Career Archive

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Up up and away!

– 24 October 2011Posted in: Career, Events, Social Media, Working in IT

The coming weeks will involve a lot of travelling on my part. On Saturday I will board a plane for Los Angeles and a week of conferencing and networking with well-known profiles in the Social Media community.

But before I take out my sun-glasses I have a few adventures both here at home in Stockholm and abroad. Today I am attending a very interesting course in developing apps for Facebook. No sooner will it end before I have to rush off to the airport on my way to London for a couple of days.

The camera is loaded, the laptop is packed. So take a deep breath, lean back and enjoy the ride. Because here we go!

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A good consultant?

– 17 March 2011Posted in: Career, Consulting, Working in IT

 

To work as a consultant with a customer requires a high level of competence and social skills. A consultant does not only represent her/him-self in their professional role but also the company which she/he works for.

A couple of years ago, before my first consultant assignment I made a list of how I define a good consultant. When I was done, I realized that the list did not have any reference to the technical competence. I simply took this for granted. Instead, it focused on behaviours and actions which contribute to enhance the customer relation and the completion of the assignment.

I take this list out now and again to browse throught it. I do this so I can evaluate my own performance and continue striving towards becoming a better consultant.

What do you think? What constitutes a good consultant?

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Interview with Mark Zuckerberg

– 16 March 2011Posted in: Career, Social Media, Working in IT

After having seen the movie “The Social Network” I have become increasingly interested in the real story behind Facebook. Not only because of what Mark Zuckerburg has actually achieved at a very young age, but because he represents a shift in the IT-industry which I think is important to acknowledge. Alot of the new IT-services, products and networks during the last couple of years are almost all created by the 80′s generation. I will go more into this in future posts.

Here I would like to share an interesting interview with Mark Zuckerberg made by Diane Sawyer at ABC World News:

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What is a career?

– 27 September 2009Posted in: Career, Working in IT

What does it really mean to make a career? Is it to advance within the company’s hierarchy? To earn a lot of money? To create something of value? Perhaps to get more responsibility? Or just feel that you like your job? There are as many answers as there are people with jobs.
“A career is mostly seen as a course of successive situations that make up a person’s occupation. One can have a sporting career or a musical career without being a professional athlete or musician, but most frequently “career” in the 20th century referenced the series of jobs or positions by which one earned one’s money. A person’s worth is often measured by the career success or failings”
I believe that we nowadays have a broader interpretation of the concept. One can advance both horizontally as well as vertically within an organization. Even if the desire to make a career often is seen as something evident it is more about the importance of the work enhancing life, it should be self-developing and not the least a pleasure! It is also about reaching a balance between the professional life and the personal life.
Personally I see my career as a journey where the goal is to:
  • Reach my full potential
  • Continously develop my competence
  • Grasp all opportunities and make the best out of them
  • Reach my goals
  • Feel that I am having fun along the way
THIS is what a successful career is for me!
What does career mean to you? Please write and share!
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Working from home

– 04 June 2009Posted in: Career, Working in IT

Sometimes it’s really handy to work in the IT-business. Like today, when a cold has kidnapped my voice and given me a cough and runny nose. I don’t have time to be sick. There’s tons of stuff at work that needs to be done. So what do I do? I curl up into my bed, armed with hot tea and my laptop. Telephone-conferences, e-mail and instant messaging served as my tools for the day. Perhaps this strategy would not be effective in the long run, but on occasion it serves its purpose, like today:

1) I did not have to take out a sick-day
2) I also did not spread my germs to my friendly colleauges at work :)
3) I got the chance to go through that “to do”-list which normally has a tendency to get ignored in favour of more accute work.

Now, as my working-day is officially over I will continue recooperating from the couch watching re-runs of the “West Wing”.

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Integration

– 11 May 2009Posted in: Career, Life, Working in IT

If you work in the IT-industry “Integration” is one of those buzzwords you just can’t avoid running into. Intregration can however be found in nature as well. Look at this tree just outside my office which takes this aspect to a whole different level :) And yes, it is one tree with two different flowers. It’s somekind of gardener-trick. Pretty cool ey?

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Certified Scrum Master

– 09 May 2009Posted in: Career, Working in IT

Earlier this week I attended a Scrum Master course in order to become a so called “Certified Scrum Master”. During 2 days in a workshop like manner we got the opportunity to discuss software development from different points of view and also do some hands-on exercises.


In reality, the principles of Scrum are very easy. You have the Product Owner, who’s responsibility is to create and manage the Product Backlog. The Product Backlog is a prioritized list of all functions which are wanted in the product. This is a living document and changes as work progresses.

Next we have the The Scrum Master who’s responsible for guiding and protecting the team, i.e a technical project leader of some sort (although it’s not correct to use this term).

The Scrum team consists of +/- 7 people preferably with different skills such as programmer, tester etc.

The Scrum framework itself centers around a Sprint. A Sprint is a repetitive cycle, ~30 days, in which the team does its work. It starts with Sprint Planning in which the team chooses and estimates the amount of work which is to be done in the Sprint. During the Sprint the Scrum Master holds Daily Scrum meetings with the team and asks 3 simple questions:

1) What have you done since yesterday?
2) What will you do today?
3) What is hindering you?

During the Sprint no one is allowed to disturb the team and come with additional work requests.

The Sprint ends with a Sprint Review in which the product increment is demoed and discussed. This is followed by a Sprint Retrospective which functions as a lessons-learned session.

This all sounds very simple. Is Scrum some magical “fix-it-all” method then? Well no. However, Scrum adheres from the only certain thing about software engineering: That we do not know what the product will look like in the end. So if the “target” is moving then it is appropriate to adjust your work accordingly along the way. This is a very different approach from the more traditional Waterfall model in which development is looked at as iterative, but straight-forward phases such as planning, design, coding, testing and integration.

The more realistic view on how software development works in reality is the main reason why I believe Scrum may be a good choice. Continual adaptation to the current circumstances as well as the opportunity to vent all potential problems. This is the aim of the Daily Scrums. Any problems and hinders needs to be brought to the Scrum Master for him/her to fix.

Although I now have a new title to use on my CV and more knowledge about Scrum it will take actual experience before I can say much more about it. Scrum may not be appropriate in all organizations and projects, but I intend to give it a try in my current work and see where it will take me. I’m looking forward to it!

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