Yes, I finally made it. It took me half a year to get my blog online… Not that it would have been technically difficult, not that I would have lacked content, but because I lacked time. And it’s not about me either – it’s about what I have learned… learned from the people that I have worked with… from Teams.
My first team ever was “A State of Mind” an indie-band, where I sang and played guitar. We were a passionate group of people with a drive for learning and expressing ourselves. That was in the late 80’s. We followed Neil Young’s advice “it’s better to burn out, than to fade away” and quit after an intense 4 years or so.
My second team was and is my longest running team – my partnership with my wife for over 30 years, which has grown into a family of four. In this team I hold two of my most important roles: father and husband.
My third team was the teacher community in a high school in Helsinki where I taught for 4 years in the early 90’s – first music and later computer science and chemistry – my two majors at the university.
My fourth team was “Our Great Company” – I was an entrepreneur for 9 years from 1998 to 2007 – this was my real university. This was where I had to put my money where my mouth was and learn things the hard way. I started together with my wife and expanded into a product-house with 5 employees and several products… one of which was a Content Management System. But I wasn’t able to keep the business sustainable, so it crashed and burned. But I gained invaluable understanding on the way.
My fifth team was a combination of teams at Onesta, which merged into Uoma. I got to practice the role of a team builder and a team lead. Great experiences, great lessons learned and a time for healing.
This blog is about my sixth team – The Siili Solutions Sitefinity Team (well we started at Uoma merged in to Avaus and got acquired by Siili). This team is the “Our Great Team”. Starting from a single Scrum Team and evolving into a 30+ person team of teams.
So, in this blog I’ll be reflecting mainly on the journey of “Our Great Team”. Drawing conclusions and listing lessons learned. Interviewing teammates and sharing the wisdom of these wonderful people I got to share a decade of my life with.
Our Great Team 