2014 review

Last year passed without a blog post, and I'd like to start this year writing, because 2015 is going to be a year of changes. On 9th of January I'm leaving Thomson Reuters, the company where I've worked for 2 years, 4 if I count the years as a contractor, and on 12th I'll start a new job. So it's a good time to make a retrospective of what happened in 2014.

Inside Thomson Reuters

I participated in a change initiative inside Thomson Reuters and it's been a great experience to know about all the difficulties of people distribution, cultures and communication. I had the opportunity to comment and discuss issues about how to evolve Database structure in a living application, and I stumbled upon some good literature about it. This evolutionary database design thing is something I've fought in several occasions in the past, and I'll find time to investigate further.

I've been programming and learning, above all about testing, and levels of testing, and about collaboration and responsibility, the no-coding bits of programming. We practiced a few times mob programming (all the team in a room using a single computer and a projector), and it resulted an energizing and productive exercise.

Speaking

This year I held three sessions of Learning Scrum with LEGO, two in-company and another one with my friends of PMI Barcelona, with José Carlos Gil.

I also had three introductory sessions about Sketchnoting where I've had a lot of people drawing and having fun. I've enjoyed a lot these 30 minute sessions.

Conferences and activities

Saket and Ivana organized in Barcelona an Agile Coach Camp and I was lucky enough to attend. I met there amazing people and I learnt a lot from the experience.

I also attended to the Conferencia Agile-Spain in Barcelona. I wanted to be helping in the organization, but in the end I couldn't, but I was observing how great people made CAS2014 an amazing event. I will remember the ending "keynote" where Pedro Serrahima and Cristobal Colon, with the assistance from Jorge Uriarte were just having a conversation about values and common sense.

Personal

I've tried to focus more on the family, and that's why I reduced my community activities. And I have still a lot to learn. I've also started a coaching process with my friend Gerard Chiva and it's being really interesting. My back was not causing much trouble this year, so I'm happy with my health (fingers crossed!).

Professional

I started participating with La Salle, preparing the subject about Agile Methodologies for one of their on-line masters.

But the most exciting thing was when I started paying attention to the offers I was getting from LinkedIn and I participated in a process that, if successful, would have made all my family to move to another country. After 5 phone interviews and 5 more face-to-face in Dublin, finally I did not get an offer. However, I learnt a lot from the whole experience. The most important part was the conversations we had at home about moving abroad.


That's what opened the possibilities to start something else. And I'll be starting new things this year.