Have you ever seen “Fight Club?” Brilliant movie in my – Marijke – humble opinion. How messed up is that guy played by Edward Norton, having multiple personalities? Seems like something that only happens in movies or mental health institutions right? Well, think again! I experience several personalities every (working) day. But hey, don’t worry! It’s nothing clinical. Not even something to worry about. I like it and it’s a crucial part of my job!

Would you like to experience my CL schizophrenia for a day? Well jump on and hold tight. This is a Tuesday like any other.

1. 09:00 – 09.30; one on one time with Peter, who works in my Chapter. We talk about his current activities and his learning goals. He happens to be PO of a squad, so we pay extra attention to some of the skills needed for that. And of course we need a large coffee with that as it is still early morning 😉
2. 09.30 – 10.00; stand-up time! Every morning my squad has a stand-up at the same time. Here we discuss our sprint backlog. What have we been doing, what are we gonna do today and what still needs to be done. Does someone need help? We discuss it here.
3. 10.00 – 10.30; demo time! One of the squads in our domain is demoing their sprint results. It’s really cool to see what they have accomplished. And as we work in the same domain, the content might be very useful to me! It’s also one of the nice ways for me as a chapter lead to actually see what my chapter members are working on in their squads.
4. 10.30 – 11.30; once a week, the chapter leads in our tribe meet up to talk about general (cross-) tribe issues and developments. Like people management or, not-so-sexy-but-ever-so-important, business roles…
5. 11.30 – 12.00; alignment with another squad in our company, from another tribe, that works on commercially introducing the new product our squad is developing.
6. 12.00 – 13.00; lunch with Drissia , our wonderful HR person. We discuss some of the developments in my chapter and my personal ambitions. And we eat. And laugh. Also very important 🙂
7. 13.00 – 14.00; an external vendor we do a lot of business with, visits our company for the monthly check-up meeting. We discuss operations, change and sales.
8. 14.00 – 15.00; working to deliver on a user story I’ve assigned myself at this morning’s stand-up. Sitting among my colleagues and chapter members. These are the moments I like best. Working, making jokes and help each other when needed.
9. 15.00-15.30; POCLAC time! Here the PO, the Agile Coach and me as Chapter Lead discuss the squads effectiveness and help them when needed. The PO tells us the team is performing well. They had a good retro in which a squad member was very open. That had a really positive effect on team spirit. Mental note: give a compliment to that person!
10. 15.30 – 16.30; our squad meets up to refine a new epic on our backlog. The goal of the refinement is to come to a common understanding of the epic, specify the requirements and slice the epic into user stories. If we have enough time, we might even get to assign story points to the stories.
11. 16.30 – 17.00; once every two weeks, our tribe meets up at an informal stand-up. Everybody is free to share whatever they want. Somebody talks about a successful introduction of a new feature, a new colleague is introduced and we discuss important developments in the payments domain.

And after 17.00? Well, on Tuesday there’s bootcamp to kick some ass. Afterwards, this schizophrenic chapter lead needs some time off with herself!  Maybe squeeze in a bit of guilty “Keeping up with the Kardashians” pleasure 🙂 . Although this day might seem hectic and you might even call it crazy, I love it. In between all the personality shifts, I get to talk to so many people. And work on stuff to really get it done! You don’t like switching roles? Thinking “this CL role is not for me?” Well then I have news for you! This diversity is not just for a chapter lead! In this new way of working, everyone’s week gets diverse. Which – to me – is the beauty of it! What are your experiences with it?

Cheers, Marijke

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