Agile Development Blog

Bernard, our top penguin here at Rally, has been doggedly engaged in our search for a Director of HR. Feedback from our recent blog post about the search generated interesting discussion. To wit: why wasn’t Rally using this opportunity to come up with a new title for this Director position?

Epiphany moment for Bernard! Being a highly engaged Agile penguin, he became quite concerned about this very important role. Bernard realized that the traditional title just didn’t seem to fit with Rally as a truly Agile organization. Rally has been named best company to work for in Colorado. And we place #6 by Outside Magazine as one of the top 50 places to work for in the US. With the vision, culture, and values here at Rally, Bernard is now quite determined that we bring a new title to this role.

And so on Bernard’s behalf (lack of opposable thumbs limits some of Bernard’s “hands-on” work at Rally), I recently put the call out on twitter:

W00t! We received 27 responses, though I suspect some suggestions were more tongue-in-cheek than real suggestions. Nonetheless, it is clear: we have great creative people in the Agile community thinking about this role.

Here are the 27 title suggestions Bernard and I received in our search:

1. Company Capacity & Fun Facilitator
2. VP of Keeping It Real
3. Talent Facilitator
4. Chief People Advocate
5. Chief Happiness Officer
6. Head of Talent
7. Team Consistency Enforcer
8. “Sparkles” – (Okay, this person was confusing a dog-naming twitter stream with our stream)
9. Director of Human Capital
10. Director of Human Power
11. Chief People Servant
12. People Potentiator
13. Hawaiian Shirt and Jeans Facilitator
14. Director for Business Enablement through People
15. Pit Crew Leader – (a Daniel Pink reference?)
16. People & Fun Leader/Facilitator
17. Head Cat-Herder – (Bernard is unamused)
18. Kitten Cultivator and Litterbox Cleaner – (see above)
19. Director of Helping People Be More Resourceful
20. Staffing Facilitator
21. Director of the People Team
22. Employee Ombudsman
23. [certified] People Master
24. Head Employee Servant Leader
25. People Servant Leader
26. Employee Development
27. Trusted Employee Advisor

Thanks to all, and nice work. Bernard and I keep going back to Daniel Pink’s “Drive.” Because we value Pink’s guidance on autonomy, mastery, and purpose, we believe this role must embody Rally’s commitment to an Agile culture of learning and growth.

Now, what do YOU think the name of this role should be?

Jean Tabaka is a March Madness college hoops freak, a crash skier, author and Agile Fellow at Rally Software Development. You can follow Jean on Twitter at @jeantabaka

Bernard is a member of the Rally Office of the CTO and mascot for the Unreasonable Institute of Boulder CO.

#9 in our list of the Top 10 Characteristics of an Agile Organization is about the leadership:  being both a Servant and Leader, also known as Servant Leadership.

• How can you be both a servant and a leader?
  
• And why is this so important to a successful Agile organization?

Watch this 3-minute video for some of my ideas and 4 of the 10 characteristics of a Servant Leader from Robert Greenleaf. Or, see my full hour-long Servant Leadership webinar for a more in-depth look at this #9 characteristic of an Agile organization.

In case you are wondering about the overall list, Ryan and I started brainstorming about the “Top 10 Characteristics of an Agile Organization” after Rally was recently named one of the Best Places to Work in America by Outside magazine. See Ryan’s previous coverage of #10 Work/Life Balance. Up next is #8 Sustainable and Successful, in honor of the upcoming Earth Day.

About the Author: Jean Tabaka is a wine enthusiast, author and Agile Fellow at Rally Software Development. Subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.

This is the first post in our series that counts down the top 10 characteristics of an Agile organization.

We learned last week that Rally has been recognized as one of the top 10 companies to work for in America by Outside Magazine (look for the complete list in their May issue and on Outside Online around May 1st), so we figured we’d start things off by covering one of our most prized characteristics, how to have work… and a life.

In this brief video, I share how organizations can effectively achieve work/life balance through a combination of (1) discipline, (2) rhythm and (3) alignment of corporate and personal culture.

How do you balance work and life to achieve success in both?

Check out the next in our series: #9 – Servants and Leaders by Jean Tabaka.