For some years now, instead of going with an annual resolution, I've instead adopted a new aphorism to shape and refine my perspective . With 2025 around the corner, and mid-way through my 40th year on this planet (I won't share how long I've been on other planets), something that resonated with me was how we "live the life of old plans." While life is filled with unplanned and unpredictable events, old plans still take a shape. Maybe the sharp edges that once defined the plan have softened, maybe the shape is more of an approximation, but the plan is still there. When I reflect on the plan I had as a kid to where I am today, I am so grateful to be fortunate enough to live the life of the old plan (blurred edges and all) but three points in particular stick out: Patience : We live the life of OLD (as in "age") plans - a reminder that plans don't bring immediate results. We live in an increasingly impatient world, and I'm very guilty of being impa...

  On my first day of coding,  My PR was returned to me... My program's leaking memory. On my second day of coding, My PR was returned to me... I've two ints overflowing, and my program's leaking memory. On my third day of coding, My PR was returned to me... I've three new exceptions, two ints overflowing, and my program's leaking memory. On my fourth day of coding,  My PR was returned to me... I've four calls deprecating, three new exceptions, two ints overflowing, and my program's leaking memory. On my fifth day of coding, My LinkedIn sent to me... Five Senior Roles! four "Lead" titles, three "Architects", two "Managers", and they all offer way more money. On my sixth day of coding, I have no coding responsibility. Had six major meetings, five One-on-Ones, four Strategy Sessions, three Brainstorms, two Escalations, and I rejected a PR 'cause it'll leak memory.

There should be a Hoarders spinoff show called "Digital Hoarders," showcasing people who hoard their digital content - whether it's maxing out their Gmail, overrunning their desktops with old files, chaotic Downloads folders, excessive browser tabs, apps on their phones they seldom use, or even phone contacts including that one random guy named Mike Shapinko they met back in college at a house party that they've never spoken to again. Things that, if it were in the physical world, they'd have gotten rid of long ago - but because it's digital, they'll hoard forever. (Admittedly, I'm guilty of a few of these. I'll text you one day Mike Shapinko. One day.)

Epiphany: More and more we're talking about building adequate knowledge bases for improved AI. Those same strategies can be repurposed to help us build other people's intelligence about us . Whether we're building our resume, career, network, reputation - it's all about creating a "knowledge base". McKinsey published a guide to aide businesses in their AI transformation. It's a great rubric for self-evaluation. McKinsey advises companies to evaluate their business data and ensure: They are aware of their data sources, They are aware of what's in the data set (and what isn't), where it came from, how it evolved and how it links to other data, The data must be available to those who need it, The data suits their AI goals, and is high quality and varied, Lastly that the data is handled appropriately, meeting security, compliance and privacy requirements. Using that approach, businesses can build a strong knowledge base to fuel their AI. But we can us...

I've been reading posts about Agile being dead for years now. Those arguments seem to be picking up and my best guess as to why: It gets you clicks by manufacturing controversy. The main arguments I continuously run into with these articles all stem from fundamental misunderstandings of what Agile is. It's just as misinformed as the (incorrect) notion that Agile killed Waterfall. These misconceptions stem from too many projects that are AINO/WINO (Agile/Waterfall In-Name-Only), resulting in bad experiences. I've heard a common refrain from teams over the years: "We're hybrid agile," or "We're scrum-like" or "We've come up with our own agile approach..." These are red flag indications that the team does not have a clear understanding of the Agile principles or the Agile manifesto. You may as well declare "Hammers are dead" if you hit your thumb too many times. In fact, the "Agile is Dead" posts are equivalent to ...

The summer/fall season of our local recreation soccer league has to a close, and I'm pretty thrilled with how well we did this season. We're not supposed to keep score, but the team of 5 & 6-year-olds I coached was  nearly undefeated, with just one game slipping away from us. I've been doing this for 6 years now, and each season has been a blast, but something was different about this season. 5 & 6-year-olds are still learning the basic rules of the game. They're still adjusting to the shock that, after a "lifetime" of being taught to share their toys, they will be given a ball and told to keep it from others. They're also easily distracted - by planes, migrating geese, dandelions, dogs. They're also, depending on any number of factors, reluctant to play. Yet, somehow, by the time we took the field to play our first game, my team looked like veteran pros. So much so, I grew self-conscious about just how   good  they had become. There was such ...

Like most kids, my 6-year-old loves to draw. But, unlike what I've seen in other kids, my son likes to draw the same thing repeatedly, trying to improve upon it with each pass. He'll intently watch time-lapsed sketching videos by real artists who have recorded their process - and then he'll try it out for himself. The result is he'll produce drawings that are pretty advanced for his age. But he's still young, so his motor skills are still catching up with what he wants to get down on paper. And that leads to easily getting frustrated - something every parent finds themselves coaching their kids through. It reminded me of something I once heard: When you're talented at something, you can spot the imperfections that other are faster to write-off. While most people will praise the work, you are left feeling it could be better and obsessively pursue perfection. Knowing when to stop and getting to "Good enough" is an important skill otherwise you risk ...

They say an important part of any fitness regimen is your diet. With this in mind, I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that "Driving Chocolates" are not "a thing" and just something I invented as a feeble way to dignify my habit of stashing chocolates in the glovebox so I can have something to snack on when I'm on the road. That being said "Pocket Chocolates" are still very much a thing - and fun fact: you can have pocket chocolates while driving. 

Sitting near someone who doesn't realize their laptop is no longer connected to their bluetooth headphones, and they're now blasting music out loud. But I'm not mad. hashtag#IfItsTooLoudYoureTooOld Given they're ~15 years younger than me, I'm being introduced to some good stuff that the algorithms don't bother serving me since I've aged into a new demographic. Already adding a few songs to my rotation.  Now - the question is, do I make him dislike his stuff by giving it my Old-Person™ approval and saying "This stuff is great!" or do I validate his sense of unique generational identity by giving him the ol' stern "Tsk tsk tsk" ?

  I ran a Spartan obstacle course. If you missed my  last post about climbing a rope, only to realize I hadn't planned on being successful, now you'll know why I spent my summer climbing ropes. Of the 21 obstacles, the rope climb was the only one I'd intentionally trained for. The rest, I figured, I would just try my best and see what happened. Given this was my first obstacle course, I wanted to get a general baseline so I could train against myself in the future. I wasn't holding my breath (other than when I plunged into the giant mud bath) about my performance. Reflecting, I'm glad I took this approach because it let me problem-solve on the fly. Each obstacle was something I had to figure out - I could try to power through the hard way, or see if there was a more efficient way. Had I properly trained, I would have been familiar with the obstacles and probably applied solutions I'd have learned the solution from others. There's definitely value in trainin...

Moon-Watcher’s turn came. Without knowing why, he picked up a small stone and threw it clumsily. It missed by several feet. “Try again,” said the command. He found another pebble. His aim improved. By the fourth attempt, he was only inches away. A feeling of indescribable pleasure flooded his mind. [Adapted from 2001: A Space Odyssey]

"Set goals." They say. "Set S.M.A.R.T.   goals." They insist. And, yeah - goals are great. I'm not knocking them. But goals are also not the end-all-be-all. Far from it. I'll even go so far as to say: If you only  focus on goals ("goal-oriented" in resume-speak) you'll find yourself in trouble, quickly. Yet, oddly, I only really hear people talk about the importance of goal setting and nothing more. They stop short. Set goals. That's it. It's a wonder why I've never seen anyone talk about what's far more important: what comes after you succeed. You see, one day, you will achieve your goal. After chipping away at it, day by day, you'll check the final proverbial checkbox on the proverbial checklist and have nothing more to check... proverbially. And then you'll suddenly face an existentially dreadful question: Now what? This was a recent experience of my own. And, I'll be vulnerable enough to share: it...

Taken on a Connectix QuickCam  One summer, 23 years ago, I was sitting in my bedroom, at my computer wondering how to fill the time. It was my summer vacation from high school. I was about to start my senior year in 12th grade. With the windows open, I filled the summer air with a vast library I'd built of MP3s using, of course, WinAmp. With both parents working, no one was home. It was too hot to go outside, and for one reason or another, I wasn't out with friends. On those typical summer days, I'd usually work on a variety of coding projects. Video games, websites, applications. But on that lazy summer day, nothing really captivated my attention. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the tedium, but I decided it was time to look for a new WinAmp theme. And, as I scoured the theme library, I came across a skin that did something completely new. Instead of the typical volume slide that all other skins had, this skin had a volume knob. A rotating knob like a real stereo. How w...

Success is an ambiguous word, with just as many intangibly squishy synonyms like "delivering value," "having an impact," and "great results." And when it comes to celebrating our team's successes, highlighting the value we bring in our annual reviews, writing an impactful resume, or sharing the results of our work, the ambiguity of these terms do us no favors in helping us determine what we should capture. And so we write about the wrong things. To avoid this pitfall, I always remind myself to focus on Outcome and not Output . Output is the work we produce: The emails we send, meetings we schedule, PowerPoints we build, lines of code we write, or things we fixed. Output isn't bad or good. It's just a means to an end (the Outcome). Outcome is what happens because of your output (and sometimes despite it). You may have led 5 projects, managed 50 people, wrote 500 lines of code, fixed 5,000 bugs - and all of those are meaningless ( yes, even fi...

  Here's to the kids of the 90s who didn't lay back in a field watching the clouds above slowly form shapes... ...but to those kids who hunched forward in cheap swivel computer chair, watching images slowly download in Netscape Navigator, and wondering what they'd eventually form.

I learned a new term recently: Heartstorming . If brainstorming is a logical process to solve problems, heartstorming is an approach centered around what motivates, inspires, & generates energy. It produces ideas that may seem less logical, data-driven, rationale or pragmatic. Instead, it's about exploring ideas you can't justify with numbers, but still feel important, feel "right." It's an opportunity to speak from the heart, or the gut, and to generate ideas you'd never share with others for fear of appearing soft, emotional, or simply because you can't easily put its value to words. In his book,  Start with Why , Simon Sinek writes about the difficulty of putting words to feelings. Different regions in our brains process emotions and language, making it hard to find the right words for what we feel deeply. The best "Whys" resonate with the emotional part of the brain. They makes us feel something. That's why Product Managers talk about...

A long time ago, the web was open. Everyone and their cat had a website, or a blog. Search engines were terrible, and so the community came up with the  now forgotten idea of 'webrings'.  But as search engines became better, along with it came the social networks. Overtime, they evolved and grew walls around their content - blocking search engines and only allowing registered users to view and share. Bloggers became 'content creators' distributing to various walled gardens, and they grew their audience. And while the walls have always bothered me, the perennial problem has really been more about the focus on * recency * of content. To drive up engagement (a proxy for quality), algorithms favored newer posts that were getting more engagement. But engagement isn't a proxy for quality, and social networks don't care about the great observation you made 3 years ago. You know who does? The people seeking help on that very thing you observed. And to find that observat...

Can we stop saying Software Engineers suffer from Impostor Syndrome, and instead rebrand it as ... *ahem* ... self-deprecating. ...get it?...

I know a guy who can't keep a secret. Or maybe, it's better to say - he won't keep a secret. It was a principled thing. Whatever secrets he comes upon, he feels compelled to share. He preferers openness, transparency, but especially not having to track who-knows-what in his head. I once asked him how he applied this policy to his account passwords. "I use passphrases, and I pick phrases that can naturally be worked into conversation so that no one is the wiser. That way, I share my secrets but my accounts remain safe." "If someone comments on the weather, I can respond with TheresASl!ghtCh@nc3OfR@in. If someone asks about the latest sports game, I'll offer up that Th3R3fsM@deT3rr!bl3C@lls." This is a T3rr1bl3P@$$w0rdP0l!cy.

My fitness journey started with reading the latest on new, more efficient workouts. 1 month ago an article said I could get fit with just 3 pieces of equipment and 10 workouts. 2 weeks ago, I learned I can get fit with just 2 pieces of equipment and 5 workouts. Today I found out I can get fit with just 1 kettlebell and 3 workouts. Judging by the rate at which workouts are becoming more efficient my fitness journey should end next month.

  It's been a while since I've made a slideshow about resume - but I'm still having to give the same advice in my conversations. There's lots of talk about applying AI to resumes, and while that may change the future of hiring/job seeking, I don't think we've hit that inflection point yet. Hiring is still very personal, and very human. The principles about making yourself memorable with the right kind of resume still apply. For now... If you're looking for a simple, elegant and well structure resume template, you can find mine here:  alishahnovin.com/resume-template

  My kid keeps mixing up Minotaur and Mentor, and now I'm wondering what she thinks I do in my spare time.

I'm sure we've all heard how "There are no stupid questions," plenty of times... But, let's be honest, there are stupid questions. There are questions we all hear that make us go "Ouch... how could they ask that?" And, knowing how quick we are to judge others for their stupid questions, we hold back on asking our own. Especially when we feel that "Ouch" with our own stupid questions. When the struggle to understand is inexplicable. That tip-of-the-brain, "how am I not getting this?" feeling, when it ... all ... just ... feels ... out ... of ... reach. And the more we think it through, the further it feels. When you ask enough stupid questions you start to realize that asking the stupid question is the only thing that saves you from doing something stupid. Case in point: I was on the phone with a coworker, discussing an important project. As most important projects go, it came with different risks we had to weigh. We'd been discu...

For the past year, I've really focused on eating healthier - cutting back on treats, eating dense salads at lunch, whole grain, etc. and also getting in exercise at least 5 times per week. Lifestyle changes always result in people talking about how great they feel, how much better they are sleeping... ...but after being sick with a cold for the past 4 days, I decided to treat myself to some French toast with berries and dark chocolate shavings. Still on the "healthier" side, with no whipped cream, syrup or butter - but an indulgence never-the-less. And now I feel unstoppable. Maybe its the cold medicine kicking in - but I think it has much more to do with the French toast. I'm reminded of one of my favorite dialogs from one of my favorite movies:  "I don’t wanna eat nothing but pancakes. I wanna live. Who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes?" "Harold, if you’d pause to think, I believe you’d realize that that ans...

I wrote this a few years back, before the height of the tech-hiring frenzy. For some reason, I never published it - not sure why. After reviewing it against the current backdrop, I think it's somehow more relevant today. Companies & teams want a great culture but I'm seeing trends in what they often get wrong. Here's my list of 4 things along with what leadership can do about it, based on things I'd implemented with my own teams. Policy ≠ Culture Staying late until the problem is solved, constructive disagreements, being accountable to own another, team lunches, unlimited PTO - those aren't culture things. Those are policies. I read blogs or hear people talk about their culture in these terms - and it's misguided.  Take the first one - staying late. Setting aside whether it's good policy or not, it can only work as a policy, not culture. As a policy, it sets an expectation. It avoids a trap of employees having to figure out what the "right thing to ...