Happy New Year, dear readers, clients, friends, and colleagues.
2022 was a topsy-turvy, hold-onto-the-rails kind of ride for me. Here are just a few highlights—
I published my Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching book in January.
I followed up with an audiobook version in July (my first).
I delivered in-person coaching again at several organizations, and it felt strange but good.
From a revenue perspective, and this surprised me a bit, this was the second-highest year in the 20-year history of my consulting practice.
I spoke at many virtual conferences and events. Particularly in the areas of agile leadership and coaching. One of my favorites was a pair of Ask Me Anything sessions at Scrum Masters of the Universe.
I was fortunate to go on-site at the Denver Scrum Gathering and the Nashville Agile Conference. At the Agile Conference, Jen Fields and my session on agile coaching was standing room only, AND the EBAC book sold out at the bookstore.
I did more pro bono coaching and mentoring than in any previous year.
I granted over $25,000 to CAL students with my DEI discount program.
I closed the year by running an experiment called Badass Agile Coaching Day. It drew over 190 attendees and generated proceeds of over $6,500 which I split across Agile for Ukraine and Africa Agility (see below).
And that’s just a sample…
I was reviewing LinkedIn one morning, as I often do, and I noticed a note from Myles Hopkins of Be Agile that he and his firm were celebrating 20 years of service. First, congratulations Myles! But second, it made me think about the longevity of my own firm—RGalen Consulting Group. And it hit me!
In August 2021, I’m going to be celebrating 20-years of consulting service to my clients. Holy Cow!
Happy Anniversary
I thought I’d share a timeline of sorts…
I’d like to disagree with this premise. That is—picking two characteristics of a service and then compromising on the third. I think you have to lead with something and not two-things.
For my coaching practice, I always try to lead with GOOD. That implies I lead with—
Experience
Skills
Principles
Ethics
Client-centered…
February 5, 2018
I’m experienced enough in the Scrum community to remember several early attempts at assessing the maturity of agile and Scrum teams.
- Around 2008 – 2010, the Nokia Test was originated by Bas Vodde in his work at Nokia. Jeff Sutherland and others have referenced it.
- Then the Nokia Test evolved into the infamous Scrum-But test around 2010. Aka, “We are doing Scrum, but…”. Below is a publication from 2011 that Sutherland shares about the evolution of the test –
- Around the same time these were evolving, in 2007, Ahmid Sidky wrote his dissertation focusing on an agile assessment framework. He called it the Sidky Agile Measurement Instrument or SAMI. And to my knowledge, it was the first attempt at a holistic instrument or framework.
My point in taking you down “history lane” is that agile assessment tools and frameworks have been thought about since ~2007. So, for the past 10+ years.
The problem is, that none of these, and the ones introduced later, have really done an effective job of helping teams improve.
I’ve been speaking at TechWell events since around 2000. First, I started out with track talks. Then I started sharing full-day and ½ day workshops. I’ve also been invited to deliver several keynotes at the Star and Agile Dev / Better Software conferences.
All-in-all, it’s been a professional relationship that I’ve really enjoyed.
Recently, the long-time program chair, Lee Copeland, stepped aside. I truly want to thank Lee for the years he invested in helping me grow this side of my consulting practice. I owe him a great deal.
Program Chair & Talent Scout
Given my history and experienced, TechWell approached me to help fill the Program Chair role for the:
- Agile Development
- Better Software
- DevOps
Conference series going forward.
The conference has a West / East format. The West version is held in Las Vegas, typically in early June. The East version is held in Orlando, typically in early November.
The programs are usually developed 8 months in advance of the conference, so you need to reach out to me early if you’re interested in participating.
The program chair is responsible for pulling together approximately:
- ~4 Keynote presentations
- ~4 full-day workshops
- ~20 ½ day workshops
- ~60 60-minute track talks
across the four major themes (Agile Development, Traditional Software Development, DevOps) of the conference.
And the talent scout part of my role will focus on looking for new and interesting topics, speakers, and formats to introduce to the conferences.
Every year I try to spend time on my own training. I usually start thinking about two things the year before:
- What are some knowledge gaps that I have that I’d like to fill, and
- What are upcoming trends that will cause me to become obsolete if I don’t get ahead of them?
Then I review the available courses and I’ll try to come up with 2-3 things that I’ll focus on for improvement.
Last year I posted my first "Sharpening the Saw" post in June. That inspired me to do it again for 2017, but closer to the beginning of the year. You'll probably see this become an annual post to remind me (and perhaps you) to plot a journey of continuous learning.
I’m often asked why I do what I do. It’s simple really.
In the late 1990’s I was an early adopter of Extreme Programming while working at Lucent. I was in a leadership role, leading software development and test teams, and it seemed to me to be an interesting way of effectively building software.
I had struggled with Waterfall approaches for years. I’d even worked hard at refining my estimation processes. But my projects were inevitably challenged and many failed to meet critical criteria. That is – projects that met all aspects of our stakeholder expectations.
When I stumbled on XP, it just…resonated with my experience. It also resonated with my leadership style and beliefs that PEOPLE were the central success proposition in software efforts.
Not: risk plans, test plans, project plans, management spreadsheets, cost accounting, estimates, system requirement specifications, metrics, status reports, etc.
