The One Where We Geek Out on Managing Change with Angela Blake

Key takeaways:

• Non-tech concepts translate to a tech world
• Change is change, and how you navigate it, whether it's in a tech world or in a non-tech world is the same
• The importance of acknowledging peoples' feelings about change and address their concerns.
• The importance of explaing why the change is happening in order for others to embrace change more easily
• The importance of protecting your time, to maintain mental health

About our guest:

Angela Blake is passionate about helping people create happy cultures and selves. She believes that we all have unique perspectives that are both valuable and useful. The most fulfilling work she's done is to draw out those perspectives, use them to improve ways of working together, and help people make positive, lasting change. In other words, she's a coach. :)

Find us on:

• All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingout
• All of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillela

Show notes:

• Windows 95
• Windows 3.1
• Lotus 1-2-3
• Scrum
• Kanban

Transcript:
ADRIANA:
Hey, fellow geeks. Welcome to Geeking Out, the podcast about all geeky aspects of software delivery DevOps, observability, reliability, and everything in between. I'm your host, Adriana Villela, coming to you from Toronto, Canada. And geeking out with me today is Angela Blake. Welcome, Angela.

ANGELA:
Hi. Hi. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

ADRIANA:
Thank you for joining. I'm super excited to have you on. And where are you calling from today?

ANGELA:
I'm calling from a very humid Toronto, downtown Canada. I said that in such an odd order, but downtown Toronto and that. I'm on the waterfront down here. Very busy. Very warm. I'm loving it.

ADRIANA:
Awesome. And the waterfront is honestly, like, one of my favorite spots in Toronto in the summer. Same name. Beat that.

ANGELA:
Yeah. Yeah, I live down here. I work down here. I'm a waterfront person.

ADRIANA:
Oh, that's so perfect. Yay! Hooray for sunny days. Cool. Well, we're going to get started with some, I will say, lightning round slash icebreaker questions.

ANGELA:
I'm ready.

ADRIANA:
Are you ready?

ANGELA:
I think I am, I think I am.

ADRIANA:
Okay, let's do this. First question. Are you a lefty or righty

ANGELA:
Oh, a righty. 100%. Always have been.

ADRIANA:
All right. Are you an iPhone or Android user?

ANGELA:
I have to say I'm an iPhone person. I have all of the, I would say Apple products, so to speak. I love the compatibility.

ADRIANA:
I'm with you on that. Yes, I too am a “All things Apple.”

ANGELA:
Yeah. Yeah I just I like that everything just connects with each other. I don't have to really do much as a consumer or a user. I know Android has, like some amazing abilities to, personalize and customize, etc., but I'm good with what I get from Apple.

ADRIANA:
I'm with you. It's funny because all people are like, you can't customize Apple. I'm like, yeah, I'm okay with that. I'm don’t want to spend my days doing that.

ANGELA:
Yeah, yeah, I can customize my background just enough for me. I'm. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Good enugh. Good enough. I'm down. I'm down. Okay. Similar question. Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or Windows?

ANGELA:
Oh, I honestly might not go along with my last answer, but I like Windows. Okay. I think because I've professionally always used Windows. So I'm that's what I'm used to. Like, you know, the Office suite, the the just the the usability of it, I think is kind of what I grew up. You think, so to speak. So it's just the most natural version for me.

ADRIANA:
Yeah, I feel ya.

ANGELA:
I do. Yeah, I do. Sorry I cut you off a little bit there, but I do have a MacBook at home that my son uses because I'm just like, I’m not as proficient...

ADRIANA:
It takes some getting used to, I have to admit, because I, I grew up in Windows Land as well. Like, you know, when Windows95 came out, I'm like, “whoa”. It can’t get any better than this.

ANGELA:
You're taking me back in time.

ADRIANA:
I know, right? Yeah. I mean, I remember Windows 3.1, and I was like, you know, the first time I saw a mouse, my dad's like, do you want to see something cool as a kid? He's like, you want to see something cool? I can show you a mouse right here. And I'm like, oh, and then he shows it to me and it's like it's a pointer on a screen. I'm like, what the hell is this??

ANGELA:
Oh my gosh. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Letdown!

ANGELA:
I remember being able to customize my pointer like, functionality. Like to have it like, do the drag. The, the effects and whatnot. And that was like just that was the ultimate. Or the little fire. Like, people were actually putting effort into what the cursor did. They might still be. But I, you know, I've moved on, I guess.

ADRIANA:
Yeah, I know what you mean. Like when this stuff was very novel. Like, I remember when I got my first, computer with sound, which I think it was like, I want to say it was like a laptop. My parents bought me to go to university, and this was like in 1997. It had sound and it was like, not, it was like a it had a sound card, but it was like, not the greatest sound.

ADRIANA:
And I'm like, I am going to make everything ding because I can.

ANGELA:
I can customize all these sounds. Yeah. Yeah. Once that one that came along. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
And then you get tired of it.

ANGELA:
Yeah, now I’ve got my phone [...] everything. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Yeah. Now my phone's constantly on silent. I can't even even stand, like, sounds coming from my phone. I'm like, no, this is so distracting.

ANGELA:
All notifications.

ADRIANA:
Yeah. Exactly.

ANGELA:
Exactly. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
All right, next question. Do you have a favorite programing language?

ANGELA:
Oh, golly. No, I am a non-tech person in a tech world. So the programing languages I will say are, literally a whole other language to me.

ADRIANA:
All right, fair enough, fair enough. And actually, I think that'll be a really cool topic to dig into in our conversation, because I think that's that's a really interesting, I think really interesting thing to talk about. Okay. Next question is, do you prefer to consume content through video or text?

ANGELA:
I you know what? It's a hard decision because I'm thinking video. It's coming across like, Reels. It's coming across YouTube. But text is so concise. I'm probably going to have to go with a video just for, like, the probably the amount of time I spend consuming video over, over text. Like, I do get emails, but like newsletters, etc. and I the ones that I do subscribe to, I enjoy. But yeah, I think video wins just for I don't know. Eyeball entertainment. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Now do you prefer the short form videos or for the long form videos. Like what? What kind of [...]?

ANGELA:
I probably go to the shorter, the shorter form. So the shorter it is with, with some sort of value. Yeah. Like I'm not talking about cat videos and things like that. That's a whole other topic of conversation. But like if I'm, if I want to learn something and somebody creative like a short video, I do enjoy, the feature in, YouTube where they show you like the most commonly viewed section of videos so that you can just jump to the, to the part that you've, I guess they're looking for. I like I like that, like I want to save my time.

ADRIANA:
Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know about that feature. Today I learned...

ADRIANA:
That's awesome. Oh. Very clever.

ANGELA:
Yeah. I don't know if it's a feature, but it's just like, you can see, like, at the [...]. I don't know if it's all videos. But yeah, you could see, like, it's like a bar and it shows you where the, most, I guess most common. Either it's either time stamps or it's the most common watching area.

ADRIANA:
Right. Right. Right.

ANGELA:
I said that so poorly, but you know what I mean?

ADRIANA:
Yeah. That's awesome. Okay. Final question. What is your superpower?

ANGELA:
Oh. Oh. My superpower. I guess it depends who you ask. But you're asking me. I'm thinking. I have to say something, and you really make me. This is a tough one. I'm going to go with. I have pretty organized brain, so I don't know for certain. So I've developed systems of thinking because I forget things. And I tend as a human, as we all do. I have a lot going on, whether it's work things or, you know, personal life things.

Going to concerts, planning, communications and my, you know, my job, etc.. Keeping track of all that, you know, it's not necessarily just all things that you can pop into your calendar. So I've over the years and I would say this isn't just something that I developed and it lived as it were originally iterated. I've, I've changed and shifted my, my systems over the years, but, I, I'm always kind of reorganizing my systems of organization.

ADRIANA:
That's awesome. That's awesome. So you're like, you're refining. Your system.

ANGELA:
Thank you. I love the way you put that. Yes.

ADRIANA:
I'm very, like, software oriented mindset. So I must say.

ANGELA:
I'm getting rid of the technical debt in my head.

ADRIANA:
There you go! Oh, yeah. I mean, it's it's like it's a thing. It's a trait of like, you know, personal growth. Personal development. As like, you learn better ways of doing things. You refine your system.

ANGELA:
Yeah. Yeah. And I love talking to other people about how they organize information. People have written books about it. Like, it, it's fascinating to to learn other systems and then I can use that to apply to my own, like, little personal systems.

ADRIANA:
That's very cool. It's funny because I think sometimes, like, we underestimate how hard it is to be organized because, like, I don't know about you, but like, you know, sometimes I'll come with like, come up with a categorization of certain things and I'm like, oh, but this thing can fall into here or here. I don't know what to do. And it causes me stress.

ANGELA:
Yeah. Yeah. Like, will I be able to find this later is basically the premise.

ADRIANA:
Yes.

ANGELA:
Of all organization. Like, am I going to know when I need to? Action this? Am I going to find it when I need it, etc.. Yeah. So...

ADRIANA:
Yeah.

ANGELA:
It can be stressful.

ADRIANA:
Exactly. Yeah. Especially like, I don't know if this happens to you, but for me, I'm like, I'm organizing something. I'm like, of course I'll find it. You know. I remember this. And then a week later I'm like, what was I thinking?

ANGELA:
Yeah. This is it's so obvious that it goes here. And yeah. And later on you have to return to like, a certain state of mind to figure out what. It's not that obvious. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Like it made sense under these circumstances.

ANGELA:
But can I figure... I recently did that with, one of those pop sockets that you put on the back of a phone. AV: Oh, yeah...

ADRIANA:
I, I like having those. So my, it's not just leaning on my, my baby finger. My phone, I mean, so I like to have a pop socket and I got a new phone case and I wanted to put this popsocket on that.

ANGELA:
I pre-purchased somewhere and found it on sale somewhere. And I was like, oh, that's a cute one. I'll, I'll buy that and put it and I'll put it somewhere. I haven't found it yet.

ADRIANA:
Oh no.

ANGELA:
That made perfect sense at the time. I will find it probably in a year or so when I'm looking for something else. So, yeah.So just to say, even if it is my superpower, there's always opportunity to refine and become better at organization.

ADRIANA:
Oh yeah. Super down for that. Awesome, awesome. Well, you've survived the questions and, congrats. So now what I wanted to talk to you about because... you, you mentioned this earlier on that you are a non-technical person in a technical world. So how did that happen?

ANGELA:
It's, it was a surprise to me. I don't know why. So I've worked for the same company for almost 30 years now, and 25 of those years were spent in on the business side of the company. So it's a it's a large company. And there was a lot of opportunity over there to try new roles and, and do lots of different things. Like I had a very a varied, career, in on the business side and I and I didn't actually have any aspirations to move into the technology side. However, while I was on the business side, I started working with a technical team. So it was a team of folks who were building like dashboards, and queries, etc. to help the business understand, you know, data and information. So I was really translating that, from just raw data into, like digestible information that they could use to drive decisions. And while I was working with this team, I was learning about Agile, Scrum mastery, etc. it was my very first introduction to these roles and these methodologies and concepts. And prior to that, I had been doing a lot of project type work.

And there was a lot of things about the work that I was doing that I kind of questioned. I just thought, there's gotta be a better way. Like, why are we having all of these siloed conversations and why are we doing work over here, in it on its own. And then kind of throwing it over the fence, as it were, so to speak, for somebody else to do and then expecting just updates, status updates, etc..

So when I did learn about the existence of this thing that had existed for quite a long time before I ever learned about it, the idea of agility and the principles there and the values there, it just I was like, oh, so other people thought this too, and I have come up with ways of working that can help people solve some of these, and not necessarily problems, but challenges of just trying to work with, with other people and trying to work with larger groups, etc..

So I really dove into that and I started to call myself a Scrum Master. I never officially had the title of Scrum Master. But I started it was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it were. I would call myself a Scrum Master. I would talk about agility. I would help people on the business side understand the value of Agile values and principles for themselves.

And because Agile was born within technology, as I grew in my career, I just was naturally attracted to, like a coaching role. It was kind of like an evolution of of a Scrum Master role, one of the many possibilities. And, that role was in technology. So I thought, okay, I'm applying for this role as whole other side of this company that I work in, and, it's kind of scary because I'm used to business. I'm used to that language. Yeah, I'm used to how things work on this one side. I hate to say that it's a side, but, you know, this one line of business within this company, and technology is completely new to me. Like, I don't I don't, my. Like I said earlier, I don't know any languages in any tech languages or coding languages. I don't know anything about developing. But I do know these ways of working and how to help people deal with the day to day frustrations of trying to work, whether they're in business or whether they're in technology. So it was really this desire to help people solve the problems that they go through every day. Yeah. That that kind of drew me over to where agile was, was born, so to speak, like to that side of the business. So I came over to technology, but even then, and this is like a summary of 30 years, even when I came to technology, I was I was an agile coach.

I was working with technology teams, but I still was a non-tech person. So I'm even though I'm immersed within technology, I'm not coding, I'm not developing. But I am working now directly with developers every day. Sometimes working with, you know, the leadership, the managers and such like the, the middle management, the executives, etc. to help them understand, like the value of, of a finding new ways of working because people are maybe a little frustrated and, maintaining things like sustainable pace,

But also doing things like advocating for the team to say that this, this particular team that I'm coaching needs this. To get unstuck or whatever it is that they're looking for and helping them challenge the ways of working that existed that caused their frustrations. So just getting to know the teams, but it was more dealing with them as people than technology people.

Yeah. And due to, reorg, I, moved I've moved recently from an agile coaching role to, to, a strategy and operations role where it's a lot about communicating the changes that we're making and letting the people that use the products and tools that we build, letting them know about these upcoming changes and if it affects them and if there's any impact to them. Etcetera. So still have... I am within DevOps now. So I'm in the DevOps group, and working with them day-to-day and helping them communicate about all these amazing DevOps tools that we have and how it can benefit you and save you time and make life easier and better. But I still don't know how to code.

I see the people around me on the screens with all of the words on them. That looks like the matrix to me. I don't know, I don't know what any of that says. But I do know, you know, how to communicate the things that they need communicated. And I'm very slowly, I would say, learning the, the architecture and the, the, the engineering of, DevOps, as it were. Yeah. I mean, I'll never know it to the detail of, of a developer. However, I can know enough to understand how things connect and how to, help the people who are using our tools understand the impact to them.

ADRIANA:
That's awesome. And I you know, I think you you touched on something really interesting, which is like, yeah, you're you're not a technical person, but at the end of the day, like... we're all working with people. And I think the, the most challenging aspects in an organization, whether it's a technology organization and... or not. And let's face it, most organizations do have a a technology aspect. It's still going to be the people. It's always like the, the, the socio-technical aspects are probably the most challenging ones when it comes to like, really getting, really herding folks in the in the right direction, especially of, of like major change, like large business transformations, that sort of thing.

ANGELA:
Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, whenever there is a change, our reaction to it is as a human. Yeah. It's not I'm not reacting to it as a developer or somebody in strategy or a business person. I'm I'm reacting to it as a human and how it affects me. Yes. My day to day or how I'm I might be afraid of how it'll affect me in my day to day, or concerned or, you know, I want to know more.

ADRIANA:
Yeah.

ANGELA:
How it will affect me. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Yeah. So, you know, when you're when you're dealing with folks like this, especially like in a coaching role, how do you, how do you navigate that... the fear that folks have around, you know, trying something different, especially because things are always changing. So you almost have to, like, brace yourself for the change. But it's hard for some people.

ANGELA:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I 100% agree with the fact that it can be hard for folks. I you're bringing me back a little bit to like, the 90s. I was thinking about when I first started my career, and I was, working on different projects, and somebody at the time said, you know, change is constant. It's the only, you know, there's like a common phrase.

It's like the only thing that doesn't change is change. Like it's always it's always coming at you. Yeah. And we need to be prepared because change isn't going away. And, it's just going to become faster and more frequent in the future. And this was the 90s. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We're. Yeah. Now we're in the 2020s and it's.

We weren't wrong. I guess that's what I'm saying. Like there's there's constant change going on around us. But that doesn't mean that it's easier for people to adapt because there's different types of change. And we're all impacted differently, by any given change. So, a change that affects a, you might emotionally hit you differently than me, right? Like so. And it depends entirely on what the change is, how it affects us, how much we know up front when we hear about it. So. And your question was about like how as a coach, I would, you know, help somebody with that or, you know, talk to somebody about it or help them think about changing. And, and I would put the caveat that every coach is different.

So, another coach will do things differently than I will. [...] But in my, in my case, I'm more, like, I do like to challenge people to push themselves out of their comfort zone a bit, because where you learn is in where you're uncomfortable and your, your zone of discomfort is where you're you're learning and growing. But there's also, you know, an acknowledgment of that fear or an acknowledgment of the emotions that go along with the change.

And sometimes people need an opportunity to be heard, when it comes to that, whatever, whatever feelings they have, some I've seen changes happen and I've, you know, been 30 years with the same company. I've seen many changes happen. Big ones, little ones, all, all different. Everybody reacts a little bit differently and, has different levels of comfort with ambiguity, I would say.

Yeah. Like my myself, I'm pretty comfortable with ambiguity. I'm like, okay, well, I'll find out more later. But some people want all the details right now. As soon as I know about a change, I need to know.

ADRIANA:
Yeah.

ANGELA:
How it's going to affect me. I need to be able to plan for my future. And, I mean, like, it could be a simple, straightforward change, like, we're going... and this is going to date me, and we're going from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel. Like we're going to.

ADRIANA:
I remember Lotus 1-2-3.

ANGELA:
I was so good at it. I, I did all my keyboard shortcuts and everything. And then I had to figure out Excel and I thought, oh my gosh, I'm never going to figure this out. I was I was highly impacted. And I would even dare say emotional about it...

ADRIANA:
Well, yes...

ANGELA:
For some time, because I was frustrated, even when I was, even... the change had happened. I use Excel now. And I'm still... I'm frustrated because I'm not as fast as I once was. My productivity is down, and I... you know, have to recreate things...

ADRIANA:
Yeah.

ANGELA:
In my case. Right. So, I mean, that's an oldie but a goodie example. But change is all around us and, and as a coach, I'm trying to help people understand that they have the capacity to make changes that will potentially make their life better.

ANGELA:
And I mean their work life. If I'm life coaching them, maybe their, their personal life, but, the changes that they're making are experiments that could potentially alleviate some of their frustrations. And if they have control over those experiments or the changes that they make, like, and it could be some small little thing like, let's have, 15 minute stand up every other day and, or maybe they're already having a 15 minute stand up every other day and they're like, it's, you know, we're not getting what we need out of it. Okay, well, let's talk about what you need. And do we need to change the cadence. Do you want to change how you run the conversation? Do we want to revisit the purpose? As just examples.

So I think. When people can understand the benefit of a change, when they can understand that their, their feelings about it are acknowledged, I think it makes it a lot more, feasible, a lot, a lot more likely for people to take on a change or to create a change. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And it's, you know, it makes me think back to all the all the times that, you know, I've, I've experienced change or been in an organization that that did a large change. And like, I remember like being in an organization where we switched from Google Mail to Outlook and it was like, it was so frustrating. Right. And, and because you're, you know, it's like the Lotus 1-2-3 example to Excel, you're used to working a certain way. And then now all of a sudden, like your workflow changes, but you know, being explained... like hearing, hearing from folks like, okay, this is the reason for the change. And it's like, well, it does make logical sense. You know, like...

I might have my feelings around what tool I prefer, but like in terms of standardization within an organization, it makes a lot of sense. So you almost like, I don't know, logic kind of wins out on that. But I guess the other thing too, though, is like logic doesn't always win out on that, because as I said, there's the emotional aspect. And I love what you said about acknowledging people's feelings, because I think the, I think what frustrates, I think what we crave more than anything as humans is to to feel like we're part of something and to feel acknowledged. Right?

ANGELA:
Yeah. And even maybe to feel like we have a little bit of control or impact on what's happening. We... many years ago, we were moving an office from downtown to, uptown so that we could diversify our footprint. So we didn't have all of our offices downtown, which, logic makes sense. But highly emotional process for people because it affects me on a personal level. Now I have to go instead of from my home to this downtown location, I have to go to an uptown location. So which which for some people. Great. I live uptown. I'm closer to work. But for some people it was much more, travel time, or somewhat more travel time. So. And it was a big ambiguous thing.Where am I going to sit? What's it going to be like there? Yeah, it's like my my morning routine. Where am I going to get my coffee? Yes. So I was part of a project that was helping some of these folks move. And it was just about... we had roundtables where they could talk about their feelings and ask their questions.

So we get which we, you know, because emotions are data. So when they would tell us that they're scared of what's going on or they're frustrated or that it's going, they're going to be farther away and they're they're mad, that's that's data that we can use to help us address some of their concerns. You're afraid of the ambiguity.

Okay, well, here's a sample of what the chairs are going to be like. And this is the material we're using on them. And here's a floor plan. This is where you're going to sit. We did like little videos, like a little tour video of here's how you get to the local Tim Hortons or Starbucks or whatever it was.

So your morning routine, you can see what it's going to be like, just trying to. And these were all addressing the concerns. Yeah. They were, they were, they were raising but the, I think more valuable was the opportunity that they had to just say what they wanted to say. Be heard. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
That's so great. And, I mean, it's, it's, and it shows that like, there's thoughtfulness on your part because I think that's what, that's what people really hate is like, to be told. It's like, you know, I was involved in a few, like, transformation projects, and early in my career, like, you know, I was like, so had this mentality of, like, I'm always right. And therefore, like, what everyone else is doing is crap. And so, you know, come in and say, “What you're doing is crap.” And you're basically saying, “You have an ugly baby.” Nobody wants to be told they have an ugly baby.

ANGELA:
No. That’s right. That’s right.

ADRIANA:
So yeah... like, being gentle about it.

ANGELA:
Yeah. And I mean, there's there's always going to be changes that are thrust upon us, so to speak, like that we don't have any say in and we don't have any, leverage or impact on like we do. It's just outside of our sphere of influence. But there's always choices that we can make as far as how we let it impact us, how we react to it.

And as the people who are creating change and thrusting it upon others, so to speak, we have the opportunity to communicate with people in a different way, like to give them an avenue to share their thoughts or to ask questions, or to have maybe a little control somewhere. Okay. It's making me think of it. When my son was just little and I would give him choices like, what do you want to have for dinner? But I wasn't asking a three year old, what do you want to have for dinner? Yeah, I was asking, do you want to have chicken nuggets or do you want to have, mashed potatoes? I'm just making something up there. Can’t think of something I was feeding him when he was three. But. So I just give him like, it wasn't the illusion of a choice. He did have a choice.

But it was a limited. I'm not gonna give you the options of everything. I'll give you the options of the things I'm willing to make tonight. And, that's it.

ADRIANA:
So it’s like guardrails, basically.

ANGELA:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it gives that feeling of, oh, I have a little bit of control here.

ADRIANA:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's so awesome. And you know, I want to go back to something that you mentioned as an Agile Coach where, the idea of like, getting the feedback from the folks that you were coaching, even on, on the frequency of, like, the stand ups and making tweaks to, to the Agile process because I think, like for me personally, like, I love the idea of Agile, I like the agility of agile, but I've always had a bit of a beef with the fact that agile. It's so like encrusted in ceremony that it's almost to the point where it's stifling. And I think, it, it, I think originally it was supposed to be meant as guidelines, and then it just became like, very stringent. And Scrum is very, very, you know, like strict with the ceremonies. But hearing what you were saying, which is like, I think embracing the agility, the lowercase “agile” of Agile.

ANGELA:
Absolutely. Yeah. I love, I love what you said encrusted with what does feel that way. And I absolutely agree with you, how agile methodologies can can sometimes in some scenarios are, and I would say maybe a lot of [...] are used as, like rulebooks, and not as, here's a tool that you can use to help you. Somebody came up with some ideas that make them more agile. Instead of that, they say, thou shalt do this thing. Now thou shalt Scrum, Kanban, or whatever it is. And so it instantly, turns people off and they don't even learn about the, say, the values or the principles of agile, which are where it's like the really good stuff. I'm just trying to like, figure out ways to work at a sustainable pace. Oh, how many people have I talked to that, you know, are frustrated with taking on too many projects, or too much work? It's a lot, so, if I, if I'm, if I get to the values and the principles of Agile like that, to your point of the small agile, like, just being agile, like, Kanban and Scrum...

They don't, they don't matter. They're just systems that should be helping us, and not be used as, I guess a ruler. Where... I don't know, a rule book. Because they're, they're encrusted in ways.

ADRIANA:
Yeah. And then. And then it defeats the whole purpose of what you're trying to accomplish.

ANGELA:
Yeah. Because then people don't feel like they have a space to experiment and try new things and have conversations with each other about, you know, hey, what should we try next? Because they're busy. Aren't you meeting all of these little tick boxes of what they're considering to be Agile, or Scrum or Kanban?

ADRIANA:
Yeah, totally, totally. Now, now switching over now that you're on the other, I don't want to call it the other side, but now that you have moved to the DevOps world, because, I mean, they're often agile, like I see them as like, they're so intertwined, because you can't... have the agility that you want with Agile without DevOps, because you got, you need to have those fast feedback loops from DevOps. So how how do you that for you going like from moving from like the Agile world to the DevOps world? How did that how did that translate for you? What were some of the similarities, some of the differences?

ANGELA:
I think I better understand now, like CI,/CD, but like the benefits of CI/CD, continuous integration, continuous development, and, and better understand just like the value of things like automation tools, even like going to the degree of talking about like AI and large learning, models. I honestly, as a, as a coach, coming from the business side, as a, as a scrum master on the business side, I probably didn't understand the benefit of those things as well as I could have. I mean, I could talk to somebody and say, yeah, have you heard of, I don't know, test driven design, and and speak to it. And I could talk to it but didn't really truly understand it. I will openly admit, until you, you know, seeing it live, seeing it working within DevOps.

Yeah. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
And that's the magic too, I think for me, like, you know, it's as you said, you like, read about it, hear about it, whatever. And then you see it and you're like, what?

ANGELA:
Yeah, yeah. The cool thing with, I would say development, agile, etc., like the experience is so much. I don't want to say just better, but I'm, that's the word that's coming to mind. It's, it's better than the theory. Yeah. So reading it is cool. Like you're getting an understanding of the concept but like seeing it and you're like, oh, this is where it could go. What? That's all fantastic. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Mindblowing.

ANGELA:
Different. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, eye-opening.

ADRIANA:
And until, like, when you're, you know, looking at DevOps in, in a large organization where, where you're at, like, we see some of the challenges that are, that are occurring with teams because, I mean, large organizations means that you are contending with tons of teams. And it's so tempting for like, everyone to do their own thing, right?

ANGELA:
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. And and we do see like, I mean, because we're a large organization, we do see folks that are, they're not yet using DevOps. So we're still in the process of adopting, so we're really trying to help people understand the benefit and help them understand, like, hey, come on over. The water’s fine. It's great over here. You're gonna like it. I, we promise you. I mean, it it does come with challenges because, you know, you're centralizing things. It's, it's more, it's standardized in some ways because you're using, like, this specific tool. But I'd like to say, like, I feel like and I'm saying this as a non-tech person in the tech world, of course.

That there's lots of options. Like, it's not like we just have one tool that does this specific thing. We have multiple. Yeah. You do have options within DevOps. So I find it interesting to think about the folks who have not yet adopted DevOps. And the challenge is that they're going through and what makes them feel as though... and it goes back to the humanity.

Emotions right of why? Why aren’t they using DevOps yet? Is it because they feel that.. Are they afraid of it? Are they, concerned about the amount of time it would take them to, to reimagine their, the, the way that they work so that they're using it? Because it's, I would argue, that it's worth the effort. Once you. Yeah, once you, once you're using it, you're spending so much less time on things that you're spending time on now. Yeah, I think they're automated, etc.. And there's somebody else taking care of the background of things. You can just focus on, you know, building features and updating them, etc..

ADRIANA:
Exactly. Sit back, relax, enjoy the show. We'll take. care of you.

ANGELA:
Yeah, I'll take care of all the background stuff.

ADRIANA:
That's awesome. Well, I could stay on this topic forever, but I do want to talk about one other thing. So, I know one of the things that you mentioned that you wanted to talk about was the idea of protecting your energy, which I think.

ANGELA:
Oh, yeah, yeah.

ADRIANA:
Yeah. It sounds awesome. And if you could elaborate on that a little bit.

ANGELA:
Yeah. So, you know, and this is again, back to just being a human being. I find I've been having conversations lately with, with just various people and, and just naturally these conversations have been coming up about.... saying no, quitting things, protecting the time and energy that we have to spend on the things that are priorities for ourselves. And it was I would also say that it was a theme of, the folks that I coached, when I was as a life coach as well, people have challenges with setting boundaries and maybe don't feel that they can. Maybe feel the pressure to always say yes or to always be available, which connects, I think, with the idea of, you know, working at a sustainable pace, which is a, you know, an Agile idea.

I, I think it's so important for us to, be sure to protect the energy that we have and to not be afraid to advocate for ourselves when we don't want to do a thing. Like there's nothing wrong with saying no to, like, taking on another project or to to, I don't know, whatever it is that you want... need to say no to. In in one example of somebody that I coached, it was, you know, they felt the pressure to stay connected like via their, their phone or their laptop all evening. And it was like, maybe you should set a boundary, try it out.

And just be, share that with the folks that... that, would usually reach out to you and just share, like, after 5 p.m.. I'm. I'm not fine. I'm hanging out with my family or my dog or myself because I need to recharge. There is a there is an analogy that... coaches love analogies. So I've got all these little, little images, but it's the idea of you are an axe, and if you don't stop chopping the wood long enough to sharpen your axe every now and then, which is you, your energy, like just your brain, it's going to get dull and it's going to get harder to chop the wood, and it's going to get to the point where your axes just going to fall apart, because you never stop to maintain it. So you do need to have you need you need to stop doing things. You need to say no to things so that you can protect the energy that you have and rebuild it back up sharp, sharpened your ax,e whether that's your brain or your your energy or, you know, just your mental state. You know, you need that time for yourself because you are a human being.

ADRIANA:
Yeah. Yeah. That's so great. I love that. And I think that's such a great analogy. And it's I mean, it's so hard to say no. And especially like, also like I do feel like the more seen you are in your career, the more people will ask you to do stuff. And then you're like, oh my God, they appreciate the work that I'm doing. But then that means that you're getting like all these ridiculous, not ridiculous, but like, all sorts of requests, and it's like, oh my God, I don't want to let this person down, but you end up letting you down if you take on too much, right?

ANGELA:
Yeah. And you could end up letting them down just in the future. Like, it, it’s just, you know, you say some, say yes to something that you really just don't have time for. Yeah. And and you can just be letting them down further along. Yeah. And there's also nothing wrong with., “not right now.” Like, instead of, “no”, if it's something that you really want to do, like it's a really cool idea or, or opportunity. You can say, you know, I'm really busy right now, but can we touch base on this next week or next month or whatever works for your scenario? Because I think we forget about that option totally. You know, just sharing, like, I'm really busy right now, but I do want to do this. Can we touch base on it later? Yeah.

ADRIANA:
I'm you know you have to just like, remind people

ANGELA:
Yeah. You just you're just merely advocating for yourself in some small way. And it opens the conversation.

ADRIANA:
Exactly.

ANGELA:
It's that simple. Yeah.

ADRIANA:
Awesome. Well, I we are coming up on time, so, before we part ways, I was wondering if you had any words of wisdom or hot takes that you would like to share with folks?

ANGELA:
I think, not necessarily a hot take, but just like the advice that I give just about anybody these days is to trust in your gut. Trust in yourself. Like, listen to that inner voice that you have going on. And, and, you know, try the thing. Like if you're if your inner voice is telling you, you're maybe taking on too much, maybe say no to some stuff, or if it wants to try karaoke, go check it out. Like, you know, just trust, trust what's going on inside of you and, feed that.

ADRIANA:
That's awesome. I love that so much. Well, thank you so much, Angela, for geeking out with me today.

ANGELA:
It was a pleasure.

ADRIANA:
It was so much fun. And y'all, don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check out the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time.

ANGELA:
Peace out and geek out.!

ADRIANA:
Geeking out is hosted and produced by me, Adriana Villela. I also compose and perform the theme music on my trusty clarinet. Geeking Out is also produced by my daughter Hannah Maxwell, who, incidentally, designed all of the cool graphics. Be sure to follow us on all the socials by going to bento.me/geekingout.