Week notes
11 Nov 2020External events (cough the US election cough) occupied an inordinate amount of my attention the last few weeks. However, I’m back with a week note to capture a few thoughts and reflections.
The mini-retro format worked for me so I’m using it again.
What worked
All the leadership things
The leadership work continues and I’m really, really enjoying it. I get to think about delivery and priorities, be involved in hiring, think about direction and vision, collaborate with different teammates, all that good stuff.
Morning focus time
I spend the first two hours of my day on focus work and it means I get so much more accomplished. It’s a small thing, but I love finishing the day and realising I’ve chipped away at my task list.
I couldn’t do this without carving out that focus time. After stand-up work can get a bit hectic so that quiet time is invaluable.
What could be improved
Weekly week notes
Maintaining a weekly reflection doesn’t feel realistic and it takes time away from longer form pieces I’d like to be working on.
“Fortnightly notes” doesn’t have the same ring to it but it’s a better cadence.
SRE learning structure
I’ve continued rereading the Site Reliability Engineering book but I could really use a dedicated learning path or syllabus of some kind.
SRE knowledge comes with experience, which comes with time, but I’d like to be more focused in my reading.
What I’d try next week
Ask about infrastructure
I’d love to introduce a regular “ask about infrastructure” session on my team.
It’d be loosely based on the “Yes/Yes/No” sessions we used to run at my old workplace. Those were modelled after the podcast of the same name: two people explain a concept to someone who’s not familiar with the topic.
It was an open session to discuss a technical topic that at least one person in the team was new to. Everyone could chip in with a bit of knowledge and there was no need for a slide deck. It was more like a discussion around a whiteboard.
The product I currently work on is weighted towards infrastructure and I think it would benefit the team to have some deeper dives on how stuff works.
However, I need to figure out a way to draw remotely –– I miss whiteboards.
Finding a tech mentor
I have an excellent mentor for developing and practicing tech talks, and I think I could use one for technical learning.
It might help with my need for more direction in my learning.
Writing a long form piece
It’s been really busy with work and external factors but I’d love to get back to writing longer pieces, especially on topics that have been on my mind.