My Journey to becoming an agile/ux specialist

Call it my thought of the day/week if you will. I woke up on Monday morning and I reflected on how my life experiences have led me to become an Agile/UX Specialist. To be honest, my journey didn’t happen in the most natural way. And when I say natural, I’m referring to things like educational background, official working experiences, and so on.

I considered my journal “unnatural” because firstly, I didn’t study anything remotely related to design, psychology, or anything that is remotely close to human behavioral sciences. As for my official working experiences, I never really received the opportunity to explore both fields of work officially. I started my tech career as a software developer and that remained the case for a majority of my “official” working experiences.

“officially”

I used the word “officially” with the double quotes because where I’m from, it has been the case for such a long time, that anything we do outside of a day job has never been considered official working experience. Yes, I am referring to my experiences as a freelancer. Throughout my job hiring history, every time I include my freelancing experiences in my resume, the interviewer would simply skip over it to ask me about my “official” working experiences instead. It’s like my freelancing experiences don’t exist.

It wasn’t until 2015 that my working experiences as a freelancer finally made a difference. For the first time (at that time) in my career, a client that I was engaged with decided to take my freelancing experiences into consideration. They were among the first ones that did. In the years that followed, there have been a number of freelancing clients that also decided to take a chance on me because of my freelancing working experiences.

When I asked one of them why they would decide to take a chance on me, and I won’t forget their response. They told me this, “Your freelancing experience is what makes you interesting and unique. You bring a unique perspective to your consultation and how you apply your problem-solving skills.”

That particular feedback took me a while to come to terms with and embrace it with self-confidence. It took a few years before I finally understood that my own freelancing experiences is what enabled me to become a really talented problem-solver. Put another way, I am uniquely capable of coming out with solutions that are sometimes out-of-the-box. When it comes to answering the question of, “How do you solve this problem?”, I could always see more than one way to go about it. That has been viewed by some clients as a positive thing because when you can see more than one way to solve a problem, chances are you will be able to find a better solution.

Tapping on my own “official” working experiences, I can share from my own firsthand experiences/observations that when a company/individual is stuck (or limited) in what they can provide, they will always see just one way to solve a problem. Just imagine a toolbox that contains different kinds of tools for different purposes. And depending on the problem at hand, you might need to choose a different tool for the job. You can’t use a hammer to solve everything.

From a Jack-of-All-Trades Consultant to a Specialist Consultant

Frankly, as I am typing the header above, I’m thinking to myself, “I never thought this day would come.”

When it comes to freelancing, for the longest time, I have always regarded myself as this “one-stop-shop” typed consultant. I basically do everything from Application Design (now better known as UX/UI design) and backend development. I suppose you could say that I’ve been taking pride in being this, “do-it-all” kinda guy. It certainly seemed like a good way to market myself and my services as a freelance consultant. This strategy appeared to work for a rather long time.

Though the idea of being able to do everything myself sounded nice on paper, it’s not the most effective use of my time, energy, and resources. Trying to do everything also meant that I could only handle one client/project at a time. During those times when I attempted to take on more than one client at a time, it would often mean that the final deliverables weren’t as good as if I had just focused on one client. Being a jack-of-all-trades is just too time-consuming.

A Transition That Would Take Years

It was in 2014 that I finally decided to focus more of my effort and time on UX consulting and less time on application development. But because I have been doing that for so long, it wasn’t easy to make the transition at first. For years, I still saw myself as a generalist. For each of my consultations, while I did allocate more time and effort on UX-related activities, it is fair to say that I was still spending roughly 50% of my time on application development.

However, that increase in focus on UX-related activities for many of my freelance consultations meant that I was able to add more value to my clients over time. Let’s just say, the effort paid off eventually. Despite spending so many years in application development roles, I was, in essence, a better UX/UI person than I was in application development. As good as I was in application development, it was merely a skill to maintain a day-job. I do enjoy it from time to time, but I wasn’t as passionate about it as I was when it came to UX. When it came to UX, well, let’s just say that things came more naturally for me than it did with application development.

It was then in November 2016 that I was finally recognized as a Thought-leader in the fields of Agile-UX. That was genuinely the first time in my entire professional history in which I was recognized for my knowledge, insights, and skills in the area.

My Struggle with The Sunk Cost Fallacy

When I coin “Agile-UX”, I’m always referring to the application of Agile project management techniques with UX design. So yes, you could essentially say that I’m a certified Thought-leader in both fields since 2016. In spite of earning my recognition as a certified thought-leader in both fields, I struggled to see myself as a specialist still. Honestly, I can’t seem to remember why I wasn’t willing to let go of my work as a software developer and to focus 100% on Agile-UX. I think it was partly due to my struggle with “The Sunk Cost Fallacy”. For anybody that isn’t familiar with it, The Sunk Cost Fallacy refers to the fear that the time, energy, effort, money, resources have been wasted after investing a lot of it on something. The most common feeling goes something like, “But I have already invested so much time and effort on this thing. Giving up now would feel like such a waste.”

So perhaps that was what I was struggling with for the most part. I feel like I have spent so many years as a software developer, to walk away from that part of me made me feel like I might be giving up on all the years I’ve spent on it (including my education). I felt like I had to stick to it somehow.

That personal struggle was partially what held me back from fully embracing my path forward into Agile-UX.

My Struggle with The Imposture Syndrome

I recently created a draft on this topic in particular, but it remained in my draft section until I decided to delete it from my archives. I suppose that’s because I didn’t think I have the right words to really express myself at that time. But now that I’m talking about my journey to becoming an Agile-UX Specialist, it seems like the appropriate time to talk about this (with the right context).

For a number of years after becoming a certified Agile-UX Thought-Leader, I struggled to reconcile that with who I was because where I’m from, we have certain societal norms. The way we (in general) think about others when we consider their working experiences and educational background (qualifications). When you think about someone doing something on a freelance basis, the immediate conclusion that many would jump to is that this individual isn’t serious about it. And because they assume this individual isn’t serious about it, the individual probably isn’t as good as say, someone that does it full-time. Because of my background and the associated societal norms/expectations/views, I felt like I wasn’t qualified to call myself a specialist.

For years, even when I tried to call myself an Agile-UX Thought-Leader, despite having been certified as well, I still felt like a fraud. I questioned whether I deserved the title. I wondered if I had actually earned the title. And even when I tried to market myself as a UX specialist for a small period of time in recent years, I felt like I was a fraud as I was doing it.

It really wasn’t until very recently that I finally found the confidence to finally embrace myself as well as my strengths and talents. It is why I finally had the courage to change my label/tagline on LinkedIn to say that I am a “Certified Thought-Leader since 2016”.

The Idea of “Being Humble [All the Time]” is Overrated

I watched a TED talk YouTube video a few years ago where the speaker spoke about how being humble is overrated. He then referred to how majority of the top leaders in various fields/companies wasn’t just individuals that were “humble” about their abilities. But they were also confident as well. He described them as “humble narcissists”. He went on to describe that these leaders knew when to be humble (i.e. admitting that they don’t have all the answers, and are always looking for opportunities to learn), but they are also confident enough about their own strengths and abilities.

Coming from an Asian/Chinese/Singaporean culture, all our lives, our parents would drill it into us that we must be humble and to always keep a low profile about everything. I remember at times, my own mother would say stuff like, “Even if you know something, maybe you should act dumb.”

It’s as if, if you were to say that you know the answer to something, it means you are showing off.

So, for most of my life (even as a child), if I do know the answer to something in a class for example, and the teacher would ask those who know the answer to raise their hands, and yeah, I would not be raising my hands because I was trying to act dumb. When it came to work later in life, I practically acted the same way in numerous settings. What I didn’t realize was that, by acting this way, I was disqualifying myself from a lot of potential opportunities. I suspected strongly that one of the reasons why I didn’t get considered for a lot of opportunities at work was because I was afraid to admit that I know something (or to admit that I’m really good at it).

Over time, I realized that this false humility that I was wearing like a mask wasn’t doing my any favors. And so, I made a personal decision that I was going to stop being “so humble”. I decided that I would stop wearing “being humble” as a badge of honor. Now, it doesn’t mean that I will behave arrogantly everywhere I go. It just means that I will be confident when I can be confident about who I am and my abilities. And I will be humble in areas of my life/work when I know I should be humble.

What Becoming a Specialist Means to Me

For the longest time, I’ve always had this thinking about specialists and who they are (should be). I always assumed that specialists are experts in their relevant fields of work. Like, they are the best of the best. I always never considered myself a specialist because I genuinely felt that I was a jack-of-all-trades. Even years after I became a certified Thought-Leader, I honestly didn’t feel that I qualified to be a specialist. I felt that way because I understood that when it comes to the fields of Agile and UX, these fields are always evolving and changing with time. That also translates into the need to constantly learn and make new observations. Every time I think about how there’s still so much that can be gathered from constant learning/observation, I couldn’t help but feel like there’s no such thing as an expert when it comes to the fields of Agile and UX.

That said, I have been learning to adjust my view of what being a specialist in Agile and UX really means. Taking all of my past experiences and insight into consideration, I do believe that I have something to offer that other budding Agile/UX professionals don’t. As I mentioned above, these fields isn’t just about having the necessary skills, it is also about that drive to constantly learn and make new observations. Speaking for myself, that is something I do have, and many years of it under my belt. While I may not consider myself to be an expert in these fields, I do acknowledge that I may have a much deeper insight than most, as such, there is more that I can offer. I do think it is worth repeating that just because I know more, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I have all the answers/solutions. There are still going to be new and interesting problems that need solving. And when presented with the right opportunity to tackle those problems, I am sure that I will need to find a new way to solve those problems.

To be, becoming a specialist also means that I’ll be focusing all of my time and energy on becoming better within the fields of Agile project management and UX design. Unlike in the past when my attention and energy is always split between application development and UX design, I will be moving away from application development entirely (professionally speaking). Think about this from the perspective of being a consultant – I will not be writing backend coding anymore. Most of the tasks that are related to backend development, I’ll leave to other freelance developers, or perhaps in-house dev teams that the client has. Think of it as a delegation of responsibilities.

It is highly possible that I may still have to work on frontend development related tasks, writing frontend code from time to time if the project so requires. But overall, when I think about my new specialist role, I think that only 20-30% of my time may actually involve writing frontend coding (if any). 70-80% of my time and energy will instead be focused on Agile and UX.

Closing Thoughts: It’s Nice to Finally Focus on Something

Growing up, I’ve always struggled with not being able to stay focused on something for very long. I didn’t realize that it was a thing until I was in my mid-30s. That’s when I finally was able to self-diagnose myself as someone with mild-ADHD. I didn’t think what I was experiencing was that serious, but it was obvious that I was experiencing some degree of it.

For many years as an adult, I have found a way to work around my unknown condition (more like I was unaware of it). I kinda knew that I had this struggle, and I had to find a solution to turn it into a strength, so to speak. And I did. I decided that if I was going to be a jack-of-all-trades, I would at least try to be really good at all the different things. As it turns out, I managed to succeed at that.

But there is also a clear downside to managing this challenge in my life. It can be draining at times, exhausting even. Eventhough now, I am trying to specialize in Agile/UX, it doesn’t mean that I am ignoring the mild-ADHD that I’m still going to experience from time to time. I may still get a little distracted from time to time. But the fact that I’m now able to identify my own strengths in Agile-UX, makes it easier to manage the challenge. I think I should be able to focus my attention better, on those areas that I am much stronger in, and allow a little leeway to be distracted at times when I am struggling to stay focused.

By choosing to be focused on Agile-UX also means that I should feel less mentally exhausted, and perhaps have more time in the end to do other things that interest me. With an income source (over time), I should also be able to register myself for a gym membership, have time for weekly workout sessions, eat better (healthier), and have slightly more time for the things that are truly important in my life, i.e., family. I really believe that this decision to specialize can be a really good thing for me, plus it is also timely for this next phase of my life.