When I ask someone “How’re you?” the response I usually get is, “fine”. If I ask “What’s up?” the response is, “not much”. These questions prompt rote responses. I can detect a little of how someone really feels in the inflection of the answer. There’s a subtle but important difference between “not much…” and “not much!”, but I am interested in knowing more than if you might be bored at the moment.

For me, “What’s going on?” is the question that garners more than a habitual answer. In most instances, it triggers someone to tell me like it is. Not sure why, it’s just what I’ve found to work for me.

It would be hard to tell what’s going on with me lately, by reading this blog. I haven’t posted in like, (ahem) 8 months. So go on. Do it. Ask me.

What’s going on? Well I’m glad you asked. Quite a lot since my last post in late January of 2011.

For starters, I was approved as a CST! That only took a couple of years. Now I get to travel to exciting places like Milwaukee and Dallas to run public courses. Maybe Bulgaria in a couple of months. I would consider that truly exciting!

I also ran the ball point game at my wife’s school. She teaches 4th grade. They enjoyed it a lot. I hope to go in soon with the new class and do that again. It really went better than, say… the marshmallow challenge. A lot more understanding, way less griping, and I wonder about those reports of how well kindergardeners do.

There was a large-scale roll-out of Scrum for a Business Unit in March. The VP mandated Scrum during a re-org and hired some support for Agile on his staff. A part of the unit had been practicing Scrum for some time. Training ensued for everyone and inside of 6 weeks all teams were working in 2 week Sprints. There was some talk of Kanban and of the desire to work in 3 week Sprints when I was last in. It might soon be time to check in and see how things are going.

Then there was a slight run-in with the learning and development group of one organization. They were expecting a more traditional approach to training, where ours is more interactive. For instance, almost all of us had “Back of the Room” training with Sharon Bowman in May.

Everyone involved learned something through the experience. I learned once more to watch out for an org that tries to run everyone through Scrum training, based on roles. Dragons most certainly be there!

One highlight was getting to work with Jeff Patton on a CSPO course in Boulder. I always learn an amazing amount working with him. The fact that he’s so kind and humble is refreshing in this world where people can get a little full of themselves.

We had an all-out blitz where a bunch of us coaches from Rally responded in no time to a customer request, around the world, and presented at a leadership forum. It was so much fun to collaborate with colleagues. It can get a little lonely out here in the field. This was also around the time of our RallyOn! conference in Boulder. Always great to get back there and see everyone. I mean, hey, it’s home!

It was around this time that I learned my session was accepted for Agile2011. An experience report on “Ten Tales of Positive Change“. I had to write a paper on it. Before then, I thought I was a decent writer. That experience changed my style completely. I had no idea I was so passive…

My wife and I say that we work in the winter to play in the summer, and it was a playful summer indeed. Several festivals, some camping, a trip back to Colorado to visit my folks, Agile2011 and the next thing you know it’s a new school year!

So, that’s what’s going on with me. I’m now going to pay attention to this blog, more on that next time later. What’s going on with you?