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.

Continue reading Introducing a Forelog: Experiments in Vision

I Am Writing A Smart Contract

At least, I think I am. I definitely want to.

I mean, what I really want, or in more Agile wording: the problem I’m trying to solve is: an owner should be able to name an NFT, and have that name appear in the crypto asset. This requires an owner-only ability to change its metadata, and then a dynamic updating of the associated media file.

At least, I think it does. It makes sense to me.

I mean, what I really want is to make shit again. So I downloaded VS Code, and am following along with a YouTube tutorial. I’ve got some documentation open, and more accurately, I’m stumbling along, setting up a development environment on my 11″ MacBook Air from 2013, never having been a coder. And it’s exciting.

At least, I think it is. I feel solid about all this.

I mean, writing a smart contract may not be necessary, but the adventure of making something does feel necessary, and I hope to share the specific (and on-chain!) utility I’m after once I have something to show, as opposed to the other times I’d declare I’m working on a project. I do wonder “Where the fuck am I going with this thing?” as I explore this latest thing out loud; inner critic acknowledged & put aside, this is currently the art into which I’m pouring my heart: my next cadenza.


In 2022, I hope you find what you can control, along with what you can’t (like 2021) (and 2020) (…and 2019, 2018, …). If you’re like me, you’ll probably realize you have a much better ability to control the effort than the outcome, so to what combination of hell-yes inspiring outcome (vision / noun) and gut-level enjoyable effort (activity / verb) do you want to give your focus?

#StayAgileMyFriends #YouGotThis

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:

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

My Approach to Running an Intervention

On my resume, it says I ran an intervention. I’ll admit, it’s a dramatic term, but damn was it necessary. Certain details aren’t important – I’m not gonna be world-buildin’ here – so I’ll leave out personalities, politics, and a lot of context to jump to the point in the story where I called it: the last Retrospective.

Well, fine. A little context: The team was fractured, which isn’t a fair characterization because… they never fully formed. It was always one team who’d been together for a while, led by “Alice”, and the newer few who joined from a broken up team, led by “Bob”. This was a move by engineering management to create full-stack teams, and this one was building a new product, requiring a new API.

You can see where this is going: Alice & Bob didn’t agree on the API design. Like, really didn’t agree. Things got stagnant. So stagnant, that as their Agile Coach at one Retrospective I, gently, had it. I pointed to Alice & Bob and requested their presence for 45 minutes as the 3 of us over the next day at the local hotel lobby down the block for an intervention.

I had never used that term, let alone run one, but I knew I’d figure it out by then, much better than on the spot, and it went like this…

Continue reading My Approach to Running an Intervention

My Approach to Re-Centering

I have a little black book.

No, it’s not that.

This is the point of the blog-post-writing process where I decided to search through 10 years of public journaling to see if I’ve covered this topic before. I have, 8 years ago. And I began that post the exact same way. Ugh.

Do I keep typing? Is there additional value I can provide? Have I changed at all in a way that’s worth sharing?

Eh, I’ve got two things for ya.

1 – This practice is still the best thing I can do, at a deeper level than a solid night’s rest, to re-center myself.

2 – I’ve recently recommitted to do this 4-hour activity every quarter, after only doing it a handful of times over the past few years.

Re-read that post. (I just did.)

How do you re-center yourself?