Yesterday I had a really weird experience and I wanted to share it, not as something reflecting good on me, but a reminder of the value of sharing knowledge and learning from people around you.
I have bumped into people that have taken #agile and #lean to other and better places than me, and done more of it than I ever thought. Of course and it’s lovely.
When working at Spotify years back, I bumped into Behnosh, and had one of those experience. A deep and solid understanding of the agile principle and mindset, applying it to all kinds of situations that I hadn’t even experienced.
Yesterday we had a lunch and I’m always interested in hearing how people ended up where they are right now? So I asked how she got started with agile, and the answer floored me, I actually got emotional even.
Well, it was you and your writing, Marcus.
We’re talking 2008, or so. My understanding and musings was very basic at that time. But - Behnosh read it (and, it should be said, many other things :)) and made a career of it. She did that alone, I got to be a small seed of that.
Here’s the thing, at the time I was VERY fortunate in several regards; I worked at Avega where learning was a core theme from the creation of the company (thank you, Markus Torpvret for Elevate and that focus)
Secondly the people that I got to work with there reads like an #agile #lean #kanban hall of fame now. These were all in my close network and we met regularly; Håkan Forss, Joakim Sundén, Christophe Achouiantz, Morgan Ahlström, and many others that inspired me.
We did things together; played lean games, presented, bounced ideas of each other and wrote articles and blog posts. It was the best school I’ve ever been in. I was “worst in the band”, as it’s known - but I learned a lot.
What an amazing opportunity and fortune to be in that context. I had done nothing to deserve that. But I did one thing - I shared. I wrote blog posts (https://www.marcusoft.net has been going since 2006), I presented, listen to others and talked. Now, sometimes that was driven by an urge to learn more - but I also did share a lot. It was my way to document for myself, but I shared my thoughts with other. I did that part.
That people that I didn’t even meet until many years later got use from that now and then made great things of it… Blows my mind.
Share your knowledge. You will learn by doing it. And you know what; you might even affect people you don’t know yet.
Thanks Behnosh for telling me about this!