When you think of flexibility, you likely call to mind an agile, in-the-moment response to a stressful scenario. The ability to flex implies that some kind of force is applied to something, and that thing moves with the force, not resisting it, not breaking from brittleness or from rigidity, but going with the force. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. You're listening to Developer Team. My goal on this show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose in their careers. It's easy to imagine that flexibility is tied to your will. It's easy to imagine that resisting that force is a choice, and going with the flow is a different choice, and flexibility is about making the right choices in that moment. However, flexibility is much less about a willful decision than it is about preparation. Think about an athlete that is flexible. How did they end up this way? Are they choosing to be flexible? Or was there some process? Or was there some preparation involved? I'd like you to think about this kind of flexibility when you are imagining this concept and how it applies to your professional life. An athlete prepares by stretching, training movements, slowly developing flexibility over a long period of time, and they provide the force that's needed to adapt their bodies, to train their brains, to connect their movements. And they go through... They go through those movements to their physical limits. Flexibility is not a choice in the moment. Certainly not for these athletes. Not for you either. How do you prepare yourself for the unexpected? The unexpected moments are when we need flexibility. The fact that we can't predict the future, and we hardly know what's happening in the present. This is proof for the need for flexibility. And how do you prepare? Well, the answer is somewhat unintuitive. And we'll get into it right after this sponsor break. The Software Development Institute is a proud sponsor of the! 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Another question, episode two, what can video games teach us about edge computing? Two very different episodes, and that's right at the beginning of this first season. I've listened to this first episode about whether managers should code, and I've learned about the Laurie Krebs ratio. That's something that you can learn about to help you maybe have a guideline if you are a manager on whether or not you should code, how much you should be coding. Go and check it out. You can find Compiler wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks again to Compiler. For their support of Developer Team. I want you to believe that flexibility is a resource. I want you to grapple with this concept, that flexibility is a resource. It's largely about preparation, not about reaction. Flexibility. Flexibility is a resource that you gather during times when you don't really need it right away. Think about this. Flexibility is a resource that you gather, that you shore up, that you prepare in advance when you don't need it. Let's unpack this a little bit and discuss kind of the mechanics of it. Very simple example we've mentioned recently on the show, nothing to do with engineering. The decision of when to fill up your gas tank or when to charge your phone battery. If you are... debating whether or not you should take the time to charge a battery or fill up a gas tank, that is the moment of opportunity for you to collect flexibility as a resource. However, if you don't have the time to charge your battery or fill your tank, you've lost that opportunity to collect the resource of flexibility. In the moment that you have the time to debate yourself over it, that is the moment where you have the opportunity for flexibility. It's kind of this interesting study in flexibility. And we can't demand flexibility in the moment that we want it. We can't demand for more time to go fill up our tank if we need gas right this second. We can't demand for flexibility to charge our phone if we need to make a phone call and we don't have an outlet nearby. We must invest in it before the moment. That we need it. And this is a part of the problem. In order for flexibility to be created, for example, on a product development team, it's necessary to create the space required to think about how we might want to change. Flexibility is, in and of itself, the ability to change. The ability to change given a new circumstance. And flexing is... Is a change in direction. This is, again, the mental picture that I want you to have is that of an athlete that is prepared that has the capacity to change given their situation. And this idea of having time to consider our change, right? This breaks from the metaphor of the athlete for a moment. This is a meta process. In other words, it is a process about the process or a work. About the work. Thinking about the thinking. And this concept of meta process is well studied. It's something that was pioneered partially by Toyota in the auto industry. And this is something that we can learn from. Toyota had processes that would help them develop processes. And so this meta process idea, it applies because this is how Toyota stayed flexible. When we want to stay flexible, we need a way, a kind of systematic way of thinking about change. Of bringing change into our process. If we prepare for change, we are adopting this idea or this pursuit of flexibility. Humans have this unique ability to think about thinking. We can elevate ourselves. We can elevate ourselves above whatever we're doing. And make adjustments. And then continue on. The higher level programming in this process makes us much more capable. And this is kind of the core of flexibility at work. So the homework here is to look at your scheduling, your processes, your routines, your habits. Determine when and how you are practicing a meta process. Are you taking time to review whether or not things are working? This is kind of the spirit of a retro. A retro is not just to look back and reflect for the sake of emotional bonding experience. That maybe is a side benefit. The real benefit is looking at your process or looking at your team's kind of gelling. And determining what could we adjust. This is how you adopt flexibility on your team. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. Thank you again to today's sponsor, Compiler. Compiler is a brand new podcast from Red Hat that answers the hardest questions, demystifying tech, one question at a time. You can find Compiler wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're listening to the show and you haven't taken the time to leave us a comment, please do so. We'll see you next time. See you soon. I don't know hundreds of thousands of podcasts probably so it's likely that the person you're thinking of has either never heard it or maybe they stopped listening or something sharing an episode a specific episode with another person is probably one of the best kind of word of mouth ways to help the show continue to exist and reach new developers that are interested thanks so much for listening and until next time enjoy your tea you