As I watched the Dallas Cowboys dismantle the Green Bay Packers last Thursday night, I noticed an ever so slight – almost invisible – passing of the torch from Brett Favre to Tony Romo. It became quite clear – Football is a young man’s game.

As I sat and pondered what that must feel like for Brett and his crew, I noticed frightening similarities between hosting and football. Hosting appears to be a young man’s sport as well.

Now, before you guys (there I go again) pile on and beat me down – hear me out. I am not saying that Brett and his older brethren are washed up and incapable of playing football – but I am saying, their primetime has passed and any future success should be considered borrowed time on a great career coming to conclusion. Facts are facts – professional football is a very physical and mental job and the youth + skill appears to outweigh age + experience.

This leads me back to hosting. A world full of very young and extremely talented players. An industry where degrees and certifications come in a distant second behind skill and innovative thinking. I often find my thirty-something (barely) resume on-the-line with both new and old competitors. I can assure you, the young competitors terrify me, and the older ones typically bore me.

The recent interviews for potential new hires here at SL are eye-opening. Young Guns coming out of high school with Cisco Certs, college students working on cutting edge technologies and of course – the prodigy that shows up from time to time who was born to design and innovate beyond all our wildest dreams.

I often tell Mike, our CFO, that technology is changing the rules of business and how things will be done going forward. In Mike’s accounting world, graduates come out of college with lots of book knowledge and very little experience and gain experience over their career. In the technology world, I would argue the younger talent holds more technical knowledge (book or real world) than the older more established crowd What I bring to the table is business and technical experience; but I find myself learning more and more technology from my younger team members everyday. It’s a never ending battle to stay on the leading edge – but I wonder – how long will it be before I hand the torch?

Go Cowboys!!

With the NFL season in full swing and the usual suspects up to their usual tricks, a question was raised as to why some teams opt to run a “no-huddle” or “hurry-up” offense when their backs are against the wall with the clock ticking away, while other teams seem to constantly be in a “hurry-up” mode throughout the game and have a significant degree of success with it. In either case, the objective is to keep the competition off balance and have steady advances to the goal. An obvious example of an undeniably successful team that employs such methods is the reigning NFL Champion Indianapolis Colts.

Before I go further into lumping praise onto the Colts, I feel that I am obligated to state that I am not a die-hard Indy fan. The team that I root for shall remain nameless for this article as I am still traumatized by the hammer that they leveled on my team of choice on the NFL’s opening night (Hint: Rhymes with “The Aints.”).

Okay, so this observation invites the question: how did the Colts become champions by performing in a manner that, to outsiders, may appear to be rushed and distressed? One could say it’s because they have trusted, senior individuals in their skill positions implementing the plan. Another might say that by focusing on rapid incremental results, they are able to execute more efficiently. An additional point might be that the constant communication amongst the players allows them to adapt to the circumstances that are constantly changing so that they may deliver and reach their goals.

To those of you not caught up in the imagery of football, you might recognize that these are some of the same traits that characterize successful adaptations of Agile Software Development. With the goal of delivering continuous and valued improvements to our applications and supporting software, the Softlayer Development team practices many of the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto. While “moving the chains” toward the end-zone alludes to the incremental success of an NFL team’s offense, we speak more in terms of functional and valued releases towards achieving greater customer satisfaction. This is afforded to us by the skilled players on our team, constant communication, and a continued focus on producing measurable results. We are determined to keep “moving the chains” so, stay tuned to the Developer Network, Forums, and all channels Softlayer as we continue to push towards our goal.