The Regenerate Web

Last Friday, I went to a presentation by Martin Fowler. You may know Martin From some of his books, or from his participation in the Agile Alliance, or from his role as Chief Scientist at Thoughtworks.

Early delivery has been considered the first commandment of agile.  In the principles behind the Afile Manifesto, the first paragraphs says:

Glen Alleman of the Herding Cats Blog in his post "Make Speed Not Haste" has once again taken an agile concept out of context.  In this case, it is about "early delivery".  

In his excellent management skills blog, Tom Foster posts a brief series on Procrastination. Brad, a middle manager, procrastinates and brings the organization to a state where they are months behind on a major project. Tom spends a lot of time talking about time-span, as a predictor of management qualification. I appreciate this, as it has made me more aware of my limitations.

This week I was asked to review job descriptions for analyst roles within our IT function. The roles were "Analyst, Business Systems", and "Senior Analyst, Business Systems".

The person who asked me was looking for my opinion because I am strongly opinionated, blunt, and have experiencing hiring and leading business analysts and requirements engineers. She wanted to understand the difference between an analyst and a senior analyst.

Last January my role was redefine, and since then I have been managing two teams covering diverse aspects of two software programs. The first team is responsible for requirements, functional design, quality assurance, and the second team is responsible for support.

I didn't realize how long it has been since I posted. I have enjoyed sharing my thoughts, but this last year has been a real challenge. I have truly had a year of death-march-groundhog-day at work, while away from work I have been consumed by some personal activities that have been really taking a lot more time than I expected. Nothing catastrophic, yet. Just stuff. It happens.

I just wanted to drop a post and let you know that I am back - I never really left, but every time I had something to post, it was pretty negative, so I just didn't.

Priorities - a cautionary tale

Losing It...  (and Finding It Again)