Credo Work: My Professional Credo Unveiled

I believe:

• Writing will always be the thing I do first and best
• At the crossroads of collaboration and craft stands an open well of deep creativity.  Great software emerges from those who gulp from and bathe themselves in the water of this well
• Software thrives with transparency and reciprocity between its makers, its users and its surrounding community
• Workplace safety is non-negotiable and includes emotional safety in the milieu of conferences, email lists, twitter and meet-ups.  If someone (a boss, peer, industry expert) says or does something that compromises my safety, I have the right to walk out whether it’s a conference presentation, workplace brown bag or one-on-one meeting
• An open web, open information, open data and open source software are all critical for social justice on a global scale
• Humans and their expressions are too complex to ever be completely definable by technology or labels.
• Software is better when it is made by a team that functions not as a well-oiled machine but as a team of humans who respect each other and know how to collaborate
• Focusing on the values in the Agile Manifesto means that software is built with heart and balance no matter what the process is called.
• If safety and humility are a primary focus, confidence and risk-taking flow.

This is my professional credo which was included in my slide deck for Better Software West.  I will get around to uploading the slides although there is actually more information in the blog posts I wrote.
My presentation focused on the process I used to build my credo and why I think this type of thing can be valuable.

I had a great audience with lots of questions.  One person observed that some of my statements seem like a reaction, and that is absolutely correct.  There are some hard-learned life-lessons in that credo and publishing it on my blog is the equivalent of me showing off my battle scars.  I wear them proudly because I’ve fucking earned them.

Someone else pointed out that one time or another we all cave on our principles in order to earn a paycheck.  Let me emphasize that that these are areas where I am not likely to compromise very much, if at all.  I am also willing to put in the work on my skills, my career and my professional network so that I don’t have to worry about compromising these.  At the worst, things will shift around me and I will find myself in a place where I realize the compromise is happening, but that is the point of this whole exercise.  I will know that as the sands of my job, my career and my place in technology shift I’ve got my own values and priorities to steer my decisions.

Another person was asking how I plan to keep up with this credo.  This is an excellent question, because this is the point where I start living with my credo.  As I’ve watched my numerous posts in this project creep over my blog, I’ve come to realize that this is heavier than a few posts and needs more of an afterword than this one post.  The conference might be over, and my credo might be posted, but the project, itself is far from complete.

A few times during this process, I have been asked where the activities I’ve blogged originated.  It’s all from the workbook for a Unitarian Universalist religious education class called, “Building Your Own Theology” by Richard S. Gilbert.  (If you don’t know what Unitarian Universalist is, stayed tuned!  I will get around to posting about it.)

My current plan has two parts.  I’m working on putting together a short e-book of the posts I’ve written already (Don’t ask when it will be out. I don’t know).  That takes care of what I’ve written so far.  As for the afterward, I’m going to paste my credo into the about page of this blog and continue blogging about different pieces within the credo itself or link to posts I’ve already written that cover a part of the credo.  If Leanpub works the way I think it does, there will be a way for me to add those posts to the e-book as they happen.

Is it just me or have I made more work for myself with this?  Although my credo is up there, I don’t see an end.  I see a beginning.

Thanks to everyone who came to see my talk or who have posted comments, retweeted or sent me feedback about this.  It’s been one of my crazier blog jaunts and the feedback has reminded me that it is crazy AND worth doing.