My 3 Key Takeaways of 2019

Time flies! 2019 has went past for me in a flash. Right now, I am typing this in my new home that I just moved in yesterday. I am still waiting for my television to come, hence the bare wall behind. To start 2020 on the right foot, I decided to pen down my key takeaways of 2019 and hoping this will spur my 2020 self to keep improving and growing.

1. Importance of Continuous Development

In 2019, I gained two significant certifications which has greatly supported my role as an Agile Coach. The first one was the Smartly MBA (https://www.zayntee.com/post/why-i-as-an-agile-coach-took-up-a-smartly-mba) which allowed me to increase my breadth of knowledge, when working alongside product owners and business sponsors.

Next, was to go more in-depth in terms of achieving my PMI-ACP certification. Through this journey, I deepened my knowledge of agile framework that ultimately improves my organization way of working.

(For anyone interested to take up this certification, feel free to click the link below on the best tip to pass it successfully: https://www.zayntee.com/post/most-important-tip-to-pass-your-project-management-institute-agile-certified-practitioner-exam)

In my role as a coach, it is vital that I continue to develop myself both in terms of technical and soft skills. Hence, I am glad to continue this trend in 2020. I have enrolled myself in the course, Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) for January.

In 2020, with my new responsibility of building up my team of coaches, I can't wait to learn and share more with my team and grow together with our organization.

2. Importance of Giving Back

In 2019, I decided to make a conscious effort to share my experiences and learnings both through online medium and in person. For online, I created my own site to document my learnings and allowed others to reach out to me easily. My site, https://www.zayntee.com/, enabled me to pen down my thoughts and is a constant reminder to myself to grow and share more.

In terms of personal sharing, I signed up for my university alumni mentoring program whereby I will dedicate my personal time to mentor a student as she charts her career path. We already had our first meet-up and I am glad to share many of my personal experiences during my career. Likewise, I feel that there are aspects I can also learn from my mentee as we progress through this mentorship program.

In 2020, I have set my new year resolution of updating my site monthly to share my learnings and challenges as I grow my team and organisation. As for personal sharing, I hope to participate in more mentorship programs and share my experiences through events/meet-ups.

3. Importance of Family

2019 has been a tremendous jump in both my career and in my personal life. I got married last Dec 2018 and following that, 2019 has been a year of significant changes. At the start of 2019, I went on an amazing honeymoon trip with my wife in the west coast of USA. In the second half of 2019, we bought a car and finally collected the keys of our house after waiting for 3 years.

During this journey, as we planned our house design and home renovation together, we both realised the importance of spending time with our family members despite our never-ending checklist items. Even as of now, when we are busy tidying up our house, we will still make time to eat dinner with our parents. In 2020, as we settle in our humble abode, we will definitely plan more family time and hopefully start a family of our own. ??

And with these 3 key takeaways, I aim to incorporate them further into the year 2020. With that, I wish everyone an amazing 2020 ahead! As for myself, I better get back to cleaning my house haha. ??