Three Of The Most Hectic Days Of The Year (So Far)

Today was the third consecutive day spent with an Agile consultant at work. My days were typically about 9 hours long, which doesn't sound all that bad except that there was almost no "down time" whatsoever to be found! (Examples of what I mean by "down time" at work: reading e-mail, visiting buddies just to shoot the breeze, surfing the Web, blogging.. in other words, either things I get to do by myself, or activities not directly related to work.. or both!) I find days like that utterly draining, and having three of them in a row has left me the proverbial empty shell. And it's no coincidence that I managed a measly one entry here over the past two evenings!

However, the consultant is quite good at her job. She works in an Agile fashion without being silly about it - some of my co-workers could learn a lot from her on that score - and she absorbed an incredible amount of information in a short period of time. One of the realities of my job is that some of the people I work with respond better to expert opinion than they ever will to any other kind. I don't mean to imply by that statement that I think this consultant will simply point out all the same issues that I've already highlighted, or suggest all the same solutions that I've already proposed - neither of those is the case - but rather that, if she did, it would immediately carry more weight than it ever had coming from me! That's a perspective I can't relate to, because I tend to judge information as information, and couldn't care less if it came from a janitor or the president of the company. I'm as likely to buy into what the janitor's saying as anything out of the president's mouth, and every bit as inclined to challenge what the president puts forth as I would any proposal from the janitor. Valuing data based on where in the hierarchy it came from is a much more common approach at work, as well as assuming that anyone who's published a book on the subject must have better advice than anyone who hasn't. All of which means that, when the higher-ups arrange to have an expert consultant brought in, there's at least some reason to believe she'll be listened to. Which is a good thing.

Most of the three days this week was spent talking to product and project people to help the consultant gain an understanding of our environment and largest pain points, and then planning what to do the next time she's here (two and a half weeks from now). I was happy to see that this wasn't one of those deals where the consultant is busy trying to figure out how to drum up more business with us, but instead was focused on how to maximize the value we get out of her during the 5 3-day weeks we'll have her. That sort of thing goes a long way toward building trust, which is undoubtedly a strong pre-requisite to allowing an outsider to walk in and poke holes in our current processes.

She also paid me the compliment of saying that she thought, from what she'd heard, that I'd done a very good job with the Feature Teams in my role as Agile Manager. One of the ideas we floated was having another role like mine - but not me! - who'd be as involved with the various management teams as I've been with the Feature Teams. In other words, a second Agile coach within the organization, but focused more on the higher levels of the company instead of the ground troops. I love that notion, for a couple of reasons: first, we need it; and second, it'd give me a peer at work to compare notes with, bounce ideas off of, and generally ally myself with in the never ending battle against Waterfall Wally. The problem, of course, is imagining that we could find another person in the company who'd be willing to put his or her job on the line on a daily basis, like I do. Clearly that's not the sort of position you'd want to fill with someone who has career aspirations, because as I blogged about ages ago now it's hard enough finding Feature Leads who're comfortable having to occasionally stand up to their Product Owner, let alone locating someone who'd make a living at telling management and the executive team where they've screwed up!