Reasons why I'm leaving my job

As more people find out about my most recent news, I began to recognize more reasons why my current employer just didn't work for me. This article is not an attack on them but instead, this article will hopefully help identify issues for any employers or employees in the software industry.

Socially Alone - It was no one's fault that I became socially isolated, but it began with the firing of a friend. After they were fired my "clique" dispersed and I was alone in a pretty social environment. As a part-time extrovert and part-time introvert, it was easy to put my head down and continue to work. It was after all the changes that I isolated myself until I was unhappy. 

Disorganization - In my daily work, I communicate with several people and my development team about upcoming product requirements and new features. At my job, it is very difficult to find who is accountable and makes the "executive order" (other than the executives which I am pretty separated from). A lack of confidence in being cohesive began to become a daily issue for myself. I really hope the push for Holacracy assists them with resolving this issue.

Perks - My issue with perks is more a criticism about start-up mentality than any company in particular. The issue that I see with providing perks (beer, food, gym, etc...) is that feels like the company has leverage so they can have lower pay and stressful positions. It is not that the company uses the leverage to get the other, as an individual you accept the downsides for the perks. It also makes it hard for external people to understand that work may not always be fun.

Drop in the Ocean - Even before I knew what I was going to be, I always promised myself that I would work my ass off. In my post-graduate career, I was able to work my ass off and do whatever I could do to help my team. However, being at such a large company with so many powerful products that I never felt the impact of my work. 

Couldn't Grow - Since I've started, the company I've worked for has almost doubled in size; and in the growth, the diversity of roles has expanded. There are teams to gather the client requirements, support clients, look at architecture, manage DevOps, and so much more. It became more apparent towards the end of my time, I would always be boxed to the role that I owned and would always be distanced from learning the end-to-end business.

Started Looking Elsewhere - There was curiosity about other employers in Regina, however, I was always happy at my current job so I never thought to look. As soon as I began looking, I was destined to leave even though I was constantly reassuring myself that I could potentially still stay within the company. I applied at three companies in Regina, each had their specific perks and benefits to being part of the company. 

There are many reasons why I wish I could stay, I feel like my soon to be past employer deserves recognition for: 

The People - The people are amazing individuals and it is no surprise that these people are generally just good people. They have the best conversations that drive thought or just bring a smile to your face. If there is one thing I'll miss most is the people that make everything a "great experience".

The Product - There are a lot of cool things happening, pushing technologies and implementing patterns to build quality applications. I've been on the front-lines of building web apps and understand the efforts that go into these astonishing results.

The Good Times - Mostly brought upon by the individuals, the company allows it's employees to grow, work and have fun at the same time. I will remember every adventure that I have taken with the company and how it has shaped me into the individual I am today. 

I appreciate anyone that made it through the long list of items, it took me over an hour to write so I imagine it took an hour to read. I really enjoyed my time even through the bad times. I am glad that I am pursuing new opportunities before becoming bitter about my work. 

tl;dr
Break-ups are hard. It's not you, it's me.

Why Scrum just didn't work...

In my last article, I spoke about how I was afraid to accepted failure until I finally did. It was that moment that I could finally reflect on my implementation of Scrum. I'm going to explain why implementing Scrum just didn't work and highlight some red flags along the way, so that you can avoid the mistakes that I made.

In my attempt to implement Scrum, I persisted in the implementation for over 14 months before throwing in the towel. I admit that it sounds like a long time however it was not a waste. The output was still visible, but we just never improved on estimating delivery so some features would span across three or four sprints. It was not until a few weeks ago that I agreed to stop doing "Scrum-but" and just have a prioritized Kanban board. It was after the time that we stopped doing Scrum that I could finally reflect on the situation.

One the big red flags that I could point out is that our team doesn't fit the ideal image of a team using Scrum. Typically in Scrum, it is recommended to "keep your teams small"¹, however, at one point my team had been around 22 individuals. We have reduced to two teams of roughly a dozen people but we still struggle with the problems of a large team. The size of the team directly affects each team member's accountability and makes it difficult to ensure ownership of tasks.

Another not ideal situation for a team using Scrum is that we have a large number of supported features that each of the divided teams "owns". Although we require a lot of cross communication for the features to be released, we sometimes struggle with the "absolute alignment of purpose"¹. We constantly have many projects that overlap and struggle to finish that 90%. The lack of alignment to finish the projects lead our team to constant carry over issues and tasks.

I could go further and further down the rabbit hole of what we should have done, but I know that it wouldn't be beneficial for anyone. I am glad however that I could analyze the situation now that it has past so I could better implement in the future. This does not mean the end for the implementation of Scrum with this team, but rather some time to find a better focus and structure to support Scrum. 

tl;dr

Not all teams are made for Scrum. Sometimes it's important to stop, evaluate, and come back to Scrum.

Works Cited
[1] Jeff Sutherland and J. J. Sutherland, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time. New York: Crown Business, 2014.