outside resource – ScrumOfOne

Introducing a Forelog: Experiments in Vision

(The following is for Tony B. (“What it is!”), my buddy at work, who wrote a LinkedIn post that inspired me to write a reply that “exceeded the maximum character limit”. Grr. And thus, I’m reminded why I still have this blog medium: to express myself on my terms, which, ‘twould seem, can include a seven month gap between posts.)

There’s a LOT in: “The goal is to be directionally correct, honoring your values and objectives with each step.”

When coaching product development, we’re hoping our customers (…users) will buy our offerings, and ideally use ’em, and double ideally love ’em, ’cause it’s changed their behaviour to be more in line with futures/visions both the supplier (company) and demander (user) want.

Our #product offerings are how we #impact the world, the stuff of a #backlog, a ‘what’ from which we seek feedback.

When coaching process development, we’re hoping our teams (…and scaled entities) will try out low-risk ideas to have things suck a li’l less over “the next 2 weeks”, and maybe even be awesome, while appreciating this habit to practice: pause & reflect & ask how we can be better.

Our #process improvements are how we #conduct ourselves in the world, the stuff of a #frontlog (my word), a ‘how’ from which we seek feedback.

When coaching personal development, we… uh, I… uh, I don’t really know what I’m doing here, so I pull from YouTube videos, and wise words gathered from the years, and my proclivity to merge mental models, resulting in an extrapolation of the above.

This Blog Post is an NFT

You can buy it here:
https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/74966873652764404914166897382744472320940660206550400290097044613345216299009/

Now, for this blog post to really be an NFT, it would be ‘minted’ onto a blockchain, and thus live there. But this whole NFT thing is still a new space, with plenty for pictures of apes, but not for literary art. So I’m just makin’ pictures that represent posts, minting those, and selling them for cryptocurrency:
https://opensea.io/collection/scrumofone

More on what an NFT is, the specifics of this project, and any benefits you may receive by being a holder of a ScrumOfOne NFT is here:
http://scrumofone.com/nft

Fine, I’ll share the benefits I’ve thought up thus far:

Experiment with this world of blockchain / cryptocurrency / NFT / Web3 / “the future”, satisfying an intellectual curiosity.
Allow for a community of supporters of this blog, the ideas herein, or future ventures, as well as a means to express that support.
Provide a means of possible profit-sharing from my future ventures.

Still curious about ‘tokenizing’ blog posts?

Here’s a project that smoothly does my approach. I decided against this because I didn’t want to inject a picture or code snippet from somebody I didn’t know.
Here’s a write-up of a future of blogging being NFTs. I get it, but I ain’t a hardcore I-make-my-living-from-this blogger, so I don’t care that much about my posts living on a blockchain, where its content is transparently attributable to me via a wallet ID.

Where am I going with this thing? Let’s keep exploring…

To-Don’t List

I’ve made to-do lists since I was a kid, currently managing a love/hate relationship with ‘em, which is ironic, since I’m in a profession where I’m all about backlogs and frontlogs. So you’d think I’d be dang good at ‘em. I mean, I am. (I’m real’ humble, too!) And I bet you are, too. And we can get better, with a little help from our friends: Bruce Lee, Greg Marta, and Tim Ferriss.

Oh, and y’saw “To-Don’t List” in the title, and wonder when we’ll get more into that? Yeah, that’s at the end. I can’t stop ya from skipping ahead, but its build-up will make a little more sense if you hang out for the ride…

Low-bar Agile Coaching is Crafting the Next Frontlog Item

Look at your hat. It says “Agile Coach”. I know, it’s a weird choice of hat, but where you work, everybody’s got a hat, some folks wear more than one, and this is yours.

How do you stand in this hat? Well, depending on how much you’re responsible for the client result (“doing, in the present”) or the client growth (“doing, in the future”), there are 9 ways to stand, per a popular diagram by some Dandy People.

Yet from my experience, there are 2 main flavours of stance, based on what the client is expecting when you roll up to ‘em, wearing that hat:

consulting: “I don’t have time. Just fuckin’ tell me what to do.”
coaching: “I have some time. Get me to see what to do.”

In both cases, your hat says you’re paid to help them with what to do next. And that thing, that next thing, that next thing you have some input on, is hopefully perceived as worth what they’re paying you to wear that hat. (Heck, instead, they could’ve printed a developer hat!)

So whether you’re peddling yourself as

a magician of “aha” moments,
an empathetic ear,
a resource in their back pocket,
a cheerleader in their corner,
a trusted advisor,
an accountability partner, or
a parental force of high expectations & tough love,

your client will walk away with a thing to do next. It may not have been explicitly stated by you… it might be a new approach, an old idea, or a boost of confidence to actually do a thing.

So what’s #TheNextBigThing?

It is one actionable item of continuous improvement.
It is one experiment that you could do, which you would do.
It is ONE low-risk try to have things suck less ‘round here, and maybe even be awesome.

Want a low bar for earning that Agile Coach hat, or Scrum Master hat?

Craft the Next Frontlog Item.

Oh, and it’s totally safe to try this at home, too.

You’re not a real Agile Coach unless You’ve Coached Yourself

Or, to bastardize a quote attributed to Gandhi:

Be the Agile Coach you want to see in the world.

And you can start being that person at home. Right now.

Think about it… If you were hiring a coder, wouldn’t you want someone who codes in their free time, contributing to open source projects, or is otherwise experimenting on their own? If you were hiring a network engineer, wouldn’t you prefer someone who has set up a LAN in their basement, or is otherwise experimenting on their own? Why wouldn’t this apply to hiring a Scrum Master or Agile Coach? If you were hiring one of these kinds of cool cats, wouldn’t you rather have someone who geeks out on this topic at home, or is otherwise experimenting on their own?

Regardless of the skill or domain, finding ways to experiment on your own means: