about

This is heads + hands. I’m April Johnson.

I like to think my calling is to facilitate the revolution. That’s where the heads/hands thing comes in – it’s an early Industrial Revolution way of referring to workers and merchant owners, using a nice little synecdoche to reduce people to either the brains (owner) or drones (employees) of a manufacturing operation. It’s horribly misapplied to knowledge work, and in my opinion to work, period. Most everyone has a head and hands, all of which can be put to better work as part of a whole person. I mean “better” in every possible way, too: more quality, greater productivity, more happiness, and just plain old how things ought to be rightness.

There are a lot of ways I could do this revolution thing, and I choose to do it as a scrum master/agile coach/agile project manager/whatever name you give to the person who holds the team’s agenda & eases their progress. [Each of those terms has a definition in the community, but agreement varies on everything but "scrum master".]

I’m a giant process geek. I love watching people work and seeing the way a refinement turns out – and maybe arguing about how to make it better. I’m also convinced that being one’s true self in all situations is fundamental to living a good life, so… yeah, the way I write here is pretty much the way I talk. Sometimes there’s inappropriate language. There will often be deliberate flouting of grammar rules.

I’m currently employed by ThoughtWorks. I have a resume here, too, if you’re curious.