There is a wonderful saying by Mahatma Gandhi: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
So, what is the NEW thing you learned today?
At Far Reach, we ALWAYS strive to learn. We constantly ask questions:
- Do we have what is needed to complete this user story?
- Does this story need to be completed in this sprint?
- What is the expectation from the product owner (PO)?
- What brings the most value to the client and makes them happy?
To get the answer, we may just need to pose a question to the client or PO, discuss things with a team member, or expand our mind to learn new technologies.
Recently, I was part of a mobile app development project where I needed to learn cross-platform Xamarin to develop iOS and Android apps. I had so much fun learning and then implementing what I just learned. It was challenging at the beginning and kept me awake at night! Staying focused and being determined helped me accomplish my goal.
Looking back, I asked myself, “What would have happened if I had said ‘no’ to learning mobile app development?” I would have missed out on the pleasure of the experience and my team would have been constrained by a lack of developers with the knowledge to do the work that needed to be done. Most importantly, though, our clients would have suffered because we wouldn’t have been in a position to serve them when and how they expected.
Learning never stops. There is so much to learn and improve upon in mobile app development. Based on the client’s expectation or a new requirement, we need to continuously adapt and learn.
Far Reach makes sure team members have what is required to learn as long as they have that mindset to learn. One of our core values is “Learn and Grow.”
During one of the huddles (our bi-weekly, company-wide meeting), Kate talked about having a learning goal this year. This year, I want to focus more on improving my communication skills so I can perform an effective developer talk. I plan to achieve this by practicing and looking for opportunities to talk in front of other developers.
So how about you? What is your 2017 learning goal?