I’m personally very excited about 2018. At Red Tangerine, we are embarking on a new project to study how Scrum is being used in different countries around the world (for more on this see our Agile Around The World page. We have also just launched our new web site, and I am keen to engage with the Agile community through our blogs. I am also looking forward to working with new clients and teams, not to mention continuing my own journey of learning and discovery. On a more personal level, I intend to travel more – I love seeing new places and meeting new people. I also aim to practice the guitar more and develop my Spanish, though I have a long way to go in mastering either, I resolve to at least try and improve both.
Its certainly going to be a busy year. I look at my personal backlog of Agile books not yet read, home improvement projects not started and chores that I have put off. However, I try not to dwell on these. I have stuck to not trying to do too much at once and seeing things through to completion. If there is one thing I have been guilty of, its not recognising and celebrating the things that I have achieved. To name just a few, I repaired the garden fence and repainted the hallway of my house during the summer. I obtained both my CSPO and Kanban Management Professional certifications in the last year. I completed my contract with my last client just before Christmas and I like to think that I left the teams that I worked with in a better place then when I first arrived.
As tempting as it is to always be looking forward, I believe it is important to take some time out to reflect on our successes and that is not only true of ourselves as individuals, but even more so for Agile teams. Allowing room for a team to look back at its successes builds morale and momentum. It helps the team believe it can achieve great things. It builds trust, positivity and contributes to an invigorating and enjoyable workplace. Though certainly not the only place for such reflection, retrospectives can be a great tool not just for identifying improvements to processes, but also as a place to recognise the team’s successes. I know that I am guilty myself of not reflecting on successes enough. This will certainly be one of my main resolutions for the year ahead.
Happy new year, congratulations on your achievements in 2017, and here’s to a cracking 2018!
