A Strategist?...

It was recently remarked on to me that I am a strategist.  I wasn’t sure what this remark meant to me… Was it a compliment?  Was it a reason to take inventory of what I do and ensure I am doing a good job?  Was it a reason to investigate my behavior?

This inevitably led to some research… it doesn’t take much for me to go running for information… for understanding… for knowledge…

In my search, I came upon some interesting and somewhat revealing information.  First of all, I found a blog post titled "Do you think you’re a strategist? You’re probably wrong," by Penelope Trunk. 

I remembered the Personality Type quiz I took, which revealed I “am” an INTJ… I seriously recommend taking the Jung Personality Type quiz  so you can learn about you… about how you learn, how you see things, your possible strengths and weaknesses… to get to know YOU a bit better…

 

Anyhow… one search leads to another in my world… and I stumbled upon Marketing Optimization: How to create a test that gets results you can use ... 

I found some interesting tidbits to chew on in this article, which has nothing to do with software testing, but testing in general… gathering information that is…

This is a great blog post on testing in general… read it… think about… and try to apply it to what you are thinking when you are considering testing… Especially take to heart the “Learn from your tests to optimize all of your marketing efforts” section, but apply it to YOUR project… try to make it fit to the context of the information you are trying to gather for YOUR stakeholders.

 It is a great way to make yourself think about things in a different light… a personal “post-mortem” of your own efforts in testing.

I believe if you take into account your own Personality Type (strengths and weaknesses), and seriously endeavor to look for ways to improve what you do, that you will find ways to do so… as long as you continuously test yourself and your own processes/ideas/thoughts.

 

Learning…

This past winter my 8-year-old daughter has been learning how to ice skate.  The season has been wrought with success and failure and joy and tears.  In other words… it has been about learning and the emotions we carry with us in the process of doing so.

When learning to do anything, or for that matter, re-learning, the process is close to heart so it brings along with it things we usually do not plan for, compensate for.

In watching her lessons I have observed a few things that I never really thought of.  Most of those involve the assumptions and brain-blocks we can create for ourselves when endeavoring to learn something.

In her mind, before she could actually stand on the ice in skates, the child was doing swirls/twirls/figure 8’s.  In her mind, she wanted to do this, so she already could.   To me, this is "fascinating"...

Some things got in the way – between what was reality and what was dream… This is not really all that uncommon if you think about it.  How many graduates of schooling really think they have opened the door to where they will change a world, theirs or others, when they pass the thresh-hold?  And how many find out pretty soon thereafter, it really takes more than a dream… it takes grit/passion/persistence/more learning/work?

And how many find out that while they may have passed some “tests”, they need to pass some more that they did not even know they needed to take the exam on?

Most successful people learn as they live that failure is part of learning… that it is part of finding success.  But it takes some understanding to find this key.  When I saw my daughter learning with a walker ), I – and the teachers – prodded the dismissal of this crutch after a couple of lessons.  She was afraid, but she did it.

She then got frustrated – to tears – when she would fall.  Not only does it pain the backside, but it pains the pride, and it has the potential to deteriorate the dream.  So more is to be learned, "Grasshopper".   And we venture down the road of learning to test ourselves.  To try to pass those tests and be where we dreamed we could be… or find out that the dream was only a catalyst to find where we really belonged all along…

As I have collected the things I have needed to learn in my journey, one of the things I have learned is to test myself.  I think of things I want to be/want to do/want to see/want to accomplish/want to learn…

As I transition from what is in my mind to what is real, I find I am not so very far removed from my child… I get just as frustrated (even if it shows itself in more ‘adult’ ways), I get just as emotional (even if I don’t cry in public), I get just as humiliated when I fail… but… I, at this point have learned, that failure teaches me…

And it teaches me a lot, if I am willing to listen… And, even if I hear a particular lesson and fail again… it is my choice to continue to venture towards my dream.

Directly over my testing machine lies a poster called the ABC’s of Success, someone decided to put it to music on Youtube, so here it is... look at these individually and connect them to yourself… pass them on to your kids… it’s all about learning.

Sometimes Ya Gotta Admit Something CAN Work…

I grew up on Star Trek.  I would change the last line to say “to where no ‘human’ has gone before”, however times have changed since then…
 

I also grew up with a Spock outlook on just about everything…

 

I, for whatever reason, thought a bit about Star Trek today when I was in a position to “admit” something was good, even though I did not like the added work it meant to me.

While thinking on this, I did some random Google  search on Star Trek, and found this little gem:

 7 Life Lessons You Can Learn From ‘Star Trek'.  

LOVED IT!!!

Some of them you can really take to heart… and some are kinda funny… but are easy to relate to…

I am pretty much brutally honest/opinionated/questioning on anything that is brought before me.  It is part of who I am.  I “Function as Designed”, not always pretty or sweet or nice, but usually forthright…

I was approached recently with a potential change in processes that would require more work on my end.  I looked at it from my end first:  I am kinda self-oriented, but not quite narcissistic.  It would not pass this “test”. 

Next, I looked at it in the “eyes of the stakeholders”… I could find no problem with it here.  In fact, here it was needed/necessary.   Awe… I hated to admit it, but it was the right thing to promote.

So… there I sat… for 10 seconds… deliberating… In the old cartoon of “Angel/Devil on Shoulder”, it doesn’t fly with me… I am about what makes the best sense… has the most logic… I caved.

I agreed with the proposal… and managed to fit in why I wished I could find a way not to.

Innovation is about listening… about opening up to new ideas/thoughts/processes… About being past yourself…  and learning about "fulfillment" .

I will always want to innovate what I do, who I am, what I see… but I will never do so without questioning it and seeing if it makes “logical” sense to me.  There is a fine line between “going with the flow” and having a reason to do so.   That fine line requires thinking and understanding how you think.

You should never give in/give up just because the status quo does so… but you should never be so blinded by stubbornness that you cannot see if something is meaningful… it’s all about perspective/balance/understanding.   And if you are not sure… de-focus… and come back to it later with a fresh set of eyes/ears.