An XP Coach's Journal: Becoming an XP Coach
Becoming an XP "Technical Coach"
Pillar Technology was known for sharing and uplifting clients in how to use Extreme Programming practices such as TDD, pair programming, mob programming for over 20 years. Pillar had their stuff nailed down. They were very good at helping businesses to change their culture so that fast feedback and business Value were the forefront of daily work.
Pillar Technology was unfortunately acquired by Accenture in 2018, which by June 2020, had laid off 70% of its acquired Pillar developers.
As the result of the layoffs, Many good Artisans lost a special place, and Accenture unknowingly lost many good developers as a result, some who had been with Pillar for 10+ years and who were solid XP Practitioners. I unfortunately had to start looking for a new journey.
Pillar called us "Software Artisans". Why? Because we cared about Code Quality first and foremost, driven by XP practices as our core approach to getting things done. We weren't just another consulting company.
After interviewing for several months, searching carefully for my next place which I do not take lightly, I found myself landing an opportunity as a Technical XP Coach which I'll be starting February 1, 2021.
While I wasn't looking specifically for a coaching position, it seemed that I wandered into it. I feel this was a natural step in my career and truly excited for the opportunity to be a technical coach to clients, the next step in my journey as a Software Crafter.
It's more or less what I had been doing at Pillar, 8th Light, and even prior. But now at a much greater level. I will be going to clients (remotely) for the sole purpose of sharing XP practices in Software Development now as a Coach. I will be Mob Programming with their developers, sharing ways to help uplift organizations to help them realize sustainable pace, driven by quality software, and as a result sharing how to practice true agility.
Hence the start of my XP Coaching Journal.
About Me
Here's a little about me so you get some initial context into my past, and where I'm at on this journey.
I have experience utilizing XP practices since late 2013. I learned TDD initially from 8th Light, an XP oriented consulting firm, when they came into an employer where I was working as a Software Engineer. Pairing with them daily for 6 months straight gave me a pretty solid ground to start walking on with TDD at the time.
I continued to apply TDD daily at work, at any employer I went thereafter. I constantly applied TDD on real-world code, every day. I consulted and uplifted developers at other companies as well.
In the early days I'd continue that journey and be up till 2am on some days, trying to figure out how to practice TDD on NodeJS backends and ReactJS frontends. My TDD skills grew pre solid over those 5 years on JavaScript, C#, and other languages. Practice, practice, and more practice utilizing TDD on real-world code.
Then in 2018 I had the opportunity to actually work for 8th Light, the very company who had initially taught me TDD back in 2013.
In 2019, I had the opportunity to work for another XP shop, Pillar Technology, continuing to sharpen my skills as a Crafter / Artisan. We pair programmed daily, and occasionally some pairs would pull their chairs up together and mob program here and there when pairs got stuck on things. It's been a very powerful and effective way to work. I can't imagine not working this way anymore.
But more importantly, over these past 7 years, I learned about true Agility and how not to do it, and how to truly do it well. I learned how to uplift client developers, how to find ways of getting fast feedback, and ways to ensure you're focused on outcomes and Value for customers, not just the code.
I always liked teaching. I ran the Global Day of Code Retreat for Chicago Pillar. Over my career I've done many brown bags and lunch and learns. I've paired with developers to help share my knowledge and also learn from them. I always love to stream my code on Twitch. I have always loved to teach, not just code.
I've always wanted to share XP Practices to help continually push and move this profession forward. It's also another reason why I started WeDoTDD.com as well, 5 years ago.
So… I'm a "Coach", Now What?
The first thing I did was jot down some initial high level TODOs to start prepping for my coaching journey:
- Getting to know the setup for Zoom for Remote Mob Programming
- Getting to know the example kata we'll be using as a basis to teach
- Getting to know the slides we'll use each day to share how we work
- Continual brainstorming/researching on Coach "Stuff"
- Creating code cheat-sheets for my students