About Intangible Results, Inner Compass, New Beginning, and Peaky Blinders

Martin Hudymač
Jul 10, 2017 · 2 min read

In season 3 of Peaky Blinders series, gangster Thomas Shelby, the main character, goes to the gypsy woman. He gives her a Sapphire stone in order to forget about the past, so he could again live in the present. This text is my Sapphire stone.

Last year I was a part of Change Navigator’s team. It was an exciting time and it was a very challenging task, I’ve met awesome colleagues. At first — we have been changing our approach at every iteration — as well as our whiteboard. It has been changing its shape every sprint. We learned a lot and I am pretty sure that we’ve inspired a lot of teams and leaders. But — did we change the organization in the end? Did our organization adopt lean practices? Who knows?

The friend of mine once explained to me that Coach is working on an axis: Coach –> Leader –> Team –> Done. She/He rarely sees the direct, tangible effect of her/his effort because Coach is not directly engaged; the real work must be done by the leaders and teams. I recognized that tangible evidence of my work is currently missing to me.

I am going back to software development.

Work in scrum team is straightforward: Team -> Done. Scrum framework offers to the scrum teams one transparent true: you are effective or you’re not; you deliver working increment according to definition of done every sprint or you’re not; your dev team is self-organizing and possess all the skills to deliver increment or it is not; your clients and stakeholders, as well as your team members, are happy and satisfied or they’re not. These should be my inner compass which is showing whether effort brings some tangible results. This is my old new beginning.

And yes, did I mention that Shelby’s Sapphire stone might be coursed???….

July 2017

5min columns

“I’m getting too old for this shit.” (lieutenant Roger Martaugh: Lethal Weapon)

Martin Hudymač

Written by

Umberto Eco’s & Vladimir Nabokov’s world indefatigable traveller, 37signals Rework dogmas’ follower, Ken Robinson’s revolution partisan

5min columns

“I’m getting too old for this shit.” (lieutenant Roger Martaugh: Lethal Weapon)

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