Friday, 4 January 2019

Looking back to 2018

So, how was 2018...

Well, short story, it has been interesting.

Basically, because lots of things have changed.

Some change by nature... kids grow, I get older and the cycle of life won't stop for anyone.

Some left after a long plenty life, leaving a trail of knowledge in forms of books and experiences, Gerry Weinberg, thank you so much for all I still have left to learn from you.

Some left way too early, leaving a hole in our hearts, making us appreciate how short life is, and how important it is to share, to love, to live, while we are here, while we are together, Linnea, thank you so much for all the love we have witnessed, I never met you, but I will have a though for you as long as I am in this world.

Yeah... take a breath.

Some things also changed in my shop.

We got a new C level flymate, and as it happens, we changed workflows, mindsets, culture, habits, structures, people... now we estimate how long it takes to build a feature.
If you are worried about the Agile transformation process, don't worry any longer, I have learned that it is a two direction path, and you can either go up or down. It's not easy, but it can be done.
As any change, it has good and bad parts. The good part is that I have seen the team getting conscious   about our culture and values, and why they are important, and why we should take care of them, and boy, I am proud of this team.

In between reorgs, we have updated our user experience, our whole website, we have a new API, a new mobile app, improved performance and got several new payment processing tools, we collect documentation that users need to provide from certain countries, we have built integrations and automations with schools, banks and partners, we built a school in Guatemala.
And you know what... 2018 is good and gone, and we're still kicking and rocking.

Flymates
The company has grown and changed, and just like a street car, some people decided that this was as far as they wanted to go in this line and went out, some people just got in and are looking after enjoying the ride and some were invited to leave.

I changed role, now I am a Product Analyst, and this is kicking a lot of opportunity for learning.
Some of the learning is a structured learning, that you go and look after, and some other learnings come by serendipity, and that is alright.
Now I write, record, edit, communicate, follow, help, coach as I didn't have time to do before.
Now I follow in twitter interesting product people as John Cutler, Antony Marcano, Alan Cooper and I'm getting into communities such as MTP and Productized.

Good times, yeah!

As for events and conferences...
We went to TestBash Brighton, and got the chance to learn about Modern Testing and many other things.
I gave a talk at the local VLC Testing conference about Cynefin and how testers can take advantage of this model.
We also went to TestBash San Francisco, and got the chance to put faces to many twitter friends from the bay area, as well as listening to many interesting talks.
We also hosted a few TestNight events where we met and talked about performance and tools and testing and things. But lately we haven't scheduled anything since summer. I think we are getting way too busy with work.
Well, fix is on the way, we are hiring! So if you feel like joining our Valencia team, please check this link or get in contact with me.

The family also did some road trips, We went to Murcia to see #43Grupo Corsairs doing their stuff.

We went to Oloron in Southern France, Baden-Baden in Southern Germany and Potes in Northern Spain, all of these went really well, giving us chances to unwind, spend quality time together and meditate about all things while you're driving.

And yeah, since daddy was going to San Francisco, we all took a flight and went around California.


Remember, Good times require some work and planning. Bad times come by themselves.

Looking forward for a great 2019.

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