You WANT to be a part of this!

Haven’t you always wanted to be involved in an exciting project where you can not only benefit the federal government and the taxpayers of this great country, but also private sector?  Then, look no further – you can help shape the way our agency provides services to its stakeholders and make a tremendous impact on a project that really matters.  Our acquisition has a very distinct vision; however, we don’t have the actual solution to our problem, and we think that you have the answer!  This product will enable both the government and private sector customers with the ability to create and receive real time feedback on compliant government documentation which adapts to current literary trends and protocols.  Instead of our agency pretending to know exactly which product will work to achieve our vision and which solution is best, we are actively seeking qualified vendors to SHOW us their creative solutions.  Wouldn’t you like to be involved in an acquisition that is more than just an exhausting writing exercise, where you can actually demonstrate what your company can do?  That’s what this acquisition is all about.  Rather than requiring extensive written proposals up front, we plan on conducting this procurement using a multi-phased approach.  The first phase will involve a small written portion to get in the door regarding  your company’s overall approach to transformation and how you envision achieving our vision.  The second phase is when it really gets exciting, because we are asking contractors to provide a demo of a similar approach.  This is where you get to show off to government officials and impress us by showing us what you can do and what your company is made of!  The third and final phase of this procurement would involve more of a traditional proposal submission but we won’t waste your time at this phase unless you are a serious contender.  If you want to be part of this exciting acquisition, please click on the link to see all the details!

Scrum Master versus Scrum Mother

For anyone who is both a non-technical person and a contracting professional involved in digital services training, a common problem you may encounter is “How do I understand and grasp all of these new agile methodologies and concepts?”  One way that I have been able to solve this problem is by coming up with real life examples that I can relate to and applying them to these technical concepts.  I’m a mother to 3 amazing little girls and in thinking about agile versus waterfall I came to realize that there is no way I would be able to make it through a morning (let alone a day) if I was to operate in a sequential, non-iterative process.  So once I realized that I operate day-to-day using agile methods, it was easier for me to understand.

The common values of scrum are similar to values that parents inherently have – commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect.  With scrum, in terms of commitment, team members individually commit to achieving their team goals just like family members commit to achieving their family goals.  With scrum, in terms of courage, team members know they have the courage to work through conflict and challenges together so that they can do the right thing similar to how family members should know that they have the courage to work through conflict and challenges together so that they can do the right thing.  The same applies to the remaining values of focus, openness, and respect.

Although the title of this blog seems to indicate that I think parents operate as the “scrum master”, I don’t – in reality I think parents operate more like product owners; however, in my opinion, the term “parent owner” seems like a form of word captivity, so I chose to go with “scrum mother” instead.  Similar to product owners, parents write “user stories”, prioritize them based on importance and dependencies, and add them to the backlog.  Also, good product owners should have empathy and the ability to put one’s self in another’s shoes which is an extremely important characteristic for parents to also hold.  As an example, on my AWS day an “Epic” that I may have is “Survival”… just kidding?  An epic may be to get my children everywhere they need to go (school, extracurricular activities, etc.) on time.  So I can divide my day into several sprints.  I typically have a morning sprint, afternoon sprint, and evening sprint.  I will focus on one sprint (morning) to show how I have to be iterative and reprioritize during the day.  For example, during my morning sprint I may want to accomplish the following which can be characterized as “user stories”:  make sure my daughters wake up on time, get them all breakfast (and to actually eat it), get their teeth brushed, get them dressed, get their hair done, get my own teeth brushed, feed the dog, take the dog out, pack them their lunch and snacks, get a load of dishes in the dishwasher, get them all in the car, and get them to school by 8:50am.  However, around 7:30am my daughter lets me know that she needs her dance leotard washed prior to her dance class (which takes place during my afternoon sprint) because she put all of them in the laundry, rather than holding one aside for the day like I had asked.  I had originally planned on throwing in a load of laundry during my afternoon sprint; however, now I have to reprioritize so I push back the task of loading dishes in the dishwasher to the afternoon sprint and move up the load of laundry to the morning sprint.  And I try really hard to be empathetic with my daughter by realizing she has a lot going on and may not remember everything I tell her to do, rather than getting upset with her for waiting to tell me at the last minute that a change needs to be made.  And again, none of this could ever be accomplished using a waterfall approach because without having the ability to reprioritize, my day would be a failure.

Thinking of agile and scrum in this manner helps me better understand the technical concepts and hopefully it helps you also if you struggle with this problem.  Now, if I could only figure out how not to be the scrum master, product owner, and development team all rolled into one then I could fit a massage or a spa trip for myself into one of my sprints 🙂