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The Agile Thinking blog was terminated in June 2009. Please visit my new blog, Agile Anarchy.  Thanks.

– Tobias

Two days ago I launched a new program which I feel quite excited about: WelfareCSM.  The intention of this initiative is to offer Scrum training (including SA-certified classes) to those who find themselves impacted by the recent economic downturn — either through loss of employment or by working for a company that has slashed its training budget as a cost-cutting measure.  The training will be easily affordable to anyone who wants it.  For those in real financial hardship the training is essentially free; for others an ‘open price’ model is used, where people pay what they believe the training is worth, after the fact.

A quote from the website:

“We are in the midst of an economic downturn. People are losing jobs, losing money and having to rethink their priorities. In addition, the whole world of business is undergoing a profound change which is likely to affect the way we work for the remainder of this century, and beyond: mechanical systems are out, human systems are in. In this time of economic uncertainty and shifting paradigms some people will react with fear and panic, clinging on to old ideas and closing their hearts and minds. Others will respond with laughter and ingenuity, seeking and embracing the new opportunities that will arise from the current chaos.”  — WelfareCSM

This program is not about handouts.  I use the term “welfare” in the sense of “something that aids or promotes well-being for the common good; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; exemption from any evil or calamity; prosperity; happiness.”  I am seeking passionate, committed individuals who desire to learn, and broaden their outlook on work and life.  The workshops are open to anyone, and not restricted to people in the IT industry.

If this interests you in any way, please read more at WelfareCSM.  Thanks.

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Today a student from one of my recent CSM classes pointed me towards a recent blog post by Gregory Balestrero, the CEO of the Project Management Institute.  You’ll like this, she said, it’s all about you.  And indeed it is.  Mr Balestrero captured the essence of our conversation at the Orlando Scrum Gathering very effectively in his short post.  Interestingly, I had spent some time reading his blog after the Orlando event, and have to admit that I quite like his style.  I reckon Gregory Balestrero is someone I’d like to engage with further.  Funny how things go.

You can read the post for yourself, here: A Conversation on Agile Long Overdue.

Scrum began its life as one of the new Agile approaches to building software.  These days it is considered an approach that can be used to improve the world of work in a more general sense, and indeed, to change the way individuals think and interact with one another in work situations.  The full potential of Scrum has yet to be explored.

In a nutshell, Scrum is a simple approach to the management of complex problems, providing a framework to support innovation and allow self-organizing teams to deliver high quality results in short time-frames. Scrum is a state of mind; it is a way of thinking that unleashes the creative spirit while remaining firmly grounded in some solid and long-respected theoretical principles, including empiricism, emergence and self-organization.

Empiricism refers to the continuous inspect/adapt process that allows both workers and managers to make decisions in real time, based on actual data, and as a result respond quickly to ever-changing conditions in the surrounding environment, most importantly the market place in which the software is sold or distributed.

Emergence results from an empirical approach. It implies that all solutions to all problems will become clear as we work. They will not become clear if we simply talk about them. Big Up Front Design will only result in Big Wrong Design or at best Big Working But Totally Inflexible Design. When we allow solutions to emerge it is always the simplest and the most appropriate solution for the current context that rises to the surface. Emergence coupled with Empiricism will lead us to the most appropriate and the most flexible (i.e. changeable) solution.

Self-organization refers to the structure of the teams creating the product of work. Small multidisciplinary teams are empowered to make the important decisions necessary to i) create high quality product and ii) manage their own processes. The thinking here is that those doing the work know best how to do the work. These teams work in a highly interactive and generative way, emerging the product through continuous dialog, exploration and iteration. Self-organization works when there are clear goals and clear boundaries.

In addition to these principles Scrum relies on two core mechanisms: prioritization and timeboxing.

Prioritization simply means that some things are more important than others. This is obvious, yet quickly forgotten when the “we need it all now” mindset is entered. Scrum helps put the focus back on selecting the most important things to do first — and then actually doing them! Making time to prioritize, and being rigorous about it are essential to the success of Scrum.

Timeboxing is a simple mechanism for handling complexity. We can’t figure out the whole system at this time, so let’s take one small problem and in a short space of time, say one week or one month, figure out how to solve that problem. The results of that will then guide us towards a solution for the next, bigger problem and give us insight into the needs of the system as a whole.

Organizational Change

With Scrum, the management hierarchies of organizations tend to get leveled and development teams have a more immediate and direct contact with customers. The work environment becomes less command-and-control and more collaborative. Regular, open dialog is encouraged over extensive documentation, and negotiated agreement is preferred to formal and impersonal contracts of work.

The qualities of openness, honesty and courage are fostered at all levels, and individual gain becomes secondary to collective advancement. A Scrum environment is a supportive one, where people at all levels show respect and trust for one another. Decisions are made by consensus, rather than imposed from above and all knowledge is shared in a fearless and transparent way.

Scrum goes against the grain for most companies in the software industry, where a phased approach coupled with a high degree of micro-management, and an insistence on defined processes and extensive documentation have been the norm for over thirty years. Many companies rely on fear and money as the key motivators for their workers. This approach has shown short-term success but more and more companies are beginning to understand that it is not a good long term strategy. Nevertheless, the concept of changing to something as radical as Scrum strikes terror into many executive and middle-management hearts.

Scrum is still at the early-adopter stage. It will take many years for the majority of companies to recognize the benefits of creating more trustful and compassionate workplaces. Without such change many software companies will likely sink under the sheer weight of their heavy processes, and overstaffed workforces. Others – those who dare to embrace the lean, lightweight, agile approach of Scrum – stand a greater chance of surviving and prospering. For those who turn to Scrum, and fully embrace it, a reversion back to the old way of working becomes unthinkable. A paradigm shift is occurring in the workplace, and Scrum is an important part of that shift.

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Note: the term Scrum comes from a paper entitled The New New Product Development Game by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka. In rugby, a scrum is a way of restarting the game, either after an accidental infringement or when the ball has gone out of play. The practice of Scrum in the software world includes regular short daily meetings where the team members all get together to communicate progress. Because of the similarity of pausing play (work), and having the players (team members) group together this meeting is commonly known as the Daily Scrum. Jeff Sutherland, John Scumniotales and Jeff McKenna are credited with introducing the term Scrum into the world of software development in 1993 whilst working at Easel Corporation, a Massachusetts software tools company. Ken Schwaber wrote the original Scrum white paper, SCRUM Development Process which was presented at the OOPSLA conference in 1995.

Other references:
Scrum: its place in the world
Scrum for Software Development

This post is the first in a series of guest articles I have requested from friends and colleagues in the general Agile field, and which will appear on this blog with the prefix ‘Other Voices’.  The general theme of the Agile Thoughts blog is one of challenging assumptions, and sometimes throwing down gauntlets. The guest articles that appear in this series will continue that same focus.  In this article Lyssa Adkins addresses our tendency to map new ideas to old, and suggests this may not be the best road to truly embracing Scrum.

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“…we all safely interpret dangerous things in ways that don’t require us to change our lives.” — Orson Scott Card

I was honored to co-facilitate an Introduction to Scrum session recently for sixty-eight Project Management Institute (PMI) folks, who were all willing and open-minded. Even the ones I had known in past years who were not so open minded to Scrum raised their hands high and proud when asked, “Who is excited to try this in their work?” Within an hour of starting the session, though, I was compelled to stop it. My co-facilitator was introducing the group to Scrum and hands were popping up everywhere. The questions being asked were all some version of “How does this match what I already know?” “So, the product backlog is your requirements document, right?” “You can’t really expect people to sit together. That would never fly where I work.” “I just don’t get what you do without a plan. How will people know what to do everyday?”

When I stopped the group, I asked that they give themselves the gift of learning something new without forcing it into the categories already in their heads. “Perhaps,” I said, “just perhaps you will need new categories to understand what’s being given to you. So rest for now and learn Scrum for the sake of learning Scrum – without relating it to plan-driven project management, without worrying about whether or not it will work in your current situation.”

As I peruse the submissions for the Agile 2009 conference, I see the same tendency in the community as a whole. It’s a fervent desire to map Scrum to something else, something more familiar and, therefore, at least seemingly safer. PMBOK, CMMI, Lean, Kanban, the list goes on.

As the Orson Scott Card quote says, there is something in us that desperately wants to “safely interpret dangerous things in ways that don’t require us to change our lives.” Is Scrum dangerous that way? Absolutely. If you are doing Scrum well it will require you to change your life. You will have to give away your belief that having a checklist makes things run smoothly. You will have to stop chasing the perfect process and, instead, start cultivating your ability to trust the resourcefulness of others. You will cease using line items checked off on a plan as your measure of value. You will face your fears, all of them, about yourself and other people. You will stop making progress and start making products.

If you must map Scrum to something you already know, go ahead. Use that door to come to Scrum if that’s what makes sense to you. Heck, for PMBOK, you don’t even need to do it yourself. Michele Sliger and Stacia Broderick have done a fine job of it for you [ref]. If you come through that door though, don’t stop just inside the foyer. Keep moving. Immediately seek out people who allowed their brains and hearts to expand when they learned about Scrum and go learn from them. Allow the simplicity and depth of Scrum to rock your world and open your mind up to news ways of being in the workplace and getting work done, together. Try on some of the radical practices recommended by good Scrum coaches, even if you think, “Oh, no. I could never…” The practice you have that reaction to is the one you need most. So, do it. Let the dangerous thing into your life and allow it to change you. It’s absolutely for the better.

© Lyssa Adkins, 2009
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Lyssa Adkins is a personal coach, a Certified Scrum Trainer and a PMP.  She authors the excellent cricketwing blog and is the the creator of the well-respected and oft-cited YouTube video The Road from Project Manager to Agile Coach.  Lyssa presents regularly at Agile and Scrum conferences and gatherings, and tends to make friends wherever she goes — look out for her on your Agile journey

Gregory Balestrero’s much-awaited keynote speech at the Scrum Gathering was something of an anti-climax.  It was safe and generic, offering neither resistance nor support for Scrum beyond the usual “let’s all work together” rhetoric.  Even so, it had a little more punch than the earlier talk by CMMI guru Dr. Mark Paulk, which was overly long and sadly dull.  Dr Paulk would have done well to talk more about his research and less about what Scrum is.  The phrase ‘teaching your grandmother to suck eggs’ comes to mind.

Having both CMMI and PMI representation at the gathering was an odd choice, and given the energy and creativity often found at Agile conferences these guys had much to do to impress.  No easy task, especially given the resistance from many (including this blogger) to their very presence. It seems reasonable that when in enemy territory, so to speak, a person would tread with caution.  Fair enough, but reasonable people rarely inspire and that was the case here.  Nevertheless Gregory Balestrero’s talk was not without value.

In describing the work of the PMI Mr Balestrero mentioned that the new version of the PMBok has a chapter on iterative development and incremental delivery.  Bear in mind that IID has actually been practiced in software companies since the 1970s.  That it has only come to the attention of the PMI recently is odd, to say the least.  IID is not the same as Agile, of course, it is one small part.  Still, progress is progress, and credit to the speaker for seeking alignment between Scrum and PMI values.

The one thing that jumped out at me from the talk was Mr Balestrero’s announcement that since he took over as CEO of the PMI seven years ago the organization has become more focused on value.  This is good news, as Agile is, and has always been focused on value, so we can all see alignment there.  Of course, the question this raised for me was “what was the PMI focused on before that time?”  I decided to ask.  As there was limited time in the session for questions I waited to speak with Mr Balestrero after the keynote was complete.  With all the powerpoint events of the morning I was hungry for some actual dialog.  In the event my question turned into an hour-long conversation about the nature of management.

Raffi Simonian (CSP), Alan Cyment (CST), Jesse Fewell (PMP) also took part in the discussion.  Raffi’s particular interest was on how a CSP could fast-track his way to becoming a PMP, given that there was some cross-over of skills, and to their credit the two PMI representatives didn’t shoot this idea down, but instead offered Raffi a number of direct contacts with which to further explore the idea of how CSP and PMP could dovetail.  The gesture offers potential for open dialog, for collaboration.  All good.

— As an aside, Gregory Balestrero publicly congratulated Raffi and his co-worker Anu on the excellent PMO set up at their organization, saying it was one of the best there was.  In fact, Raffi and his team have been slowly working over the past few years to remove this same PMO as it is actually considered an impediment.  —

Back to my question, what was the PMI focused on before it decided to focus on value?  Gregory Balestrero explained that the PMI was originally set up to focus on value (of course it was, what else would its purpose be?) but over the years lost that focus and became transaction-orientated, focusing on delivering certification to the individual rather than supporting organizations in successful outcomes.  This seems to have resulted in a large group of people with impressive knowledge of how to manage projects, but perhaps with some loss of focus as to why they needed to do this.  Seven years is a long time, and many of us in this community do not yet see that focus on value over certification.  Big ships take a long time to turn around.

Mr Balestrero went on to say that when he joined the PMI he asked the question “do we need project management?”.  Good question.  Apparently the answer was “Duh, yeah!”  I challenged that answer.  Perhaps the “duh yeah” applies when the processes we use cry out for management.  Upfront requirements, definition, work-breakdown structures, dependency charts, critical path analysis, efficient assignment of resources… all of this needs to be managed.  Sure.

But what about an agile process?  I suggested that management, as we know it, is inappropriate, and that instead projects need support and guidance through a process of visioning, reflecting, facilitating and inspiring.  Does the PMI teach that, I asked.  The answer was vague.

I felt that Gregory Balestrero didn’t understand Scrum beyond the concept of iterative development and possibly collaboration, so in the short time we talked Alan, Raffi and I introduced some of the underlying values of Scrum to him.  He listened (he appeared to listen).  What if we took away the names PMI and Agile and Scrum, I asked, what if we went right down to underlying values and principles: openness, trustfulness, visibility, courage, self-organization, collaboration, beauty, inspiring visions… early delivery of working software.  Are we seeking the same thing?

I think this is a question that Gregory Balestrero will need to consider if he is serious about PMI and Scrum collaboration.  The sense I had from our discussion is that perhaps he will.  Time will tell.

Jesse Fewell captured (and captioned!) the discussion.  Take a look.

Oppression: The unjustifiable placing of a burden on someone or some group, by interfering with their powers, interests, or opportunities. Oppression may be deliberate, or an unintended outcome of social arrangements; it may be recognized for what it is, or may go unremarked even by those oppressed. — The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy © 1994, 1996, 2005

We tend to think of oppression only in its deliberate form, when used as a weapon to subdue the conquered or to quell the sense of unrest and the spirit of uprising in the lower classes, but oppression exists in many forms, and does not only affect poor, underprivileged people. We can observe many levels of oppression in large organizations today, amongst middle class, well paid professionals.

As an example, consider cubicle culture, so ingrained in our idea of how people work in the software industry — yes still, even after 10+ years of Agile.  Isolating someone in a cubicle is an act of control, a way of ensuring compliance.  Prisons throughout the world use the concept of solitary confinement as a form of punishment — some would say punishment bordering on the ‘cruel and unusual’, or even torture: it is so deeply unnatural for people to be isolated from one another.  One’s imagination does not have to be stretched far to see the similarities between a corporate cubicle and a one-man prison cell.  Without the support of their fellows an individual is more vulnerable to suggestion, and more likely to tow the line.  Is this the deliberate intention of a cube farm?  Possibly not, but it is the outcome.

But it goes far beyond office layouts.  Games of power are played out daily — often with great zest within the upper echelons, but with ever-dwindling willingness as we move down towards the grass roots of an organization. The oppression that takes place is sometimes conscious, but more often is “an unintended outcome of social arrangements”, and manifests itself in the phrase “it’s just the way we do things around here”.

Such oppression is usually hidden beneath the niceties of corporate behavior, beneath so-called socially acceptable norms.  At its most insidious it hides beneath a facade of ‘fun’, ‘teamwork’, ‘community spirit’ and other such fashionable buzzwords.  In the oppressed people it takes the form of silent compliance, the fear of making mistakes (CYA) and a general sense that it is better to make no decisions than to make the wrong one.  It is better to delay than to act.  The result of this corporate oppression is inertia: it is stagnation. If this oppression is not recognized for what it is, it cannot possibly be surfaced and dealt with. An organization groaning under the burden of such oppression can never be agile, no matter how many nice facades it puts on itself.

As well as oppression at the individual company level, there is the additional fear-based culture across companies of compliance to “standards”, e.g. SOX, ISO 9001, CMMI.  I have twice observed the effort exerted to meet such standards by those forced to comply.  It was a pathetic sight — fearful workers, terrified of making mistakes, outwardly exhausted and inwardly cowering.  I don’t exaggerate.  Others may have a different experience; this was mine.

But who is responsible for the way things are?  The oppressors?  Society?  It would be easy to apportion blame, and carry on the same way.  The reality though is that the oppressed person himself is the culprit.  In a democratic society we have choices.  If we are oppressed (and we are) it is because we choose to live that way.  “There can be no really pervasive system of oppression . . . without the consent of the oppressed.” — Florynce Kennedy

This is all well and good, and a simple two-step solution would be to a) recognize it and b) act differently.  The reality though is trickier.  Too often the oppressed don’t want change; they simply want to be on the other side of the oppression.  That is the ugly reality we live in.  We have all seen individuals rise to middle-management and change behavior accordingly, fitting in to the system and emulating their superiors.  Many of us have seen teams fall apart through infighting — indeed a key part of the Scrum Master training course is focused on dealing with such situations.  Reward systems in most software corporations are based on individual superiority, and to be superior, others must be considered inferior.

Commenting on the syndrome of in-fighting between oppressed natives in colonized countries, Paulo Friere notes “Because the oppressor exists within their oppressed comrades, when they attack those comrades they are indirectly attacking their oppressor as well.”

He goes on to say “on the other hand, at a certain point in their existential experience the oppressed feel an irresistible attraction towards the oppressors and their way of life.  Sharing this way of life becomes an overpowering aspiration.  In their alienation, the oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors, to imitate them, to follow them.”

If large monolithic bodies such as IEEE and PMI are the oppressors in the software industry, then it follows from Friere’s observations that the smaller process innovators, the ones who once kicked back against the style of management represented by these bodies, will now wish to emulate them, to essentially become them. The Scrum Alliance events, for example, are moving from intimate gatherings of passionate people to corporate sponsored events with big-name keynote speakers, in essence becoming identical to all the other mainstream software conferences.  The PMI, champions of the oft-scorned waterfall process, are now being looked to for advice and support.  This isn’t progress, it is regression, or at best circularity.  The spirit of revolution so apparent in the beginning of this movement has all but disintegrated, as we march to the corporate drum.

Where does Scrum fit into a landscape of compliance and corporate emulation?  Quite possibly it will be absorbed back into that culture, watered down, commoditized.  It will be made nice.  And in 20-30 years time a new generation of dissatisfied, disempowered workers will start the revolution all over again.

We all desire change, but evidence indicates we don’t know how to go about getting it in any deep and lasting way.  By recognizing the reality of the oppression we live in, by facing it, acknowledging its truth, perhaps we can shake off the shackles of ingrained behaviors and begin to think and behave in new ways.  And in doing so perhaps we can reinvent the world — or for now, at least the software industry.

I recently wrote on the Scrum Trainers discussion group that I felt oppressed by the PMI.  An odd, and rather outrageous statement perhaps, and I was suitably called on this, challenged if you like.  I figured I’d write something here about the nature of oppression to clarify what I meant.  This article will extend across two posts in fact, the latter post will be my thoughts on the nature of oppression, but first, let me set the context for this, which I think is interesting enough for a post in its own right.

Disclaimer: the views I express here do not reflect the views of the Scrum Alliance, nor of any other individual member.  They are my views.  That is all.

The Orlando Scrum Gathering is approaching.  Gregory Balestrero, the Chief Executive Officer of the Project Management Institute (PMI) has been invited, with much fanfare, to be one of the keynote speakers at the event.  I object to this.  Not because I have anything against the man (I’d never heard of him until now) but because I feel uncomfortable with the idea that the Scrum Alliance is turning to the PMI to learn… what?  I don’t know.  After three years of seeking to understand I haven’t yet found a good reason to listen to the voice of the PMI.  This is hard to say as I know it upsets a lot of people.

Inviting someone to do a keynote speech implies they have something important to say, that we need to hear.  Gregory Balestrero, the man, may have something important to say, but Gregory Balestrero the CEO of PMI does not.  The PMI is an outmoded organization which represents, and promotes, a particular way of working now known to be largely flawed.  That the PMI wants to change itself is good news.  That the PMI has an important message for Scrum practitioners is unlikely.

If Gregory Balestrero is interested in learning about Scrum, then have him attend the Scrum Gathering, and have him pay his entrance fee along with the rest of us.  I welcome him there, as I welcome anyone who wants to learn about Scrum.  I have no reason to believe Mr Balestrero is anything other than a lovely man, with a desire to learn new things.  No doubt he is a very smart and passionate man to be where he is today.  Such drive and passion are always welcome in the Scrum world.  I would just rather have him attend the gathering simply as Gregory, not as “the chief ambassador for advancing the profession of project management on behalf of PMI”.  And I have no interest in hearing “powerful messages about the importance of project management in achieving success in today’s global business environment.”  I am tired of corporate rhetoric, and I don’t buy this.

Scrum, as I understand it, has nothing to do with project management, and personally I eschew the term “Agile Project Manager” and consider it an oxymoron.  Ken Schwaber has often made the statement that there is no Project Manager role in Scrum.  Indeed there is not, so why partner with the Project Management Institute?  It starts to feel like compliance to the existing status quo, and appeasement to what is still a very powerful organization, albeit one whose power is threatened.

I have always seen the move to Agile as a software revolution, throwing off the weight of oppression and releasing into a new way of being.  The  tragedy of many revolutions is that once successful the leaders tend towards the same behavior that caused the need for the revolution in the first place.  The oppressed become the oppressors, i.e. they take on essentially the same behaviors because they don’t know how else to behave.

George Orwell characterized this tendency in the novel Animal Farm, an allegory for the Russian Revolution and subsequent events.  By the end of the book, the revolutionary leader, Napoleon (a pig, by some charming coincidence) is walking on two legs, dressing in human clothing and selling his best friends out for horse meat.

Why does the Scrum Alliance want to work with the PMI?  Let me be clear: I see absolute value in working with those individual members of the PMI who care about Scrum, but I see no value in working with the organization.  It has some influence today, but that influence is waning in the light of Agile.  I say leave it be, let it die.  Let’s all seek entirely new ways of collaborating and advancing our professional skills.  Giant monolithic institutions representing “the interests” of their members may not be the way of the 21st century.  Maybe small is better.  I sincerely hope that the Scrum Alliance won’t scale to PMI proportions.  I’d like to see it splinter instead, into small passionate, self-managing groups each with a slightly different agenda, and different interests.

I feel oppressed not so much by the PMI, but by monoliths in general; they are, by definition incredibly heavy and immovable.  And I feel uncomfortable with the burgeoning relationship between the PMI and the Scrum Alliance, thinking I’d rather not dress up as a farmer.
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In part two of this post I’ll explore the nature of oppression and look at how raising awareness of this mostly hidden syndrome may be useful to help us identify problem situations with more clarity, and thus change our behaviors and thinking.

It is that time of the year again, where I and many of my colleagues are polishing the corners of our session descriptions, or in some cases hurriedly binding them together with duct tape and string, ready to be submitted to the Agle2XXX conference.

I spent most of the last few days on mine, and now have eight submissions awaiting assessment and judgment.  Of course, I’d love to receive comments on the conference web site from any readers of this blog.  You’ll need an Agile2009 id to log in, and if you don’t have one yet, get one!  They are free, and will allow you to submit your own session as well as commenting on other people’s.

Here is the list of my submissions.

• New Dance for New Product Development
• The Spirit of Scrum: Road to Joy
• The Agile Playground
• Scale Back: Small is Beautiful
• Solving the The HR Problem in 90 Minutes — with Xavier Quesada Allue
• Operating on the Creative Edge (Improv in Agile) — with Jim York
• Help me to see… corporate culture — with Alan Cyment
• Powerful Questions: Human-centric coaching — with Lyssa Adkins

And while you are here, please take a moment to take a look at my friend Xavier’s new Visual Management Blog.  It is very impressive, and a great resource to be building for this community.

I hope to see some of you in Chicago in August.  And if you are submitting yourself, I wish you acceptance

I recently joined Danube Technologies as a trainer, and will be facilitating Scrum Master training at various locations in Europe and the USA throughout 2009.  I decided to write a travel blog, with the noble goal of creating one entry per course, and continue over the course of the year.  We’ll see.

I have written the first post: #1: Helsinki, January 2008. All subsequent entries will be available on the Danube blog, which also contains great writing from many excellent Scrum trainers.  Check it out.

I’ll still be writing here from time to time, so don’t desert this space just yet.  My blog life is reflective of my home life: I am somewhat rootless these days, wandering and wondering…