Few days ago was my first anniversary in Readify & also concludes of my first year in Australia. Truly, days move so fast! So much events makes me feel I have been here for so long but I still feel it passed too quick!
It won't be a surprise to anyone if I said I enjoyed working for Readify this year. I came from too far away thinking that I'll find like-minded people to share same interests & thoughts and get a great chance to continue working on my professional development goals and this is exactly what I found.
Recently, I found visiting old posts or timelines is helpful to tell where I've been & what I've been thinking of & where I'm now. So, I decided to write down my efforts & activities every anniversary. Actually, It was surprising when I started thinking of all these things I had in the past year. It was full of many events I attended, and books I read, and lessons I learned.
Actually, one of my best findings that year was Meetup. It helped me to find many interesting communities, specially those interested in Agile. I attended many Agile & Scrum & Lean events & workshops. I'll list details if someone is interested to catch up there :)
- Agile Sydeny
- Sydney Scrum User Group
- Sydney Limited WIP User Group
- Sydney Lean Coffee (just recently, couple of times)
Also, attended monthly technical events
Also, few annual technical events/conferences:
- Windows Azure Dev Camp, Sydney 2012
- TechEd Australia 2012
- CITCON SYDNEY 2013 (sounds like 'kitcon')
Finally, I attended couple hackathons -- but I don't think I'll do it again (separate story!)
About books, I read several books & still have long list of pendings :)
Disclaimer: Reading doesn't mean knowledge or experience!
- C# 5.0 Pocket Reference By Joseph Albahari, Ben Albahari
- Programming Entity Framework: Code First By Julia Lerman, Rowan Miller
- Windows 8 XAML Primer By Jesse Liberty
- Delivering Mobile-Friendly WebSites with MVC4: A Developers Guide By Lyle Luppes
- Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code By Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror)
- Scrum Guide By Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (Must read severak times - condenced)
- User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development By Mike Cohn
- Next on shelf: Software in 30 Days: How Agile Managers Beat the Odds, Delight Their Customers, And Leave Competitors In the Dust By Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland
In addition to couple of books I couldn't complete reading them either because of lack of interest or lower priority.
I guess the missing part is thinking of lessons I learned this year. I believe this is a tough task. Considering exposure to different projects & environments & having access to all those awesome Readifarians. I believe everytime I talk to anyone here I learn something. Aggregating these lessons & concentrating them in few lines isn't an easy task. I should start writing down notable lessons as I go so it can be easier later to aggregate them when I need.
It was a very interesting year. I did lots of efforts in moving to Sydney & to settle in & continue working on my professional development goals. Thanks for all of those who helped me to achieve my goals; up till now. This includes my big family & my Readify family.
Thanks You
