Karen Beck is a freelance agile delivery specialist and scrum master, currently working with Leeds Building Society. She has now been a freelancer for four years and has her own information technology consulting company. Before this she has worked in roles in organisations including Sky, WANdisco, Toyota Connected, HP Enterprise Services and HSBC.
“It has always been a goal of mine to run my own business. When I made the decision four years ago I knew there would be risks involved but I concentrated on the positives.”
Before starting my own company
My career to date has been varied to say the least, but all of it has a technology and digital focus. I started out many years ago in IT recruitment, then through that wanted to learn more about project management.
Whilst working at HP, I switched my career from in-house IT recruitment to the project management path and it enabled me to get involved with some great pieces of work, mainly around technical infrastructure across Europe, which was exciting as I love to travel.
Following my work with HP I changed my focus to software delivery as new technology and what it enables really excited me. This led me to learning and experiencing how teams and organisations deliver software, and how they can improve transparency, throughput, collaboration and culture by working in an agile way, rather than a more ‘traditional’ approach.
I love working with people and am fascinated by team and organisational culture, hence why I continued to learn and now specialise in this area.
Educationally, personal family issues at the time meant I missed out on going to university, but this certainly didn’t hold me back.
Taking control of my own destiny
It has always been a goal of mine to run my own business. When I made the decision four years ago I knew there would be risks involved but I concentrated on the positives.
The main reason for wanting to freelance is for me the variety it brings. I am able to consult and advise various organisations across the public and private sectors, and alongside this I can also provide mentoring on a one to one basis, and then get involved at team level to help them continuously improve their ways of working and delivery. I don’t restrict myself on location and I love a challenge which is certainly a huge part of freelance life.
My role differs from one day to the next – no day is the same. It can consist of team level activities like facilitating sessions to help the team to reach their goals, one to one coaching on all aspects of agile ways of working and advising at C-level on organisational change and transformation. There is so much variety which I love!
Lessons learned
Running my own company has made me more mindful of the need to ensure I take a break. I am a workaholic and I love what I do and as the contract market can be unstable I feel personally there is a tendency to move from contract to contract with no downtime, so I try to make sure if possible (and client deliverables permitting!) I take a small break either mid-contract or between contracts.
It has also raised the importance of networking to me and how building up a community of contacts is so invaluable, not only to obtain support and advice, but to also share this with others too.
Communicating in a new way
Luckily the pandemic hasn’t impacted my job. It has changed the way I work. For example, I am a huge fan of face to face co-located working, and I also feel that teams benefit massively when they are co-located.
The pandemic has meant the teams I work with now heavily rely on collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams to help us communicate, but I have to say this has been a great success and hasn’t slowed us down at all. It has had a really positive impact.
I think lockdown has certainly brought people’s relationships with technology to the forefront, especially with how we use digital tools and apps to communicate and collaborate. It has prompted organisations to embrace using digital collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Slack and Zoom and realise their benefits.
I also believe it has shown organisations the benefits of remote working, and this can be a huge benefit if the right tools and technology is in place. I feel these are positives for the tech space, and I definitely see this as the new normal way of working in many cases.
Considering a career in tech? Don’t think about it, do it!
When considering a career in tech, I would say – don’t think about it – do it! A career in digital and technology is one of the most exciting and rewarding career paths there is.
There are so many avenues to explore such as design, testing, development, product management, and agile coaching of course! I haven’t even scratched the surface of the options available.
My advice would be to network, network, network! Ask questions, connect with people, get involved in meetups and events – there are so many happening at the moment digitally which is great. The tech and digital community are such a friendly and helpful bunch and are always willing to provide advice in my experience.
Future goals
I am currently in the process of setting myself some goals that will not only provide me with focus but will also challenge me. These include staying up to date with new and changing technology, and also looking more closely at how I market my business too.
More importantly though, following my contract with Leeds Building Society I am looking forward to helping more organisations and teams to reach their goals.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenbeckagile