youDevise has been one of my clients for a couple of years, introduced to me by Steve Freeman. You can see my influence in various places – I got them started with Root Cause Analysis (which they took and evolved an entire process around it) and they took the ideas I shared in JNarrate and implemented them in their own Narrative framework.

Their CTO has been one of the most vocal advocates of RiverGlide, the company I created with Andy Palmer last year.

youDevise are enjoying a period of growth – driven by demand for their services. They have been hiring developers and testers but are struggling to keep up with demand due to their high-standards – they value quality over quantity. About 6 weeks ago they had retained my services for 2 days a month for some coaching and consulting. We got talking about the challenges of finding the right talent for their organisation. Then, it occurred to them, perhaps I could help so they asked me if I would consider working for them as a developer, in-between the coaching and consulting days.

This was a great opportunity for both of us. During our relationship so far, I’d only seen things from the outside. My visits were never more than 1-2 days at a time and involved working with several people looking at slices of problems they wanted to solve or goals they wanted to achieve. I only ever had anecdotal information – never first hand experience of working in their environment. First-hand experience will give me insights that will contribute significantly to the value I can deliver when coaching their teams.

For me, it meant I would get to work as a team member on a real project. I like to do a tour of duty working on a commercial project for real at least 3 out of every 12-18 months. It keeps my skills sharpened and keeps the advice I give as a consultant honest.

So, here we are. For the next month or two I’ll be working 4 days per week for youDevise as a consultant-developer, 2 days a month as a coach/consultant leaving me a couple of days a month to spend with other clients and on other projects.