Cpt. Chad Bell embraces imperfection

Cpt. Chad Bell, an Agile Release Train (ART) leader supporting the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A) Increment II program, finds joy in solving problems.

“As IPPS-A evolves into a pure Agile entity, a lot of handshakes, negotiations and collaboration are required,” Bell said. “As an ART leader, my day-to-day requires a lot of listening to the team’s needs and frustrations to understand how I can make their jobs a little bit better and keep things moving.”

“The beauty of Agile is that it's never done,” Bell said. “The minute you think it's done, you're no longer Agile. You can always improve. If you think you're the greatest, something will always show you that you’re not.”

A native of West Palm Beach, Florida, Bell learned to move with the ups and downs life throws at you. “Growing up near the ocean taught me that life moves in waves,” Bell said. “You’re going to traverse clear waters. You're going to traverse muddy waters. Sometimes it's calm. Sometimes it's hurricanes. Just be prepared for water.”

When Bell was 13 years old, his mother — a native of Jamaica — became a naturalized U.S. citizen. “I joined the Army to pay back the opportunity America gave my mom,” Bell said.

Bell answered seven questions about his career and life.

Why were you excited to join IPPS-A Increment II?
I appreciated the opportunity to jump on a moving ship. IPPS-A is a live, breathing business system. I was not creating anything from the ground up. It was already moving and shaking.

How has IPPS-A evolved in the last six months?
When I joined IPPS-A eight months ago, we were figuring out how to start building in Agile. Now, it’s a muscle memory. The ART teams know — two-week increments and demo. They know we all are going to plan and collaborate to figure out what we are going to work on.

What do you like about the Agile process?
I love the flexibility and opportunity to enhance the user experience. The Agile approach enables us to constantly evolve to create more and more value for that end user.

What is something you learned the hard way?
There's no such thing as perfection. There's only continuous development and improvement. The minute you think you know something, there's an element of it that's going to teach and show you something different.

I earned a master’s degree in fine arts with a focus on film production from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. My experience creating science-fiction stories led me away from the idea of perfection. In filmmaking, instead of striving for perfection, a storyteller wants their story to connect with people. There's a little bit of magic and risk to it, but it's not perfect. And inside that imperfection is something that people connect and relate to.

What have you been working on recently that you are proud of?
I am proud of our evolving internal demo process. It's been a very humbling and learning experience. Our demos have progressed from show-and-tell to show-and-ask. This has produced deeper conversations and more actionable feedback.

What do you enjoy reading?
If it’s not business-related, science fiction novels are the only other thing I read.

In a screenwriting class I took, the professor was adamant that nothing is original because humans have told stories since the dawn of time. However, science fiction is the one genre that provides the opportunity to break into the unknown.

You’ve seen sword fights in movies, but you didn’t see a sword fight with light until George Lucas and his team created the lightsaber. Science fiction makes you keep asking the author and yourself — as the reader or viewer — questions. It's like the little child asking, “Why?” That one annoying question for parents can produce the most profound answers.

What do you enjoy about your Army service?
I treasure what the Army has taught me. The best lessons are inside moments of discomfort, and the Army has given me the opportunity to be massively uncomfortable.