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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Going Agile... in the Philippines


When I first started working in the world of software development I was enamored of the idea that computers would make our lives easier; in addition to that it was just so stinkin' sci fi awesome to be working with computers and networks. Of course this was in the late 80s and early days for personal computers, though not my latent geekiness.
This was around the time when I worked for a "baby Bell" spin off, US West; they were busy creating the first of what has now become the worldwide ATM banking network. Interesting and exciting times for a 20-something girl.

Fast forward to today, 30+ years later and I am now an Agile Coach. Having held nearly every job in software development I have unique experience to aid me in coaching teams in their adoption of Agile. I have been in their shoes, or worked closely with someone who has, and can help them see how things are different in Agile as well as what the benefit is to moving toward Agile practices.

My time as a project manager in particular was illuminating, if also frustrating. You can not pay me enough to go back to the days of spending hours on a MS Project file, with associated Gantt charts, guessing and tweaking those guesses to try to fit all the work into a timeline and budget that were completely out of sync with the ask. And don't even get me started on trying to make those plans work in the real world.

That's what I love about Agile. We don't say 'no', we just say here is how much we can get done with that much money and/or in that time frame. What do you want first? If necessary we may have to ask questions like, 'what can you live without?' But by that time, we should have delivered something that has made our customer happy and the question usually goes down much easier especially since the work in question is probably not something they want anymore anyway.

I believe my time as a wife and parent has also shaped much of my approach as a coach. My negotiation skills, honed over 28 years of marriage, are super useful when I need to get managers to loosen the reins a little bit, which requires that they trust me enough and are willing, and you don't get there with a simple please.

Similarly, many times I have had to stand by and watch teams fail at something because they needed to learn on their own. Early in my coaching, I had much difficulty with that. It's become easier and I believe it helps build much stronger more cohesive teams by allowing them this opportunity.

I love what I do and that makes it all the more amazing that I now get to go do this in the Philippines. For a year. Ah mazing.

I plan to blog about the experience of coaching a large portion (400-600) of an enterprise organization through their Agile adoption--soup to nuts--in the Philippines. I know some people would be terrified and balk at the thought, but I have to be honest, I am unbelievably excited. I know it won't be all wine and roses (I don't even know if they have roses there but I'll find out) and I'm totally okay with that.

I like a challenge. Follow me and I'll share it with you.


2 comments:

  1. Ingrid, this is so exciting! I know you'll do a fantastic job. I'll be interested in hearing your challenges and how you resolve them... and your overall experience, of course. Best of luck to you! Let me know if you ever want to bounce ideas around!!!

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  2. So very cool Ingrid! Excited for you to be traveling and exploring your craft abroad. Can't wait to keep up with your adventures.

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