Work, Writing and other foibles.

Last few days I've noticed I've been hitting the posts rather long. I'm remembering how to write and remembering that I kinda enjoy it. I used to try and journal more, but that fell by the wayside. Too many things to work thru or think thru and time just shriveled up. Not that I have much more time now, but I will see if I can do more writing. Writing as self discovery is always a fun form of cheap therapy. It is a lot easier to know oneself on a couple of lines than sitting around pondering. Not that sitting about pondering doesn't have its place but writing it out give it a sense of grounding and permanence. Of course I'd really like to keep it from degenerating into sophmoric, whiny, emo crap. There is too much to be excited about, to be angry about, to be sad about, to be happy about, that I really shouldn't spend all my time woe-is-me-ing.

I decided yesterday to pull back a little at work. I've been a bit obsessed with work lately, between PBCs and the new project, and meeting with Execs, I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to really cave into the work. Since our final sprint of the last iteration I've been putting in a ton of hours, with very little relief. I need to stop. Part of the key to Agile is working at a sustainable pace. As one of the managers pointed out to me, if I'm violating the principal of Agile, how can I get my team to follow along with me as well? Do as I say not as I do, doesn't fly much with adults either.

I've been trying to focus my efforts on doing things that my management and team want, which in some ways is the right thing to do, but I've been neglecting my own personal drives and goal. My career plan is a pretty vague affair. I've been looking at the band ladder and saying --yeah, I should be scaling this. I need to really think about what I want to do. I will say I do enjoy working with a team and building something bigger than what I could do on my own. Leadership is hard but still a good challenge. I still enjoy doing individual development -- MDD while currently under wraps due to time constraints, is a good bit of fun.

One of the struggles I have with work has been that I've got a good insight into what will be useful for our team and for our company -- technologies like Object Grid or PHP or Virtualization, and while I've been right, I haven't been able to show the value to my management or grow the skills enough on my own to make them worthwhile. What hit me the other day is that understanding the need and the value of these skills and growing them either personally or within the team is really what technical leadership means. I should be exploring this stuff, and even if my management doesn't care or see value, I should take it as far as I can.
I've been focused a little too much on bands and certification, and not really enough on leadership. If I want to get better at it, I need to practice it more. So while I'm not going to stop listening to the needs of my management or the teams I'm working with, I still feel I need to be responsive to both, I need to trust my instincts a little more and be able to follow thru with what I think it is important and right.

I may not have all the opportunities to deploy all of these cutting edge technologies like some of the leads in ISSW, but I can take the opportunities to play and grow in things that interest me. I can write this stuff and blog it with the best of them. Exploration is cool, but the important part is bring back what you discovered. I was challenged by my manager that no one gets paid to sit around and work with the cool toys and dreaming about what is important. I think I realized that to challenge back -- that is exactly what we're paying our leaders for --creating a vision of how we can deliver value back to our customers, and then executing on it. If I can transform a vision to a reality faster with PHP or Project Zero, then I am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

For promising to shrink back from work, this has been alot of words about work :) But it has proven cathartic. I've put the career thing in perspective rather than blowing it out of proportion. I have validated and focused on what I want to be important to me, solving difficult challenges with cool technology. I want to grow and lead technical direction, rather than being a n empty consumer driven by management whimsy. I can get back to reality a bit more and work on the rest of my life. I can work to those goals that are not covered in a PBC or a IDP, but rather my own goal list. Sucker that I am, I really like the " Say" Video from John Mayer for the Movie "The Bucket List". I may get around to seeing the film, but for now the video and wikipedia spoilers were good enough. It's good to have goals 43 or otherwise. My birthday is coming up so expect to see a few more goal related posts as I ponder last year and plan the years ahead.