Week notes
23 Oct 2020I’d like to try a slightly different format this week: a mini-retro.
I saw a passing note on twitter about an engineer who’d kept a mini-retro diary every day for the last year. They found it useful to hone in on what worked and what to try differently next week.
Thought I’d give it a go.
What worked
Keeping to a schedule
I implemented a schedule for my work hours and my downtime.
Now, I know this sounds painfully regimented but I treated it more like a flexible guideline –– a suggestion for how I could be spending my time.
And it actually worked.
I got more done in my day. In my downtime, I carved out space for creativity and play instead of getting sucked into the socials or doom-scroll-reading the news.
Session on belonging
I attended a session on promoting belonging in the workplace. It was fascinating, I’d love to write more about it in the future.
Stand-out quote that paraphrased Verna Myers:
Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance.
Belonging is dancing like nobody’s watching
Rereading Site Reliability Engineering
It really was rather fun. So fun I wrote a whole reflection piece.
What could be improved
Planning > programming
This week I did more traditional leadership activities: planning, prioritising, thinking about delivery time-lines and hiring needs.
I’d like to get back to the keyboard.
My solo work in the morning is currently dedicated to inventorying, documenting, and resolving some of our alerts. While this is absolutely necessary, it’s not coding.
I think after all the katas I did last week, I miss the programming side of my job.
Recalibrating communication
One of the challenges of joining a new team or even company, is recalibrating communication style (perhaps initially).
That’s a fluffy way of saying “when in Rome, do as the Romans…at least at first”.
There’s no use going to a social situation like a wrecking ball.
It’s something I remind myself because I believe in practicing radical candour, but not everybody does.
As we begin to re-form as an entirely new team I want to stay mindful and curious of the existing norms before working with the team to build new ones.
What I’d try next week
- More coding both in my day job and my learning time
- Make my last working evening be silly-do-whatever-I-want time.