Weeknote 13 - aaaaannnnddd relax
I had another awesome week this week, busy followed by complete zen… I spent Monday at work, Tuesday at the BBC product management conference, Wednesday and Thursday at Lean Agile Scotland. Friday was a day off (baking and cooking for hubby’s birthday mainly). Here are some highlights.
What should I remember this week for?
Relaxing and feeling totally at peace after Lean Agile Scotland
Word of the week:
Chill
Message of the week:
Do what’s best for you
Who taught me something or really made me think this week?
The very first session of the first day of Lean Agile Scotland was a keynote from Abeba Birhane. She spoke about how technology always, without fail, has a negative impact on people and society. She talked about AI and how discriminatory it is. She spoke about how these things can only learn from data in the past. So even if you manage to create an algorithm based on data today, it is already out of date by tomorrow, because it can’t predict the future. It really made me think. (And it was quite something for first thing on a Wednesday morning!)
I was talking to Cameron Leask at Lean Agile Scotland, we had a lovely time chatting about lots of things. Cameron had been at my session at ScotSoft last week so we started on that and the conversation soon moved into other things. One thing we talk about was about the agile community and how you learn about agile ‘stuff’. It was Cameron’s first year at Lean Agile Scotland, he hadn’t known it was a thing! That got me to talking about how much I’ve learned from other people by engaging with the wider community in Scotland.
That got me to thinking, what has given me the most learning in my journey to being an agile coach and being passionate about people and work? I realised - no book or course can teach you about it. You need to learn from others and learn with others. At community events, on the job anything. Only by doing and sharing can you truly understand the value of agile ways of working. I’ve now invited Cameron to join us some time at Lean Agile Glasgow so he can benefit from our community as well as the amazing minds who assembled in Edinburgh for Lean Agile Scotland this week.
At the BBC product management conference, I delivered a version of my ‘People are precious’ time is the resource’ session. It was different for me talking to a room of product managers, normally its developers or scrum masters and agile coaches! It was a really fun day out and I managed to tell a whole room of people about the story of NUMMI (for a brief overview look here, but I can point you to some more in depth analyses.) for the first time! But my session is about thinking about those around you and how you can help them to break free from some of the societal norms that actually interfere with us, as software professionals, doing our best work. I spoke about how, as product managers, the people in the room could be so influential in this as they are so often the people that teams look to for guidance and direction. I got the feeling that many of them didn’t realise that the team look tot hem for direction not only on their product, but how they work together as a team. I’m hoping I managed to help open their eyes to how much of a positive influence they can have in helping people in their teams feel empowered and valuable.
Where did I find inspiration?
The marquee at Lean Agile Scotland. The organisers put so much effort into making sure there are places and spaces not only for sessions, but for people to relax, work and socialise. The marquee is one of those spaces. In the marquee they had colouring in books and pencils. I spent a lot of time in here during the conference. I coloured a picture of my family clan castle (I’m a McLean of Duart - this is Duart Castle - it’s on the Isle of Mull). When I left the conference on Thursday I felt so overwhelmed with calmness and zen. I’d had a lovely time at the conference, I’d spent more time in the marquee than I had in sessions, but I’m ok with that. There were some amazing speakers and I heard a few of them, but I needed to do what was right for me after a few crazy weeks and this decision was absolutely the right decision.
What am I still trying to work out?
I was speaking with Iain Tully at LAS. One of the things we briefly spoke about was scaling agile. We were speaking about whether we like or dislike the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). We were talking about how widely known the term is now and how it is something that people look for when looking at big scale agile.
I can’t speak for Iain, but personally, I find the whole thing too much, there are too many boundaries, too many things for people to change to make it work and it is set out in a way that makes it look easy to ‘implement’ (which it won’t be). But a lot of organisations like the structure of it, it makes them feel secure. As an independent contractor, I may come up against people who don’t take me on if I don’t agree that SAFe is the way to go. But in my heart, I feel like most organisations will need to take an altogether different approach to change and agility, they need to try some things and see what works. Some of what works might look a bit like SAFe - excellent,. But if we start with the solution and don’t tackle the problem then we might end up with even more problems. It’s an interesting one. I wouldn’t want something like that to get in the way of my business making a difference to organisations, but it could be a difficult conversation to have in the future, I need to consider my stance on it.
How can I be better next week?
Don’t sign up for so much in the future, just stop and remember to relax. It’s good for me.
What am I looking forward to next week?
The first ever Reinventing Work: Scotland chapter meetup! I’ve been working with Jane, James and Simon in making this happen and it’s finally happening next week. Super looking forward to having some conversations that span wider than software and how we make work better for people across Scotland.
#nowplaying
The Planets, Gustav Holst. Been introducing mini McLean to some classical music.
#nowreading
Still Thinking in Systems, but it’s been a while since I picked it up
#nowwatching
The rugby world cup where I can. Scotland went out of the competition today despite mini McLean wearing a Scotland shirt! :(
