Unfortunately, saying thank you seems to be an after thought more and more. So at least once a month, I will take a few minutes to publicly appreciate someone that has had an impact on me.
This round: Bauhaus Technologies
I’m cheating slightly this month and thanking a company of people. Bauhaus Technologies was a small under 30 person consulting company that I worked at starting back in 2000. There were many amazing benefits and memories from the team at Bauhaus but I am focusing in on one specific experiment: Bauhaus University. This was a program where we worked with a client to help them learn how to design, code and support J2EE web applications.
This program had a little of everything: short release cycles, co-location, pair programming, training, coaching, mentoring, generalizing specialists, automation, etc. Now I won’t say I did it well (in fact, I was probably a terrible coach and cringe with some of the memories of things I did) but I did see the value these practices brought to the table. I truly believe this foundational positive experience helped me embrace the values and principles within the Agile community but even more it continues to provide me with insights for leading today.
So thank you for creating a fantastic innovative learning environment that delivered value to customers. I will forever be honored to have been part of the Bauhaus Technologies team.