Day 28: Agile Principle No. 3
Bexs Nelson, PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM
PMO & Operations Expert with Measured Results | PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM | I help Customer Service Reps transition to joy in Project Management Careers
Day 28: Agile Principle #3
Today we have a short one to cover. Only four words long. That said, each word packs a wallop.
Deliver working software frequently.
Rewriting because we don't typically write software for job search (although there may be some market opportunities for that!):
Deliver working value-added interactions frequently.
We don't write software, but if we look at it through the lens of what is being traded here it is value-added interactions. When you put in a resume and it gets reviewed, it is an interaction. When we have a resume tailored to their job description and make it easy on the recruiter to see how you would be perfect, that is an interaction laced with value.
The keyword of deliver puts this on us as the job seekers to do. We can all agree that the way some companies hire is terrible. We aren't looking at those companies though. Once we have found the target companies we want to work for, the workload does come to us to do the delivery.
But this Agile principle isn't done. Not yet. It states we should add it frequently as well. How do you do that when the rules are set by the processes of the hiring company? You don't look to them for your only option. Queue LinkedIn.
Most people aren't active daily on LinkedIn. Most don't have conversations asking them what they do and how they find fulfillment. Most people would honestly love to talk, they just don't like to initiate. That's something you can do. Be that positive person that reaches out, get to know them, and their company, and talk about the field you share. Add value through that. Before you know it, you may have people pressing for you to get a job, or create a job.
The other side of providing value-added interactions with frequency is that they need to be working. Working means that they have to work. We need to work, as we are the focus, team, and project manager for our job search. We must remove to remove things that are getting in our way. This can be the time of day we do the search. These can be triggers that distract. The amount of documentation you do on your job search or the hangups you personally have. It can be a myriad of things.
I write best before 2 pm. I don't know why. Rather than struggling to write, later on, I optimized my schedule around this facet of myself. I also am much more productive if I do a dreaded task first and ride the endorphins through more tasks. I prioritize my daily scrum around accomplishing that task first. In-home life, I hate dishes. HATE dishes. I will go out of my way to avoid them which causes a fall out of other problems if I don't just get in there and do them before I can start thinking how much I don't want to. A clean sink makes my family operate better (trust me I've run the experiments).
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The message is this. Be ready to do the providing, take efforts when and where you can outside of the hiring pathway to increase the frequency at which you are providing value to your target company, and know the internal and external facets of you that may prevent you from adding value frequently and overcome them. We are going to have to give up on things going flawless according to documentation or our timelines. Perfect spreadsheets may go out the window.
Keep the useful parts only. Maybe you need one of these reminders:
Turns out those four words packed quite a bit in them after all!
Bexs
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Past Articles in Job Search Like a Project Manager Series:
Note: This is a whole series that organically grew out of sharing an entire project on how to conduct a job search to both gain project experience and to give you a framework for how to conduct it. The earliest few days were posts before the newsletter format took off. Click below to get started!