Job Titles in an Agile Company

14. August 2015

Obscure meaning

Around 2 years ago  I moved to a new company (AOE) which has almost tripled in size within the last years. As we are an agile organisation we were asking ourselves whether we needed titles or not?! We came to the conclusion that we don’t like titles but for some of us it makes sense to have business cards and we didn’t want the cards only to hold the name but also tell the recipient what area the person is working at. So of course I was thinking what my area would be.

Well, it became a bit complicated because I am experienced in Agile Methodologies (which I am coaching) and my second sweet spot is development and architecture. Two completely different areas I thought and I didn’t intend to write both onto the business card like “Agile Methodology, Architecture and Development”. I thought that was a kind of too “extravagant” and “boasting” and also it is just too long and not catchy enough. After a few days one my colleagues (actually it was my CEO) proposed “Why don’t you just call it >Agile Architecture<“?

 

In the beginning I wasn’t too sure but in the meantime I really love it because it has many meanings if you think about it:

1) It is not a title but describes an area I am capable to work in
2) It tells that I am aware of agile stuff
3) It tells that I know something about architecture
4) It makes people curious about architecture management in an agile environment. Something that is often questioned by people in the traditional world because they think that agilists don’t really care about architecture too much.

But I really started loving the title when I noticed the fifth meaning:

5) It also describes something in a figurative way that I wasn’t too sure about at first: I not only work as an agile coach in the development area but I also help forming our new agile organisation. That’s also an agile architecture but in a social sense.

So, sometimes idea need to mature until you detect the real meaning behind it.

So here is Triple-A-Stefan: Me working at Agile Architectures at AOE ! 😉

 

Note: The blog was also published here in german

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