Harry's Ruminations

So, I've had a few rants   thoughts   on process in the past . I'd like to revisit those with my Big Boy pants on.  For one thing, during my current job search process, my experience in Agile in the past 4 years always comes up, so I thought I'd parrot here what I generally say in the interviews, on why you'd choose one versus another. If you'll allow me, I'm going to argue that both are valuable, and both should be in your organization. First, let's define our terms.  When I say Scrum , I generally mean the process that arose in the early 2000's employing same-size sprints, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and backlogs.  See the wiki link for more detail.  When I say Kanban , I mean the process employing same-sized units of work in a continuous delivery stream with a strong focus on Service Level Agreement (SLA) for a given team. Things I'm explicitly not  discussing: XP or "Extreme Programming" Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Any...

Well, the goodbye echos are over, the severance check is safely in the bank, and the initial supernova of Job Hunt Hysteria has died down. Yep, I'm just unemployed at the moment.  Nothing terribly special...just a guy looking for his next gig, like millions of others. The first week of "not going to work" didn't go so well.  I was completely off-schedule at home, and an person with my brain chemistry devoid of structure tends toward anxiety and acting-out.  I did act-out on Wednesday, so the road back there continues.  I have calmed down  considerably, and I feel like I'm through the change curve to the point of "Yep, I don't work at Lexmark anymore." I have two sorts of days now:  Days where I'm at home, and days where I'm on the hunt.  "Home" days like yesterday are really nice--I get to take some of the burden off Whitney and do things around the house, deferred maintenance and errands mostly.  For example, I finally close...

Double entendre....on darn, already off to a poor start . So, as 1 1 month ago, I took the leap, signed the papers, and volunteered  to leave my former employer.  This came with some stipulations.  For one year, I may not: Try to recruit anyone actively employed at Lexmark or assist any new employer in same. Besmirch or otherwise criticize Lexmark. Return to work there. That's right.  In the course of one afternoon, I went from a a fully-employed Software Architect at a (nominally) Fortune 500 company to 4 weeks from out-the-door on the job market.   Today marks my first day of official unemployment.   As it stands, I have no job offers outstanding, but that's certainly not been the case through the past 4 weeks.   So, the first week, I got offered a job at a startup.  No interview, just say 'yes to the dress' as it were.  I was so excited I nearly leaped out of my skin.  A STARTUP!  There's nothing more exciting f...