A Mother of a Bean

I changed my job last week. As of Monday I'm focusing on a narrow area of what I was doing. The one thing that keeps me at Adobe so long, 18 years next month, is that whenever I ask to change my responsibilities and can provide a convincing case the change has happened. Sometimes very quickly, like this time. I agreed to it last Wednesday and by Monday it was so. The change is needed and welcomed from everyone to whom I speak.

I'm totally relieved on so many levels. Work for me didn't become any easier. It just changed to what I wanted to do. I lead a small team in a mission critical area for a short duration (at least the truly intense part is short duration.) Its a great team with whom I'm proud to work. And its a team who has fought against having their product shipped overseas and won. They were part of my organization already. There are some process issues to address. The initial situation will have me working too hard for the next month or two; but, then we should be good to slide back out of overdrive. I'm *not* giving up my personal life or family at all and will keep good hours, with the data to measure it and be sure. :)

The change also allows me to grow in the direction I'm looking to grow. My passion at work hasn't changed, its still the Creative Suite. Yet I can see the pinpoint focus of the product itself (as opposed to the tools that form its content) and it strangely interests me. What I'll be doing is focusing on the business needs (as opposed to the engineering needs) of the business model solution. It sounds and is very specific; but, that's one of the main areas of growth. The other area is in process improvement. I've talked here before about efforts in those areas and they are still proceeding nicely, though under a different guise. I'm still pushing but now all I have to do is ensure our team projects are at the forefront of the effort.