All blocked up...

I have written this post three times, and each time I have tried using a different topic. Nothing seems to fit as nothing in my life seems is of such great import as to warrant a full scale blog posting.

This is not to say that good things are not occurring in my life, to the contrary, I am happier today than I was yesterday, and I expect tomorrow will be better than today.

Things just don't seem to be blog worthy.

That is the funny thing, somewhere along the line writing a blog became less about the free sharing of thoughts and ideas, and more about making an impact.

Maybe that is why we love FaceBook and Twitter so much. They allow us to express our often times incoherent or incomplete musings without feeling guilty about the rubbish we just posted. I mean why would someone take the time to blog about the BLT they just ate, or the fact that the guy sitting next to them smells of unwashed feet?

Instead, I sit down wanting to write something thought provoking or inspiring, but all I can come up with is inane drivel about the last Spotify find I made, or something along those lines.

Sad...

I wonder, have you ever sat down and just let the comfort of life just settle on you? That is what I am doing right now... feeling very comfortable and I think that may be a problem.

Tony Robbins says that we are at our best when we are uncomfortable. I think that there is insight and wisdom in that concept. At work I constantly challenge people around me to move outside of their comfort zones and get uncomfortable.

I wonder why I have a hard time taking my own challenge....

Asking that question out-loud makes me uncomfortable... 

good...

New year, new beginnings

As 2011 comes to a close, I find myself reflective and grateful for the year that was. This time last year, I was working for Kynetx and we were planning for a stellar 2011 as we took over the World.

What a difference a year makes....

Over the course of the year I switched jobs, companies and focus. I became a grandfather to the most handsome and awesome grandson ever (just a little biased here). There were highs, lows and doldrums to experience and work through.

Overall 2011, was a good year.

As 2012 approaches, I find myself once again sanguine that it will be a year of continued growth and transcendence. There are a number of threads developing that could prove to be game changers for me and my family, and at this time I favor all of them.

I also look forward to watching my awesome grandson grow and develop. I have truly enjoyed watching him explore his surroundings and relish the opportunity to teach him the ropes. There is little that is more enjoyable than watching a child interact with his environment. It makes you realize how amazing the human brain is in coping with an ever changing environment.

I also look forward to continuing my engagement with AtTask. This is a great company, full of great people with great ideas. I could not be more thankful to the leadership of AtTask for their leadership, guidance and friendship. Over the last year I have been honored to be able to build a team that I would put up against any IT operations team out there.

Lots of good stuff happening and I can't wait to see it come to fruition.

So 2011, I will remember you fondly.... and 2012, bring it on...

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana

I did not realize how long it has been since I wrote something for this blog. To say that the last four weeks have been busy would be the understatement of the year.

For those of you keeping score, I started a new job at a company call AtTask about a month ago. This job has been all things insane over the last month and I am just getting a chance to catch my breath.

As I have become more acclimated to my new surroundings and team mates, I have discovered a few things about myself:

1) I am getting old
2) I let my technological edge dull a little over the last two years
3) I love leading a team
4) There are a lot of smart people here and I feel stupid sometimes

AtTask is a company on the move and they have amassed an impressive team to power their journey. Where Kynetx is driven by passion, heart and raw brilliance, AtTask is driven by dogged tenacity, intellect and clear market vision. Neither one is better than the other, they are just appropriate for the evolutionary stage each organization is at.

Coming to work every day is a interesting experience because I truly have no idea what the day has in store for me. I thought that I would have some time to "ease" into the role, but life had a different plan for me and instead threw me into the deep end, handed me an anchor and released the sharks.

Good thing I know how to swim....

I am finding that muscles I have not used for a couple of years are starting to regain their strength. Concepts and thoughts that I had put on the shelf are becoming relevant again and regions of my brain that went dormant are awakening. All in all, it has been a pretty good ride so far and I am hopeful that it will remain on that trajectory.

Oh, if you know someone who is a Linux Systems Administrator and is in need of a new adventure, send them my way as I have a couple of seats on the bus available.

Lessons learned from Dodgeball

What a difference a week makes. Last week this time I was nervously awaiting the start of my next adventure at @Task. This week, I am wondering if someone got the license plate of the trunk that ran me over (being metaphorical here...).

I think that the most apt analogy for what working at @Task in the IT Operations team is like is the game of dodgeball that I participated in last Monday. It was the tenth birthday of @Task, and what does one do on their tenth birthday? Yes, you are correct, you throw inflatable balls at one another.

As the week moved on, I realized that I would be well served to remember the lessons learned in the dodgeball game:

1 - The best defense is a good offense
2 - Do not take your eye off the ball
3 - There are those who will try to deceive you into thinking that they are not armed. Be ready for anything.
4 - Your team is the most important asset you have. Put your trust in them to protect your blind spots.

The first week at a new company is always stressful and surreal. You are an outsider, and everyone you meet has the same "who the Hell are you" look when first introduced. You also have this strange halo effect which causes people to think that you are smarter than you really are. Actually, this halo effect has a half life of about six weeks, but starts to decay after about four.

Adding to the first week bizarreness, my boss was out for the last couple of days, so I had to jump into the deep end of the pool, grab an anchor and start swimming. I actually would not have it any other way, but it is still unsettling to take that leap.

I am still getting my bearings and will be gathering copious amounts of data over the upcoming weeks, but the good news here is that I have been here before and know these waters well. In fact, this opportunity fits perfectly within my sweet spot and I will be able to use all the clubs in my bag.

I am very glad that this weekend was relatively tranquil as I needed it to decompress and gird myself for the upcoming week.

I find myself thinking more and about the lessons learned from Dodgeball and I am nervously awaiting the whistle blow.

What is it with QA these days?

Here is a sad fact for you; the last time I worked for a company with a strong, independent and respected QA dept was over six years ago. That company was LowerMyBills, and they had a killer QA department which contributed greatly to the overall success of the product and company.

So what is it with QA these days and why are good QA people so hard to find and retain?

Some thoughts are that once a company has found a QA tester worth his/her salt, they hide them away and keep them captive with "golden handcuffs" so they will not be tempted to seek out greener pastures.

Another thought is that QA is often used as the incubator from which development is fed so you have a perpetual cycle of brain drain. Still another theory is that QA testers are not born, they are developed and that takes both time and effort, both of which are in often times in short supply in a fast moving company.

Regardless of what is truth and what is fiction, one thing is for certain, when you have a strong, independent and respected QA department within your organization, your company is able to accomplish amazing things. Without out one, your organization will be in perpetual firefighting mode as defects leak out into production and your clients unknowingly become your beta testers.

As a leader of an Operations team, I am repeatedly reminded of the pricelessness of a QA team who are not beholden to engineering or operations, and are free to be an unbiased proving ground for your product. The sad truth is that often organizations place QA under the direction of engineering, which frankly is just incestuous, or under the direction of operations, which is almost as bad.

What is worse, I have often times observed QA being hobbled either by misalignment within the organization, poor staffing or insufficient experience, pillaging from other departments and/or an unclear mandate regarding the importance of quality within the organization.

In my opinion (and the opinion of many others I have spoken with) QA must be free and independent and should report directly to a "C" level executive like a COO or CIO (not CTO) and should be held to stringent standards. Additionally, they should be given the ability to "pull the cord" and halt production in the event egregious quality issues are identified. Without these qualities, your QA department is at best little more than a rubber stamp and at worst, a scapegoat for all of your organization's ills.

I am interested to hear what others have experienced and what they have done to help solve this problem. I am also interested to hear your thoughts about how we, as IT professionals, can help guide young people into becoming QA tester and engineers instead of code jockeys.

In the end, QA may not be the sexiest job in IT, but I think you will agree that it is arguably the most important link in the chain and should be celebrated as such.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

It is official, you are reading the blog of the new Senior Manager, IT Operations at @Task. To say that I am excited about this new opportunity would be the understatement of the year.

As I begin this new exciting adventure, as the title of this posting says, it also means that my last adventure officially comes to an end. I would be lying if I did not say that this is more than a little bittersweet for me. My time at Kynetx was nothing less than amazing and I will remember it very fondly. I also want to thank Steve, Phil and the entire Kynetx team for their love and support as I embark on this new chapter of my career.

One of the things that attracted me to @Task was the fact that I would be working with three gentlemen from my past, namely Nate, Otto and Jeff. I first encountered these fine individuals when I was at Excite@Home (hmm, something about the "@" sign...). When that company imploded, we all went our separate ways, they stayed in Utah county and I went to CA.

Nate started @Task as a founder and currently holds the position of CTO. Otto and Jeff went to other companies and continued to work at their crafts and sharpen their skills to the point of mastery. They eventually found their way to @Task and have taken up postions that align perfectly with their skills.

When things changed at Kynetx Jeff and Nate reached out to me and expressed interest in bringing me in for a "sit down." This first meeting kicked of a series of meetings, phone calls and emails as we worked through the details of getting me on the bus. As we continued to talk, I was not quite sure where it was going to end up, but I always believed that we would come to a decision point in short order. That decision point ended up manifesting itself in the form of a employment offer.

So starting Monday, I will be traveling the I-15 corridor Southbound to building K on the old WordPerfect campus to start my new adventure leading an amazing team of IT professionals. This team is responsible for the care and feeding of the production computing platforms which serve clients like GE, Apple and Toyota just to name a few. We have our work cut out for us as @Task embarks on its own adventure of growth and market leadership.

I fully expect that this new beginning will test and stretch my abilities as a leader and technologist, but if it didn't, then it wouldn't be fun or interesting now would it.

In closing I would like to thank Nate, Jeff and Otto for their generosity and consideration. I would also like to thank the team I am about to assume the leadership of. They are really good guys and I impressed with their ability to metabolize change, even change of this magnitude. I know that it is not easy to welcome a new member, but they have done an admirable job of making me feel welcome.

So onward and upward I go.

Sam needed a hug today

I attended the "all-hands" meeting at Kynetx today to perform a post mortem on Impact 2011 and discuss strategic plans for Kynetx for the foreseeable future.

As we began the meeting, we all recounted our post Impact weekends and how most of us had found the downtime to be very rejuvenating. As we got down to the business of building a priority list of all of the things that need to get done, my friend Sam interupted and said (paraphrasing here), " I had a much different weekend then the rest of you. I did not find peace or solace, instead I found only dispair."

Silence permeated the room.

Needless to say, Sam needed a hug.

Here is the deal with Sam, I genuinely love this guy. He is brilliant and one of the most well adjusted humans I have met in my life. He is also very easy to read. Sam does not mask his emotions well (this is a feature, not a bug) and you can devine the "Sam weather report" pretty darn quickly if you care to look.

So when he spoke up in the meeting this morning, I was surprised, not by the fact he said something but by the velocity at which it all came tumbling out. It was obvious that Sam was in dispair and dwelling in a dark place because he felt that he was drowning.

What happened next was awesome.. Sam got a metaphorical group hug from the team in the room and a real hug from our CFO Roy. The group hug manifested in the form of "big ears" listening to not only the words Sam was saying, but also to what he was not saying. Because we all knew Sam and cared to listen, we very quickly knew what we needed to do in order to pull him out of his dark place.

This is what happens when you are part of a team who cares equally about the mental health of the humans and the business. I firmly believe that the mental health of humans and business are not mutually exclusive but are in fact are mutually dependent. This may seem obvious to some, but you would be shocked how many people get this wrong and forget that they are coupled. When you keep you business sane, you can drive your people crazy and the converse is true as well

As leaders, it is our duty to maintain sanity and promote good mental health for both our people and for our businesses. This often is hard work and can get very messy sometimes, but the upside for taking the time and making the effort is often huge.

Those who choose not to heed this advice do so at their own peril.

When the meeting was over, Sam was rescued from the jaws of dispair and once again dwelled in the light, and we had a comprehensive list of things to keep everyone busy for the next six months.

I believe that balance has once again been restored and the mental well being of both Sam and Kynetx are intact.