{"id":13118,"date":"2018-05-15T21:33:50","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T01:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/degrootventures.com\/?p=13118"},"modified":"2018-05-15T21:33:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T01:33:50","slug":"lunched-with-sal-taghleb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/degrootventures.com\/2018\/05\/15\/lunched-with-sal-taghleb\/","title":{"rendered":"Lunch’Ed with Sal Taghleb"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Sal Taghleb<\/p><\/div>\n

In my latest installment of Lunch’Ed, I met up with Sal Taghleb<\/a> to learn about his long-distance journey from IA to Enterprise Agile Coach.<\/h3>\n

Truth be told, I\u2019m terrible at long distance relationships. The last I heard from (Sal) was in\u2028 2008 when he was heading off to a new opportunity in the Netherlands. That was over ten\u2028 years ago, so I was excited to hear from him when he reached out to me for this series. The \u2028restaurant itself was Wimpy\u2019s Diner in Markham which afforded Sal the time to meet me during his lunch break. While my burger was delicious, this was more about two old colleagues reconnecting after too long an absence.<\/p>\n

We began our lunch as many of my meetings with past colleagues do, with a trip down memory lane. We had a great discussion on the joint successes and failures within CanWest during the growth years of canada.com. I was managing the development team at the time, and Sal was brought in as an Information Architect for yet another relaunch of canada.com. This discussion turned into somewhat of a sombre memorial as we reflected on the eventual demise of canada.com and Canwest itself, and our theories for why and how that happened. That, however, is not the purpose of this post and I may tackle that another time.<\/p>\n

What I was interested in learning was how Sal went from the Information Architect I had last\u2028 worked with to being an Enterprise Agile Coach. Not that there isn\u2019t any connection between \u2028the two roles, but I knew the line wouldn\u2019t be direct, and Sal didn\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\n

Sal left CanWest for a job in the Netherlands with a startup called iLocal. For those who remember the whole \u201chyperlocal\u201d craze that swept our industry at the time, their objective was to be a local business search engine for the area of Europe known as the Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.). They would index every business based on a set taxonomy and feed that data model into a system so that it was smart.<\/p>\n

At the time they were using a licensed proprietary .NET engine, but knowing that the real value of the company was the IP, they wanted to own it. While Sal had been brought it as manager of search and innovation , they soon tasked him with developing a system in-house. As Sal explains, while he had never done this before, he was excited by the challenge and dove right in.<\/p>\n

They decided to go all open source and build this massive new system. The company didn\u2019t\u2028 have the skills or people on staff, so off they went on a mass hiring spree. Sal hired people \u2028from all around the world and brought them in-house, and now our IA was managing a software development team. The team itself wasn\u2019t enough because what they were trying to build was cutting edge, so they hired a consulting company as well. Eventually, they did end up completing the product, and TomTom later purchased the IP to create TomTom Places.<\/p>\n

While working in the Netherlands, they decided to utilize SCRUM exclusively. Again, not having the skills on hand they hired a company for a full training session and through this Sal became a certified SCRUM master. While he wasn\u2019t the SCRUM master for the project at the time, they had an actual SCRUM Master come in on contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I completed the course, I wasn\u2019t ready to introduce that risk on a big project.\u201d\u2028<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

During that time Sal learned a lot about agile and about SCRUM, so when he came back to \u2028Canada, he brought all of that experience with him. He took many additional courses and\u2028 applied his growing knowledge and experience to every software project he led. In time he found himself working as a SCRUM master and Agile Project Manager. He finally decided he wanted to continue moving forward as a professional agilist.<\/p>\n

Having gone through this transformation, my final question to Sal was whether he enjoyed this role more-so than the previous roles in IA and software development? His answer was a \u2028definite yes. While he uses those previous roles to understand projects, make suggestions, and provide recommendations, he\u2019s happy not to be too involved in those areas.<\/p>\n

\u2028\u201cI want to be great at what I do, not just okay. I\u2019m much better as a facilitator, trainer, and agile leader. I do enjoy the servant leadership style of people management, and there\u2019s a\u2028 difference.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I have met many people who have and are struggling with finding something they excel at which they also truly enjoy doing. While it may have taken a long journey across the pond and back to figure it out, I\u2019m certainly happy for Sal that he has found his niche.<\/p>\n

I encourage you to visit Sal\u2019s website<\/a> to learn more about the services he offers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my latest installment of Lunch’Ed, I met up with Sal Taghleb to learn about his long-distance journey from IA to Enterprise Agile Coach. Truth be told, I\u2019m terrible at long distance relationships. The last I heard from (Sal) was in\u2028 2008 when he was heading off to a new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/degrootventures.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/sal-crop.jpg","yoast_head":"\nLunch'Ed with Sal Taghleb - De Groot Ventures Inc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In my latest installment of Lunch'Ed, I met up with Sal Taghleb to learn about his long-distance journey from IA to Enterprise Agile Coach.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/degrootventures.com\/2018\/05\/15\/lunched-with-sal-taghleb\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lunch'Ed with Sal Taghleb - 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