Who is Carlo Beschi?

Carlo was invited by Oana. Carlo is one of these people I know over twitter.
What I find interesting about Carlo, is that he is calls himself a developer and a system administrator. A DevOps avant la lettre. On his website he mentions he uses Pomodoro Technique. Which is not so strange knowing he is Italian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is something people usually don’t know about you but has influenced you in who you are?

Many people who know me as an IT professional ignore the tremendous impact that my wife Karina has had in my life. To make a long story short: she held my hand, in the last 8 years, while I learned how to be proud of myself – and not ashamed.

If you would not have been in IT, what would have become of you?

(Bio Time! 😉 At 18, I was sure I would have become a journalist – possibly a Robert Fisk, or a Ryszard Kapuscinski. When I did actually study media and journalism (and learned about news-making routines, construction of reality, self-censorship) all poetry vanished. I did not want to be “part of the machine”. Still, I was fond of semiotics,  and international relations. This somehow led me to a sincere involvement with grassroots activism and free software. I started to “do web” more seriously around 2000.

What is your biggest challenge and why is it a good thing for you?

I want to change the world – to make it a better place to live. This is my BIG BIG challenge. And it’s been on the top of my list for the last 20 years 😉
In my current daily IT job, while designing and developing what we call “sustainable IT solutions I feel that I’m part of this “global effort. Delivering real value, delighting customers, respecting co-workers, creating win-win-win situations, … – I am giving my small but concrete contribution.

Whenever I manage to perceive myself *aligned* with this goal, and with all other people walking the same path, I feel just great – smiling, light, energized. And of course this is something good – for me and for those around me.
(I’m constantly training my eyes and heart, to discern this alignment, and to stay aware of this sense of belonging. There are mountains of injustice, violence and hypocrisy which populate our towns and lives – and they are very good at hiding the beauty and the happiness.)

On a much more trivial level, I’d like to list a couple of other challenges I’m facing.

First, I strive to better organize my time and activities, to achieve the highest productivity, value generation and sustainability. I’m not that bad at it, but I know I can do much better. (I’ve recently assisted a great on-line presentation by Aslam Kahn about personal flow, personal flow of waste, … )

Second, I’m looking to find my balance, in an actual context, where I need to be a charismatic leader (and not just only a servant one) without letting my ego expand too much and narcissism prevail.

These challenges are very good, since they’re part of my walk of continuous self-improvement. I’m very happy to see myself getting slowly better and to be able set the bar each time a little higher.

What drives you?

Passion.
Desire of growing, of evolving.
The pleasure to learn.
The will to feel proud of myself.
The beauty of sharing.

What is your biggest achievement?

Generally speaking, I love it when others appreciate something I do (and I’m happy if they use it, practice it,  enjoy it :-).
A couple of years ago, my team and I had designed and released an extension to a very popular opensource CRM.  It became the most downloaded plugin for that software] and it was then included in the successive release. This was a big satisfaction – and a win-win-win-win-win situation  (for me, for my team, the company I worked for, that CRM company, that CRM community, …) 😉

Last year, I had made plans for moving to a different job, in a bigger company. Two members of my team came to me and said “We have something for you. We want to make our own company. But we need you.” That’s how Devsum was born in summer 2010. We’re small, lean, and proud 😉

What is the last book you have read?

I’ve recently read Jim Womack Gemba walks. An Agile enthusiast and practitioner for a few years, I’m getting more and more passionate about Lean. I’m currently reading Stephen Denning “The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management”. (Both of them on my Kindle).

More recently, I just finished reading Lean From the Trenches by Henrik Kniberg, and I’m reading the amazing Managing yourself and others (Quality Software) by Jerry

What question do you think I should also ask and what is the answer?

It took me two months to answer to your eight questions. If I’m to formulate the questions too, we’ll end up being in 2012 😉 Anyway, your questions are great. As others mentioned before, there’s many more you could eventually ask me, but none that you should 😉

Who do you think I should ask next?

Please send these questions to Claudio Perrone. Already known at the international level, he is doing an amazing job, especially with lean tools applied to the IT domain.

And send them also to Jacopo Romei. He’s not so famous outside Italy, but he’s a very smart, skilled and creative agile coach – and he’s very active in grooming the Italian agile community.

If you like these questions. You can read Carloz and similar answers in our book Who is agile.