| | April 20179CIOReviewSwimming through the chaos by adapting every one of your strokes is a key part of staying afloat, much less being successful in moving forwardwe all need to make money, have employees, and something that resembles customers. If you don't have any one of these, please tell me what business you're in as I might be interested. As for me, my company is primarily a services company, but one founded on proprietary technology. We have customers in every industry vertical. We have SaaS products, customized technology services, call centers, hardware products, software products, consulting services...oh, I think last week we decided to start selling space trips as well. (No, that was Musk...darn). After 17 years at my company and in my industry, I still feel like we've got unique aspects to our model that make it just that--unique. I love Scrum, but for the life of me there is no way I have dedicated scrum masters or product owners or QA folks involved in every single project we have. I just don't have those resources. This doesn't mean we still can't run Scrum. I love Lean Startup, but in many cases we simply can't take the time to measure every single thing we do. Yes, there is much we do measure now that we did not in the past, but not everything. This does not mean that we are not exercising Lean Startup. Some things simply don't merit being measured when compared to the opportunity cost of what those folks may be doing otherwise.I've become comfortable with this. It's OK. In fact, I've grown to start to feel like an accomplished Chef that recognized the best part of every spice and can create unique meals that best satisfy our consumers or staff. This doesn't mean I approach everything as transient or of low value. It also doesn't mean that everyone on my staff or in the organization sees things the same way as I do. But I'm willing to take the Build­Measure­Learn cycle from Lean Startup and apply it onto itself and every other methodology we try. I'm willing to iterate my way through process change. I'm willing to pivot on methodology specifics when they don't seem to fit a situation well and there is a better way to get it done.There is a constant fight to balance the chaos of change, but that's not any different than what every day brings in today's technology-centric business environment. Swimming through the chaos by adapting every one of your strokes is a key part of staying afloat, much less being successful in moving forward.So be brave. Be courageous. Do your homework. Read more books. Take the best that resonates with you and share it with your staff with enthusiasm. Excite your team to do the same. Discuss the wins and the losses. Celebrate those that work and release with thanks those whose purpose was simply to bridge you to the next better idea. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll find a special recipe that works so well for you that you'll find yourself writing a new book on the next winning methodology that is surely "the one".
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