Change

After 13 years, I finally left OOCL, the first company where I worked as a permanent staff. I started as an Assistant Technical Analyst (equivalent to SWE I). I had been climbing the engineering ladder for years and became an Engineer Manager in 2020, leading a product team. Last year, I planned to move to the UK to seek better opportunities. After spending over a half year experimenting with almost everything I’ve learned in Agile while delivering a product satisfying the stakeholders, I told my manager it was time to move on. ...

Recently (and finally), I watched the film “Oppenheimer”. They won’t fear it until they understand it. And they won’t understand it until they’ve used it. — “Oppenheimer” (film) I don’t know whether it’s a quote from the real Oppenheimer or a creation from the movie, but this impressed me the most. Typically, we can’t change people’s minds directly. Often, they change because they realise that the change improves their lives. People often fail to realize the dangers of constantly staring at their phones on the street until they experience a vehicle collision. In the Agile world, people won’t understand the concepts we teach until they’ve tried them. ...

I’ve been listening to many podcast episodes recently. One of the quotes I heard is “They know what their problems are. They just don’t want to change.” “I want to be physically fit, but I’m old.” I’ve seen many twenty-ish and thirty-ish people react to my take on improving my physical fitness. “Your approach to your team works very well, but mine is different from yours.” How different are we? Does my team consist of geniuses, whereas your team is full of preschool kids? ...