Implement your Digital Strategy
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Welcome to the Digital Trailblazer Community

 

GUIDES & READING for digital trailblazers

CAREER CHECKLIST

12 steps to develop Digital Trailblazer skills

  • Product Managers and Owners

  • DevOps Leaders - Dev, QA, IT Ops, SREs

  • Data Leaders - Scientists, DataOps, Governance

  • …. Breadth of skills, depth of skills, and experiences

VISION STATEMENT

One-page template to answer your questions about:

  • Target customers and end-users

  • Value proposition

  • Strategic importance - why now?

  • Constraints: Cost, timing, compliance

Chapter 1: What’s a Cookie?

  1. Slow Down and Stop Deploying Buggy Software
  2. CIO Advice: Listen, Answer The Question, Provide Insights
  3. Executive Presentations: Presenting Status vs. Strategy
  4. How to Alert on Technical Debt, Legacy, and Burning Platforms
  5. How Digital CIOs Manage Their Time
  6. Vader, release him - Do Your Executive Meetings Resemble This Classic Star Wars Scene?
  7. 10 Reasons to Attend Technology Conferences

Chapter 2: Dev - Spaghetti Code and Technical Debt is Now Your Problem

  1. Convincing agile product owners to prioritize technical debt
  2. What are Seven Types of Big Data Debt
  3. 5 Ways to Better Manage Technical Debt
  4. How Low-Code and No-Code Really Helps Reduce Tech Debt and Drive Innovation
  5. 5 reasons software architects should embrace low code
  6. 7 low-code platforms developers should know
  7. 7 keys to selecting a low-code platform

I get into the weeds in Chapter 2, and one Digital Trailblazer shared this with me. “Chapter 2 was great insight on your journey in technology. It puts your lessons on innovation in perspective.”

Technology is messy, and we rarely develop perfect, long-lasting solutions. We are always updating, enhancing, and improving. I hope you find value in the stories, articles, and videos because as a Digital Trailblazer, technical debt is now YOUR problem.


Chapter 3: Ops – Wearing the CEO’s Diet Coke

  1. Avoid Burnout: 3 Really Simple Activities to Reduce Stress in Hybrid Work Teams
  2. 5 ways agile devops teams can support IT service desks
  3. What is DevOps in 5 Minutes with @NYIke
  4. Who Owns DevOps???
  5. Seize the Day! The Ops Role in DevOps Transformation
  6. 3 reasons devops must integrate agile and ITSM tools
  7. 3 Emerging Ways IT Benefits from AIOps

Chapter 4: Product Management and Architecture: Trials and Triumphs

  1. 10 Practices of Strong Agile Product Owners
  2. 20 Bad Behaviors of Agile Development Product Owners
  3. 6 Easy Ways to Lead Product Owners and Drive Meaningful MVPs
  4. How to Rapidly Plan Digital Products and bring Amazing MVPs to Market Smarter and Faster
  5. 10 Critical Mistakes Products Owners Make When Developing MVPs
  6. How Agile Delivery Managers Collaborate with Product Managers and Drive DevOps Standards
  7. Four Critical Product Management Responsibilities in Digital Transformation

Chapter 5: “That’s Not Agile”: Defining Your Organization’s Agile Way of Working

Agile Practices

  1. What is agile methodology? Modern software dev explained
  2. Five Reasons Your Agile Practices Fail to Deliver Results
  3. When Should DevOps Teams Increase Deployment Frequency
  4. How Feedback Loops Drive Culture Change in Agile
  5. 33 Bad Behaviors of Agile Developers and IT Operations
  6. Knowledge management for agile and devops teams
  7. 3 Problems with Just-in-Time Planning and Solving Them

Agile Roles

  1. What is the Role of the Tech Lead in Agile?
  2. What is the Modernized Role of Scrum Masters
  3. 3 Important Responsibilities of Business Analysts in Agile
  4. What SREs want application developers to know
  5. The CIO's role in driving agile transformation

Agile Leadership

  1. 5 Ways Scrum Leaders Drive Successful Collaboration
  2. How to manage software developers without micromanaging
  3. 3 Signs Devoted Agile Teams Lack Urgency and What to Do
  4. What is the Most Important Agile KPI?
  5. Breakthrough Agile Transformation: Important Leadership Roles

Chapter 6: Transforming Experiences with a Global Perspective

In Chapter 6, I share one of my experiences traveling to India visiting amazing teams in Chennai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad. As promised, here are photos from my trips between 2008 and 2013.

  1. Top 10 Reasons to Visit Your Offshore Teams
  2. Three Agile Insights Working With Offshore Teams
  3. Sprint reviews and retrospectives in a hybrid work setting
  4. 5 Ways to Improve Developer Productivity and Quality on Agile Development Teams
  5. 3 Expert Questions to Focus on Winning Digital Transformations
  6. How to Reduce the Talent Gap while Growing Analytics, Data Governance, and App Modernizations
  7. Want to change the culture? Start with your front line support teams!

Chapter 7: Buried in Bad Data

Agile Data Practices

  1. Why Data Science, DataOps, and Data Governance need Agile Methodologies
  2. Four Agile Workstreams in a Data Driven Organization
  3. 3 ways to apply agile to data science and dataops

Citizen Data Science

  1. Energize a Center of Excellence that Empowers Citizen Data Scientists
  2. 5 ways to improve on spreadsheets for business workflows
  3. 3 Practical Ways to Become a Citizen Data Scientist and Learn Machine Learning
  4. What Data Scientists Can Learn From a Fourth Grade Teacher

Machine Learning

  1. Fundamentals of MLOps, ModelOps, and Successful Machine Learning Lifecycles
  2. 3 ways to get into reinforcement learning
  3. 3 ways to experiment with text analytics

Proactive Data Governance

  1. How to Expand Data Governance with Successful Citizen Data Science
  2. What is Proactive Data Governance?
  3. Data-Driven Organizations: What are Principal Responsibilities of Successful Chief Data Officers
  4. How to Persuade CEO to Sponsor Proactive Data Governance

DataOps and Data Technologies

  1. Why embed analytics and data visualizations in apps
  2. Why data-driven businesses need a data catalog
  3. What developers must know about master data management
  4. Why you should buy, not build, a customer data platform
  5. Data lineage: What it is and why it’s important
  6. Why you need a data integration platform

Chapter 8: Transformative Culture, Empathetic Teams, Diverse Leaders

  1. My Most Challenging Tech Presentation Was to Middle School Teenagers
  2. 5 Ways to Say Thanks to Teams Driving Digital Transformation
  3. Developing a Strategy for Putting People First in Transformation Programs
  4. How are you rewarding top performers in digital transformation, data science, agile, and devops programs?
  5. Digital Transformation is not a 9-5 Job
  6. CIO Must Pivot to a Safer-Smarter World
  7. 5 Steps to Create a Meaningful Communication Strategy in Tech, Digital, and Data Departments

Transforming cultures, empathetic teams, diverse leaders


Chapter 9: Selling Innovation to the C-Suite—and Reducing the Stress

  1. How Agile Planning can Boost Digital Business Transformation
  2. 3 Ways to Empower High-Performing Agile Innovation Teams
  3. Define Your WoW! Agile, DevOps, Product Mgt Way of Working
  4. How to Focus Stakeholders on the Benefits of Agile Planning & Experimenting
  5. Leadership Skills to Master in Digital Transformation Roles
  6. 3 Ways: Reform Detractors who Undermine Agile & Digital Transformation
  7. 7 Leadership Detractors to Digital Transformation & What to do

Selling innovation to the C-Suite


Chapter 10: Transforming Beyond Crisis and Becoming a Digital Trailblazer

  1. 5 Steps: Communicate Pivots in Volatile Digital Transformations
  2. 15 Behaviors that Kill Agile Cultures, 5 to Pioneer Agile Mindsets
  3. 3 Ways: Break off Change Management & Drive Transformation
  4. What is Digital Transformation 2.0
  5. Why I am Passionate About Digital Transformation Management
  6. 3 Ways to Define KPIs for Successful Digital Transformation
  7. 3 Signs You Have an Ambitious Digital Trailblazer Excited to Lead Transformation Teams

Chapter 10: Becoming a Digital Trailblazer


What came to mind when you were reading the book?

Each week Isaac takes questions from readers and offers his personal insights on how to handle challenges you may experience on your quest to become a Digital Trailblazer.


help turn your team into digital trailblazers

Book a virtual book discussion or invite Isaac to tailor a workshop on topics including:

  • Transformation leadership guidance and stakeholder management

  • Developing DevOps, digital and data centers of excellence

  • Agile, product management, and data-driven practices