be a little touchy feely but if it is good enough for the Harvard Business Review it is good enough for me. 

Until next time.

Eat up

I feel like a shark!  "Chomp!"

Social movements and organizational change are difficult to measure, and it is particularly hard to do in the world of business.  The business press concentrates on investing and accounting.  Since the beginning of the agile reformation, those of us involved in the change have openly wondered if we are making an actual difference.  As 2018 begins, it looks like agile is becoming mainstream and successful.

In 2011 a famous editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal, It was titled, “Software is eating the World.”  The principal thesis was for companies to succeed they have to behave more like software companies.  It was a daring argument.   The seven years which followed have vindicated that notion.  Google, Tesla, Amazon and a funny project called Bitcoin are dominating headlines and the business community.

Tesla is still struggling to meet its production commitments and Bitcoin, to me, feels like a blue sky stock but what all of these firms have in common is a willingness to innovate, iterate, and move fast to satisfy customer demand.  Even companies who lost their way are embracing blockchain technologies, cloud computing, and rapid software development. 

It is satisfying to know that my career choices have mirrored changes in the business.  While business is changing business leadership is struggling to keep up.  Organizations charts still matter in many places.  Command and control measures which existed for years are difficult to discard, and inertia prevents most organizational change.

It has created a quandary and spawned an entire industry of coaching and consultants, who are attempting to show others how to do business with the agile paradigm.  What these coaches discover, is a business is a social construct along with a business entity.  The ego of a director may be more important than the needs of the company.  Board members excuse a lousy quarter because they golf with executives.  Whole industries condoned sexual harassment and assault as long as the abusers generated revenue.  

Which is why I find the turnaround at Microsoft so fascinating.  They went from a sales culture under Steve Balmer to an engineering culture under Satya Nadella.  After product failures like Zune, Vista, and Windows Phone, the organization decided to place its future in the hands of a software engineer who felt building better products was the path to commercial success.  It is a gamble which has paid off handsomely.

Microsoft has embraced Agile, and it is paying enormous dividends.  That is why this week an article appeared in Forbes called, “Agile is eating the World.”  The reformation is growing, and the success is getting noticed.  It is a satisfying development to me.  I am no longer a lonely missionary in the wilderness, but a professional at the table is making a difference.  It is nice to see the times change.

Until next time.

Saying good riddance to 2017

Would you invite these two over for dinner?
This image captures 2017 better than anything else I have seen.

I want to say good things about 2017; I really want to do it.  The sad reality is that the last year was the equivalent of inviting guests over for a dinner party and they allow their toddler to break your china and defecate on your tablecloth.  The world of politics, business, and agile felt like that disgusting and awkward dinner party.  This week, I take a look at last year’s predictions and look ahead to 2018. 

My first prediction came true in ways I did not expect. The new president and the Republican Party kicked off a wave of deregulation. It was not your garden-variety deregulation typical of GOP control of the White House; this was something radically different.  The Secretary of Education had no experience in educational administration.  The new Secretary of Energy on the campaign trail demanded that the department is dismantled and then used his position to promote the interests of the fossil fuel industry.  The head of the EPA is building a secure secret office and treating the organization he is leading as a security threat. 

By far, the most egregious in a colorful cast of characters is Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.  The Goldman Sachs alumni made a career exploiting financial regulations and staying one step ahead of regulators.  Now he is in charge of those rules, and it looks like a repeat of the events which led to the great recession of 2008.  Adding insult to injury is his spouse who has appeared in public with the personae of a Walt Disney villain blended with a trust fund sorority sister.  Her words about how she and her husband do more for the economy are going to live forever in history books written about this period. 

My second prediction was the brief life and death of Net-Neutrality.  Ajit Pai served on the FCC board and said net-neutrality was unnecessary in 2015 when the board supported it.  With the election, he and the Republican members became the majority on the FCC board, and the net neutrality rules were repealed.  In spite of 22-million comments supporting net-neutrality and opposition by 80% of the public, the repeal went through.  It is going to be a considerable give-a-way to companies like Comcast and Verizon.  It is going to hurt innovation and turn internet service providers into protection rackets charging businesses and organizations extra to have high-speed service.  I hate this turn of events and will work with my elected officials to reverse this decision. 

So that was last year, what trends are we going to see in 2018.  I forecast three events. 

Democrats Resurgent?

I made a political prediction in 2016, and the election threw it back into my face.  This time around I am going to say that Democrats have a credible chance of retaking the Senate and the House of Representatives.  Plenty of things can happen between now and November, but if Democrats are smart, they might have a chance.  Some credible polling and research are showing this might happen.  If it does happen, I hope the new Congress will attempt to unwind, the budget-busting tax cut and work on regulating the internet like a utility so that net-neutrality does not come and go with each regulatory change of power. 

The Battle of Home Assistants.

Google and Amazon began a pretty and bitter war last year, and it will get worse in 2018.  The competition between “Alexia” or “Google Home” will get more heated.  It should be good for consumers, but it is going to be a mess.  Home thermostats, lights, and even appliances are going to be affected by this conflict.  It is a battle for billions of dollars in revenue so grab some popcorn and enjoy the spectacle. 

I will own my brand.

For me professionally, 2017 was a tough year.  Thanks to the good folks at the Agile Coaching Symposium in Chicago, I realized that I am part of an elite group of professionals.  We are a caring, creative, and hard-working group of souls who just want to improve how people work.  I am going to embrace that community further.  I am going to put in for my Certified Team Coach credentials from the scrum alliance.  I will also try to become a presenter for the Agile Alliance in fall.  I hope to learn more about LeSS and how it might help my organization. 

So that is my take for 2018, I look forward to sharing it with you. 

Until next time.