The AKC Journey - a personal perspective

This is a personal and subjective perspective into the Accredited Kanban Consultant (AKC) community built on the story of how it unraveled for me over several years.

The AKC program is driven and supported by Kanban University - https://kanban.university/resources/kanban-development-path/akc-credential/.

I went through most of my Kanban training between 2017 and 2019 and navigated through, course by course, with lofty expectations and a large baggage of misconceptions. The learning experience not only allowed me to accumulate a great amount of knowledge, but - hindsight 20/20 - also transformed the way I think and operate on a daily basis at work.

Somewhere on that timeline I realized that experienced Kanban practitioners do not build their main value proposition on contributing more info, adding more practices and layering on more "Agile or Lean stuff". They help with deeper understanding of the concrete problems to solve and a systemic perspective into the concrete day-to-day work. It is a nod to a mindful, respectful approach to solving real, practical problems.

It does require focusing on deepening the relationship with everyone in the organization, the Executive in charge of strategy and culture, and the Developer and Tester delivering high quality software applications. It also requires a high dose of humility - to admit we don't have answers yet, since the problems and problem statements are vague and nebulous at best...

But I'm digressing - let's get back to my story line.

In late 2018 I decided to give it my best to become part of the KCP community. Everything I had heard about it over the previous year or so was telling me it was synonymous with a collaborative group of experts that are motivated by their understanding of the potential built into the Kanban Method Body of Knowledge, and focused on the  innovation engine that took shape out of that potential. To me, the group had recognized the opportunity to take the new models and new approaches and build up a powerful innovation engine based not on theoretical and mental experiments, but rather based on evidence collected from applications in the field, in real life.

My own process for joining the program - which in the meantime evolved and changed its name from KCP to AKC - was punctuated by challenges, and several inflection points that required me to regroup, reflect and pivot on my approach and my work. All the while several community members, seeing my struggles, naturally stepped in to help.

And I do want to take a moment to focus on just this - the deep kindness, humility and respect I saw from these friends (by now!) in the community. This validated and confirmed my expectations that this is an exceptional group bound for exceptional goals and outcomes! This is not common behavior. It does not happen in every professional community out there - at least not in my experience. Of course, I'll let you be the judge of that, but to me it is a unique cultural trait. It's a super-power to be nurtured and cultivated to the benefit of the community and everyone else that would interact with every one of its members.

What I drew from my own experience of joining the program was a genuine, deep discussion not only about my adequacy and fitness into the community, but also the expectations and demands I would operate by as an AKC. There was no "testing" out of context, no hazing rituals, no need to pass any "standards" of knowledge or skills, or "years of experience of this or that pre-defined role".

As challenging for me as I found it, the community was describing to me what it was to be an AKC, the expectation that this is a place to shed ego and posturing, roll up my sleeves and add a few building blocks to this construct along a common vision and shared understanding.

Those challenges helped me move past some of my pre-conceptions, past the perspective of AKC as a certification confirming some level of excellent expertise already separating me from other practitioners and allowing me to take a guru-like posture of "I already know what you're trying to say!" and "let me tell you what you're dealing with before you even finish your thoughts!" It helped me understand the fallacy of this mental shortcut and avoid the easy way out.

It also made me realize the debt I incurred in the process. This debt to a handful of leaders and to the community set me up with a perspective that if I serve the community for a short 10-20 years (sarcasm aside!), I might get the chance to make some significant payments towards it, even if I might not stand any chance of entirely paying it back.

This just goes to show the way I see the privilege of me calling myself an AKC!

For the record, I was accepted into the community in late 2019 early 2020. I'm not very good with dates/timelines, but even so, this goes to show that over the duration, I ended up looking at it as my own, very personal journey towards and into the community.

I hope this will make you consider joining me on this Journey!

Now grab a cup of cofee or tea or your favorite comforting treat and spend some time mulling over these thoughts - I guarantee you won't regret it!