Someone asked me this at the Agile'06 conference a few weeks ago. Do I feel incompetent training teams about agile and scrum since I've never written a line of code? Answer: Hell, no!

I've always had a knack for figuring things out. I was the youngest student in our high school calculus class, and although I struggled from time to time, I generally got it (thanks, Mr. Fitz). I love my inner geek. I've written designs specs and have written/executed tests many times in my career when my teams needed the extra hand. I've written a few macros, a few MDX statements and have tinkered around in a few databases. Oh yeah, I designed a multi-team intranet once; it was great fun! Simple HTML, but great fun! Talking development is comfortable to me, but I gladly leave the ins-and-outs of programming to the experts.

I find that there is great value in teaching a new team how and why agile methods work. I have found success in reaching out on a human level and relating real experiences - good and bad. So much of 'going agile' is the mindset and attitude. I certainly don't pretend to know everything and I am very clear in stating up front that I come from the project management realm and process side of things. Teams have accepted me for what I bring to the table; I've found that for a team new to agile, they are generally more concerned with getting the process down pat and not so much concerned with dotting i's and crossing the t's of TDD. That stuff comes later and is something that the team will inspect and adapt its way into. And for that moment in time, I know several experts who can help a team get through that phase.

What I can say from a generalist's point of view is that we should all build in quality in our work. We are all responsible for the investments of our companies (and doesn't the code that you write at work belong to your company?). I grew up in a small Texas Gulf coast town, and have worked since I was nine years old. My dad, a hard-working fireman, always put us girls to work - whether it was shoveling after the horses, cleaning up around the house, or paying detailed attention to homework. He greatly instilled in me the work ethic that nothing should be done "half-assed" (thanks, Dad). Seriously, we should all be accountable for our actions, and that goes for managing a project and in writing or testing lines of code. I don't have to be a programmer to speak to that.

So no, I don't feel incompetent since I'm not a programmer. In fact, I think the objectivity I bring to the table gives me an advantage. I come from the people side of things, the human relationship side of things, the 'don't-do-it-half-assed' perspective. I come from the 'soft skills' side of the world, where we respect each other and work as teams to make things happen. I love teaching agile and I love learning from those that I teach. I always take away more than what I leave behind.

Does the Basic that I wrote in fifth grade count for anything?? :)