This is going to be an interesting and different CAST this go around. While I have live blogged conferences for years, I will not be doing much of that this go-around. That is because I am going to be doing live webcasting and video casting. We are launching a Webcast called "Responsive Ilities", we being me and Justin Bench. I will be posting the links to those as they go live. They will be fast clips, fun interactions, and we hope a good representation of the fun we are having here.
There will, of course, be some sessions we will not be vidcasting, such as our morning keynote right now. We are starting the conference with Dr. Jen Fry and her talk, "The Bugs Aren’t the Problem: How Avoiding Conflict Is Breaking Your Team"
The key message here is, "Software teams don’t struggle because they lack tools, frameworks, or technical skill. They struggle because the conversations that should happen… don’t."
I know this to be true, in some capacity, for every job I have ever had, both in my testing life and in the other things I do. I'm the enthusiastic, bubbly dude who likes doing, likes getting cool things done, and if there are conflicts or issues, we just let them roll off, and we figure we will just muscle through with our enthusiasm, and if we just kick enough butt, those issues will just disappear.
"Stop me, oh oh oh stop me.... stop me if you think that you've heard this one before!"
As you all know, I tend to riff on the ideas I'm hearing. I don't summarize the talk; I think through their points, and I take what I'm hearing and think through it with my own experiences.
I am intimately familiar with seeing something that I think might be wrong, but I'm unsure. Or I might want to make sure I can articulate everything before I vocalize my concerns. Where does that come from? It comes from voicing concerns too early in the past, or thinking something is wrong but not having a full picture. What's the root problem here? I have an anxiety of looking like I don't know what I'm doing. Ever heard the phrase (paraphrased), "If you sit silently, you may be seen as a fool, but you can say what you are thinking and remove all doubt!" Yes, that's real. We all do that to a certain degree. We fear being seen as foolish or unwise, so the easiest tactic is to hold our thoughts until we are really sure. Maybe, possibly, we will gather what we need to make sure we have a thorough understanding and can present everything brilliantly. More often than not, though, life comes at you fast, and you are onto something else. Then when the problem rears its head, and others see it, you sit there thinking, "oooh, I knew that was an issue, but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to look stupid." Well, now the problem is out in the open, and I look more stupid because I held my peace until I was sure.
Okay, so how can we counteract this very real issue people face? Part of it is practicing these words (again, this is how I handle this, or at least try to).
"I'm not fully sure I have a handle on this, but I'm noticing something that concerns me about [key area]."
"I may be missing something, but are you seeing an issue with [component]?"
"Are you familiar with this [area of misunderstanding] because I think I may have an issue... but again, I'm not sure."
Am I risking being seen as a fool right now? Absolutely. I'm sharing the fact that I'm "ignorant". Understand, that's a loaded word for many, and we hate hearing it about ourselves. Truth is, everyone is ignorant about a lot of things. Ignorance comes from Latin "ignorantia" and "ignorare", meaning "not to know" or "to be unacquainted with". I try to remind myself that "ignorance" is easily solved. I can learn, I can ask, and I can be taught.
From a different place, I am often seen as the "psychic glue" in a group. That's a phrase a guitar player in one of my previous bands coined for me. He said that I had a tendency, due to my enthusiasm and general overall good nature (I think the phrase now would be termed 'Golden Retriever Energy' (GRE), a phrase that I actually love :) ), I make it possible for people who would struggle to interact a buffer, so that I cam the person in between who, because of my GRE, I can be that central glue point so we can all work together. Conflict doesn't stick to me or affect me when it's other people's conflict. If other people have issues with each other, I can be the go-between and easily smooth that challenge. The problem with GRE is that when the conflict comes to us, we can internalize it and think we are the problem. So we strive to make others happy and be cheerful, to hopefully cause the conflict to dissipate. I'm good at soothing issues. I'm not so good at actually resolving the conflict. The funny thing is that sometimes, my enthusiasm can have me jumping the gun at certain things, and then I get yelled at... but if people are yelling at me, they aren't yelling at each other. Since I have GRE, I can take having people be annoyed with me, and I can laugh or shrug it off easily. Net result: I glue everyone else together, and we function well,,, but you see the problem, right? Being psychic glue can be a good thing when it's applied correctly, but glue can also be messy if it's not applied correctly. Thus, I need to be willing to step back and speak more openly about the conflicts and be willing to not be seen as the happy-go-lucky golden retriever. I may not be able to be that glue at the moment, but I may be able to be the glue that is needed later on.
That's a great start. It's good to be back. Did you miss me :)?
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