Here I am, staring out my window, watching new snow add to an already icy foundation. I should be working on my Python skills, but instead, my mind is wandering. I don’t really blame it. In the past 6 weeks I’ve become Scrum Master certified, passed a MySQL bootcamp, and am now bootcamping Python.
Since then, I’ve found a great tool to get me where I want to be: DataCamp. Their phone app is a lot of fun and I’ve suggested it to friends interested in data, SQL, Python or R. Speaking of R, I also needed to research Python vs R. For now, I’m sticking with the one I’ve attempted to learn over the years, which is Python. If I get comfortable with SQL and Python, I’ll likely go through DataCamp’s introductory R exercises to see what that’s like. I’ve heard great things about tidyverse. It sounds really neat, but I’ve got a long way to go in a short amount of time and enough distractions to handle already.
Python, we’re stuck with each other for now. I’m OK being second best at everything.
However, in the meantime, what I’m really excited about is that I have my first opportunity as a Scrum mentor. A friend of mine has asked me to partner up with his business. There are some parts that I’m not head over heels to do, like roll out websites. But, I’m not terrible at it and I have some ideas that might turn out to be fun. And I’ll get to write content. I always love a good excuse to write. Or a bad excuse, or any excuse really. I look forward to the research.
On our last partnership call, we discussed how we can lower his business risk with sticking to short duration sprints. While a 2 week sprint seems to be pretty standard, for his first client I wanted to go with 1 week sprints for now, and as we grow, work really hard to get to the point where we can comfortably work with clients in two week cycles. This is the part I’m looking forward to: direct applications of the scrum framework and agile development principles. I’ll roll out as many websites as I need to in order for this wonderful experience!
I’ve been toying with the idea of having an “in” to work through in order to gain more experience hands-on with agile and scrum in a corporate or startup setting. Enter my bootcamps and cramming sessions. Data science is continuing to trend up, and as much as I love the creative parts of my brain, the analytical parts need to be fed as well.
Winter has come late to the West Sound region here in Washington. As we’re covered in snow, and likely will be snowed in for the next week, I look forward to continuing my path with Python and my never-ending quest of knowledge. Until then, I’ll be kept cozy and warm with my new partnership and the excitement of finally putting Scrum to practice.
hello_patsy 