I’ve been hosting this show for seven and a half years, watching the agile industry. As I publish less, I’m focusing on validating new ideas. My goal is unchanged – delivering the highest value, and transferring elite skills to leaders based on the principles that actually work.
I’m shifting from traditional scrum and agile topics to core principles of simplicity and wellness, creativity and innovation. If Scrum Masters and Agile Coach roles disappeared completely, we’d be ok; what we create and for whom is key. I aim to inspire and ignite a passion for excellence and practical agility in a rapidly changing world. My goal is to help you get the skills to stay relevant and in-demand in a new landscape of work.
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Episode Sections
00:00 Introduction and Show Evolution
01:01 Purpose and Mission of Badass Agile
01:37 Personal and Professional Changes
02:04 Redefining Roles and Titles
04:07 Focus on Simplicity and Mental Wellness
05:43 Creative Process and Innovation
07:25 Conclusion and Future Directions
Transcript
Introduction and Show Evolution
I’ve been doing this show for seven and a half years now, and in that time, our industry’s grown and changed and the show has changed too. So what’s next for Badass Agile? That’s this week on the Badass Agile podcast.
Greetings team. Welcome to the Badass Agile Podcast. I’m your host, Chris Williams.
Hey friend, good to see you. I’m glad you’re still tuning in. You might have noticed that I’ve been publishing less and that’s on purpose. You know, sometimes,
you have to spend the time figuring out what’s next, what belongs, what feels good, validating your intuition, and sometimes trying some new things and seeing what floats.
Let’s talk about what the changes are, what they mean to you and to me, and to the show.
Purpose and Mission of Badass Agile
But first, let’s take a moment to remember. As always, why we’re here. To create an elite tribe of leaders who truly serve their clients and communities by doing what matters and what works. Relentlessly chasing value and excellence like a badass.
There’s so many resources out there about what to do to be agile, but we focus on who you need to become. In order to lead teams. So let’s hammer down those fundamentals to create a truly unique and powerful force in this industry.
If you love the show, tell your friends, and don’t forget to check out my products and services at learning.fusechamber.com
Personal and Professional Changes
Look, I’ll be blunt. I’m not a scrum master or agile coach anymore. I haven’t done it for quite a while. As the years pass, I’m less willing to be defined by a job title. It’s what I do that matters, not how I do it or who I do it for. And frankly, I’m a little bored of the same conversations. I want something new.
Consistency and comfort, habit, let’s call it, has to be balanced with a little bit of novelty, some kind of excitement. And let’s think about this.
Redefining Roles and Titles
If you’re defined by your title, well, what happens when the title changes? Because that’s what’s happening now in our industry. Many of us find ourselves lost, struggling to define what to put on a resume or what positions to even send a resume in for now that our old familiar titles are disintegrating.
What is it we really do? You know what I think? I think we’re creators. No matter what your job title is, I see a crack letting in some light. In the future, we won’t be classified by and bound to that role.
We’ll define ourselves by what we make, the value we create, and who we make it for. Now this is really important news because this way, If the title disappears or falls out of favor, we’re not stuck in that rut.
We’re not all of a sudden finding ourselves without work, unable to snap into a new position if we lose the one that we already have when we help large organizations focus on pockets of value. To deliver fast for competitive advantage. You can do that almost anywhere in any department on any kind of product or offering.
And it never goes out of style. We should be expecting this. The rapid pace of tech means we’re going to change more often. Us agile folks should be comfy with that. It is after all, what we preach to our clients. And I’ve always said that I create massive art and experience to inspire and ignite people to a life of distinction, simplicity, and strength.
That’s my personal vision statement. And further, I’ve always said that the podcast was about those fundamentals of excellence. It was about who you need to become, not the doing of Agile that made people and teams So I’m going to keep doing more of that. And in keeping with the work that I’m doing inside the forge, I’m going to talk less and less about pure scrum or agile.
I might even have to change the name of this show someday. If you think about it, I’ll talk more and more about the fundamental principles.
Focus on Simplicity and Mental Wellness
I’m going to focus on simplicity. Because in my professional life, I’ve been called to bring that simplicity to the mental wellness sphere. What that means is, I’m all about finding a return to the things that we were built to be.
To do and the people we were built to do it for because simplicity means stripping away. And we have a lot of social and technological buildup right now. It’s time for a cleaning. Like when you get all the plaque and tartar cleaned off your teeth, it’s bad for your smile. It’s bad for your heart. What you’re going to see is my basic agile principles reframed.
The focus is on ideal mental states, mental attitudes, And the habits that pave the way for agility, high performance, and effectiveness. I love talking about the people fundamentals too. How to influence, how to lead, how to inspire, how to sell your ideas. And market what you do inside and outside an organization.
I love learning and growing in those areas specifically. So I’m always studying, I’m always getting better. And my experience tells me that people love learning about it, too. But when I say fundamentals, I don’t mean the things that you can read anywhere. There’s enough rehash on the internet already. I’m talking about the foundational ideas that usually defy the accepted norm.
When I say simple, I don’t mean easy. Because it was easy, Everybody would already be doing it. This is the stuff they don’t teach in school. This is the chemistry set of the true rebel, the hero.
Creative Process and Innovation
And in the process, I’ll also talk more about the creative act, whether it’s technical innovation, if that’s an area that interests you and helping your clients, whether it’s writing a blog post or a book or playing the trumpet.
New ideas and expressions are the seed of great outcomes and we could use more positive change right now, couldn’t we? The less time we spend consuming mindless content on social media, the more freedom, the more space we have to create new things.
And you’ll find it doesn’t matter how many likes you get, creating for the sake of creation is the master skill at the heart of every great agilist, at the heart of every great entrepreneur, at the heart of every great visionary.
Agile surrounds solutioning and solutioning is really just creation. So let’s magnify that. Let’s learn about the creative process. And let’s do more of that process. In this time of so much AI and so much sameness, there’s never been a better time. But I’m also going to talk about why. The why of what we do.
In some ways, my friend, this podcast has been a letter to you. A way to connect like minded souls over a common belief. A common desire to do something more than manage people and manage the tasks of one of a million projects in a big corporate machine. A chance to love what we do for once, to have the freedom to make art, to create truly what we want.
Beautiful and meaningful experience.
Conclusion and Future Directions
So as I’ve said before, in the past, I’m arcing away from the technical and the bookie agile, and I’m assuming that we have this agile skill, this agile way of thinking and doing, and it’s a tool in our toolkit. Now we don’t have to stress over the what or the how I feel like at this point, we’ve probably got it.
It’s going to be more about where you can apply that agility to continue to thrive and to add value and to serve and to create meaning for yourself and others by bringing those tools to bear in a world that’s very, very different than when they first dreamed up and wrote down agile a quarter of a century ago.
It’s a different place, and we have to let go of the fact that these aren’t the same halls we used to occupy decades ago. It’s not the same people, it’s not the same time, it’s not the same opportunity. All of the parts have shifted, and nothing looks like it used to. Emotionally, we have to unattach from that comfortable feeling.
To exhibit our bravery now to bring these truly great ideas that the agile movement stirred in us and woke up in us and bring them to places where they’re most needed. So hope you don’t mind the break. And I hope you can sit with me through the change. If you’ve got questions or comments, I’d love to hear them.
As always, you can find me out there. Check me out on LinkedIn. You can find me on Instagram. You can find me at badassagile. com. I look forward to seeing you next time and until then stay badass.
