Coming Clean

In response to the following blog posts regarding management in Agile processes:

Managers Are Grown-ups, too

Can Managers Lead Agile Teams?

I absolutely agree with the premise that one of the reasons Agile works well (when it works) is because it allows the engineers to indiscreetly yet directly and intelligently control and mitigate a manager’s influence – what has failed to be recognized / admitted by the Agile community is that this just inevitably builds new ways (well, not really) to fail (e.g. all the Agile attempts that fail due to mismanagement because the engineers have no better management chops than their managers). It’s about time Agile communities started to address this problem of what really ought to happen to traditional managers and how to inspect, adapt, and improve on the managerial side of the house.

Many managers and management teams use Agile as an excuse to lose cognizance about the what, why, how, and who of the activity of their team. All they feel responsible for under Agile is knowing when things will be done and a summary of the what’s, who’s, and maybe why’s of development activity. This attitude seems to accompany a lack of interest and knowledge regarding the personal interests and motivations of team members and a disconnect with the fact that these concerns are central to their role – that, as managers, they need to be proactive in learning and discerning them.

From the articles, this doesn’t appear to be particularly uncommon in Agile. Either (1) organizations don’t adopt Agile because they see managerial circumvention as inevitable or (2) Agile fails because the necessary leadership doesn’t emerge as is suppose to happen and/or should already be present in existing management.

Either way, if a manager’s primary concern is not his employees and their satisfaction, he is doomed to failure. Employee satisfaction and budget/schedule do not have to be opposing forces. In fact, with a good balance that emphasizes that employees matter first while not excusing poor performance, a manager should find that he gets more bang for his buck out of his employees because they remain retained/loyal, interested, and self-motivated to perform and improve.

Agile is good at evoking these traits within engineers precisely because it puts engineers at the center of the concern of their work. Personally, I suspect the leading reason while Agile is all the rage these days is because older, more standard processes have become more about the bureaucratic machinations of human resources, schedules, man-power allocation, and budgets rather than keeping talented employees happy and involved beyond that of being mere cogs in the work that they are about.

Management is high-level mentoring. As a manager, you must invest yourself and your time in your people and their work; otherwise, your people won’t invest the best of themselves and their time in you and your work. For them, work will be just a timeout from their real life until they can find a better gig.

Generated in response to: http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/health-care-reform-impact/

Honestly, I don’t see how it can be viewed as fair if some tax burden is not placed on everyone to fund a universal health care option. While I understand that the wealthy have money to spare, such taxation is a punitive damage to their success on the part of the larger populace – i.e. it’s not encouraging the wealthy to continue in their success in America and/or to take it elsewhere. Likewise, when in American history have the people ever rewarded non-contribution as is being proposed here and now?! Maybe some think that such a view of fairness makes me a Republican – I hope there are other and more significant areas of debate that would define such a distinction.

There are three components that have significantly contributed to rising health care costs that are not being addressed by this new legislation:
1. Even if you have health care, it’s still an elective process. You have to choose to receive care; it can never be forced on you. Most Americans wait to see a doctor much too late, such that the cost of care resultant of undiagnosed conditions is significantly more expensive. This won’t change under the new plan.
2. Americans are unhealthy. We have a consumer culture built on unhealthy habits. Whether it be Wallstreet or McDonald’s, our culture has a premise of greedy consumption without thought to consequence. Short of using police and taxation policies to make people live healthier, general health is going to remain poor and care is going to remain high (unless this becomes a rationing criteria). Living habits between the USA and other high-income nations is stark in their contrast.
3. Americans are litigious. Health care providers deal with far too many frivolous law suits that stem mainly from complications that are more directly related to individuals not caring for themselves than any wrong doing on the part of the doctor. Given that there is no tort reform present in this legislation, that will not change, thus those costs will remain – and will likely begin to increase as new people are brought into a universal health care system.

The other thing I really don’t like about this legislation is that it places the government as the rationer of health care. The government decides what coverage a policy must have and, thus by extension, what procedures are available for you to elect. Granted, this is an improved situation for those people without health care, but for everyone else … well, it could be a bum deal and it places everyone at the mercy of the government (i.e. you can’t shop around anymore for the coverage you want). For all the valid concerns there have been raised about the loss of liberties the past 8 years, you would think this would give people – especially Democrats – more pause.

As to the numbers of who does not have health care, this article sites 1/3 of the population is uninsured or underinsured. The President the other day sited 45 million people are without insurance. I have heard it argued that he is including an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants (i.e. non-tax-paying individuals) in that figure. So depending on how you look at it, that’s roughly 10 to 15 percent of the US population without insurance. I still have not heard how many of those people have health care options they elect to not take (e.g. Waffle House employees). I don’t know what underinsured means, but with our public health system as it is, I imagine most Americans are pretty well covered, certainly by historic standards.

So, to me, it’s not about who has it or who doesn’t have it but how to drive down costs. Extending coverage to everyone that does not have insurance doesn’t seem like a plan to drive down costs. However, driving down costs under any system – private or public – opens up health care to more individuals as they can then afford it. It seems to me that this plan is treating the symptoms (not everyone can pay for health care) instead of the cause (costs are high, people are unhealthy)

The USA was founded on the principle that the populace’s then reigning government was too oppressive, and that people should be able to live largely free of government interference. It seems like we’re reversing course here by placing all our medical eggs into a government basket.

The Sun setting behind the line of trees
Toddler laughter chasing, kicking, throwing
The younger teaching the older new skills and new fun
- Swings flying boys up to the moon
An embracing love, simple presence, happy being
Prayers for a memory that anchors a lifetime

New job by normal metrics is going well. Staying on or ahead of schedule. Slowly learning the business and able to help other people out with their walk. No stress.

But I find the Blues trying to tug me down. First, I’m not in the thick of things. I don’t mind avoiding the politics that entails at.all. But I miss the perspective, the freedom, and the responsibility that it brings. With time I’ll likely get pulled into the inner-circles more, but for now … I feel under utilized and a bit lost in the woods.

Second, and more importantly, I had a lot of friends at the old job. I had a regular lunch bunch of 4 co-workers with a not-uncommon crowd of 10. We were young, we were smart, we all had a lot in common. It was good. Now, there are only 2 co-workers I see with regularity, and while we get along fine, it’s not the same camaraderie. Add to that that I don’t have much of a social life outside of work due to kids, church, and giving my wife a reprieve from child care … and I find myself feeling rather lonely.

Didn’t expect that. Wonder how I’ll fix it.

What to do with an unyielding son?

… I’ll let you know if I ever figure it out …

Geof sent out this tweet yesterday:

…”spiritual but not religious” is greatly akin to “intelligent but uneducated”.

This is very much true.

Intelligence and spirituality are our potential, what we are capable of. Education and religion are the mold in which we let them be formed. With the wrong education and religion, our intellect and spirituality will suffer – just as with the right fit, we will flourish.

And that takes effort and discipline – a will of self to make these things important and to seek out what it is we need. Without them … while we may remain spiritual and intelligent … we won’t having anything significant in both our understanding and contribution to the world except that which we ignorantly, haphazardly, though quite capably stumble upon.

Go to college. Go to church(es). Learn who you are, where and what you need to be.

When I first took a job with LMCO, it was up in DC, and what I remember the most is a distinct lack of stuff to do. While I was hired to write and maintain software, it was really a job in avoiding insanity by finding something – anything – to occupy your time that wouldn’t get you in trouble. Thus I found myself doing a lot of wandering and talking. When that got old, I taunted a beta fish that we had put in a giant plastic bear container that once housed a ridiculous number of animal crackers. But perhaps most exciting: I, along with my co-workers, became an uncanny slinger of rubber bands.

The rubber bands really were a true source of pride. I could hit someone two cubes away by aiming via the reflections off the sprinklers. When you have as much time to stare at them as we did, you can actually figure both the position and the identity of the source of the sprinklers’ reflections. In fact, though he could never prove it, I shot my manager over a cube wall after he came in to tell us to cut it out.

Probably the worst offense, though, was the shooting of the Potted Plant. The Potted Plant was brought in by an engineer who had long since left by the time I had arrived. We gave it water maybe once a month, and, by genetics that we are apt to feel impossible, it has survived to this very day. To top it off, the Potted Plant has survived many a marksman’s attempts at bringing it down.

So, when one day a particular engineer actually managed to take a leaf off the Potted Plant, I took umbrage. Or rather, the Potted Plant took umbrage. And after everyone had long gone home for the day, the Potted Plant exacted its revenge by stringing up the engineer’s favorite stuffed green Frog. He left a little note scribbled in dirt reading “Don’t Let This Happen to You”, signed with a wilted leaf tucked into a rip in the paper.

Unfortunately, I cannot provide a report on the engineer’s initial response when he found his dear Frog near death the next morning. However, I can report that by the time I arrived, the Frog had made his way to my coffee cup, whereupon he was sitting and reading what looked like a newspaper. As I arrived at my cube for the morning, the engineer reached across and gave a tug on a draw-string in the Frog, at which the Frog began to vibrate.

After a good 10 minutes of hearty laughter, I went and washed out my cup. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the Frog – but I wouldn’t put anything past an engineer. After that, we moved the Potted Plant and the Frog into opposite corners of the cube for fear of future engagements and/or retributions; however, I have heard that a Cold War replete with espionage and sabotage has continued between the factions of the Frog and Potted Plant ever since.

So, the other night, I was hanging out with one of our parish priests after a 3 hour Easter Vigil Mass. We started in on the topic of homiletics, and at some point the good priest goes off on a tear about how sometimes the Holy Spirit can just take hold of you and by the end you don’t know what you’ve said.

There’s a reflective, glowy pause, after which I pipe up: “Yeah, and neither does the congregation.”

In general, when folks talk about giving up something for Lent, it tends to be a vice or vanity. The television goes off in our house, as do the game systems. We become more mindful of our sweets. And this is when my parent’s home becomes particularly popular – they do not come from a faith tradition that observes the Lenten liturgical season, and so we allow the kids to take a Lenten reprieve when there.

In Lenten seasons past, I tried to set aside more time for prayer and meditation – time to draw closer to God. And I probably should have done the same again this year. Time is at more of a premium these days than it ever has been before – regular prayer time being limited to meals, boyhood bedtime, and Mass – and setting aside that time would have meant all the more. But I decided against it, looking instead to improve on some inner-discipline. Part of me has guilt – I’ve backslidden in my spirituality! – and part of me shrugs and says I’m just at a different place in life than I was in years past. The latter is certainly true. The former … I’m always ready to believe that’s true if someone wants to deliver a spiritual 2×4 to the back of my head to make the point.

This year I identified a sin in my life that has been a particular plague upon my soul, and I decided I would suffer it no more except through perseverance. And so, after talking with my wife, that is what I set out to do.

I wonder what Jesus had in mind when he said, “My yoke is easy. My burden is light.” Perseverance in goodness does not at all feel that way. And the perseverance itself begs questions of the whole experience – why this moment of hell? Why not end it by giving over and getting on with more important and interesting matters? What good fruit comes from this mortification? What is the end of this mean estate that I suffer?

Honestly, I don’t know that there’s a satisfying answer. All there is … is that I believe in Jesus. And Jesus suffered all to conquer all so that I might join with Him in all that I am and to share all that He has attained. And so, I give myself over to the good so that Jesus prevails in me and I in Him.

But that isn’t satisfying. It is poetic. It is beautiful. But my sin speaks so much more eloquently to me. “Take, revel, and return when you want more.” The Lord’s Supper isn’t so hedonistic. “Take and eat. Take and drink. Do this in memory of me.” He didn’t ask to be laid aside until we approach His table again. And growing up in a culture where the former is supreme and the latter is viewed as a form of insanity … it makes holding to the latter in fullness and earnestness difficult.

I’m glad to say that I fared fairly well, though admittedly not perfectly. And my precious wife has bore with my struggling – and at times irritable – spirit with the grace and love that called me to marry her. As for TV and games and sweets – we probably did the worst there. First of all because we didn’t do it as a family. I wasn’t willing to give up TV this Lent. I’m a jerk. And the kids would have gone nuts if they lost both TV and sweets. I think next year, though, we will give it up as a family. We should bear our children’s burdens if we are going to place it on them. It’s wrong to do otherwise. And, for giving up the TV, we still did a lot of TV viewing this year – it’s just really hard with 3 boys to keep them from killing each other when trying to clean, pay bills, budget, cook, etc etc etc.

During my Lenten Reconciliation, I confessed my sin, the struggles surrounding my sin, my desire to do away with it. And for now, while I cannot escape the near occasion of this sin, I feel cleansed of it – a first in a very long time.

I confess to Almighty God
And to you, my brothers and sisters,
That I have sinned of my own fault:
in my thoughts and in my words;
in what I have done
and in what I have failed to do.
And I ask blessed Mary, ever Virgin,
All the Angels and Saints,
And you, my brothers and sisters,
To pray for me to the Lord, Our God. Amen

Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee,
and I detest all my sin because of thy just judgment,
but most of all because they offend thee, my God,
Who art all good and deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace to sin no more
and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.

“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. … The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” Luke 1:31-35

Virgin Mary, Theotokos, God-Bearer, Mother of God. Could she rightly and nobly hold these revered titles from time out of mind if the child that resided within her womb was not actually God as she bore Him?

It may seem an odd question to ask, but if we take the questions being asked today regarding embryonic stem cell research, particularly as it relates to Christian morality and ethics, it begs the question – at what point did Jesus become a person with all human (and divine) dignity?

Most Christians would sputter that the question is non-sense – clearly Jesus was fully divine at the moment of His conception within His virgin mother’s womb. And if we are to assert Christ’s divine personhood within His mother’s womb, then we must also assert his humanity. And thus we’re left to turn the question back around upon ourselves – if Christ was divine (and thus human) at the moment of His conception within His mother’s womb, then why should we not accord the same dignity to others who move through the same human embryonic state of being just as He did?

The Christian ethic is clear – embryos must be accorded the same dignity as any other person if for no other reason than that of Christ, who shared in our humanity from conception to death.