Reflection - COVID project
01 Mar 2021In the spring of 2020 I volunteered to be part of a COVID response project: getting food to vulnerable and sheltering people during the national lockdown.
Since it’s been about a year since I started on the project I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the lessons learned.
The post takes the format of typical retro and will mainly be a self-reflection on my experience.
A bit of context
In early 2020 the UK went into a national lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The public could only leave their houses to get food.
However, for people especially vulnerable to COVID it was deemed too risky for them to leave their homes. The government, working with local authorities and the NHS, realised they needed a system to get food to these individuals.
I joined the project about two weeks into its creation, initially splitting my time between user support and individual contribution. I primarily paired with an exceptional full-stack senior developer. We worked in Python, a language I was familiar with for scripting but got a deep dive in Python app development.
The project was proper full-stack: frontend, backend, infrastructure, security, and CI/CD. It was also the closest I’ve been to a start-up environment. We wore multiple hats (product, delivery, architecture, user support, a bit of design) and worked at an intense pace.
What went well
App development
I found it exhilarating to do such a deep dive into a language and refamiliarise myself with app development. It reminded me of why I loved being a software developer.
Solving problems unrelated to infrastructure felt refreshing. I also got to return to test driven development and share some of my TDD skills with my pair partner.
The whole experience also benefited from working with a skilled and patient app developer who happened to be a strong pair partner.
Wearing many hats
This was both challenging and rewarding.
It was challenging due to the intense pace and finding time to wear all the hats.
However, since our piece of the larger project was relatively self-contained, I got to flex and grow my product and delivery skills.
I organised and facilitated planning sessions (both for our piece of the project and cross-project teams), fed back to internal and external stakeholders, developed a product roadmap and delivery plan, and collaborated with other parts of the project.
It was amazing. I really loved the cross-collaboration and getting to stretch my skill set.
User feedback
Although the pace was intense it felt beyond rewarding to get positive user feedback. Notes of gratitude from the public were inspiring. Everyone in the country was working so hard, it felt like we were part of something bigger than ourselves.
It reminded me how important it is to centre the user in the work we do and to highlight feedback to engineering teams.
Often developers can feel removed from end users, ensuring there’s a constant cycle of feedback is critical to reducing this distance.
What could’ve been better
Practicing self-acceptance
I was probably harder on myself than the situation deserved. The circumstances were unusual, no one on the team had ever been in a pandemic let alone experienced working in a lockdown.
However, the pressure of the circumstances was intense: I knew what we did in a day would help get food to people who really needed it. “Urgent” had an entirely different meaning on the project.
I put pressure on myself to know all the things immediately even though I knew that was unrealistic. I was lucky to have an insightful pair partner who called this out early and supported me during the project.
What helped was identifying other areas of the project where I could immediately add value while I ramped up my Python and app development skills.
I left the project with a greater appreciation for practicing self-acceptance and also identifying where I can add value fast on a new project.
Avoiding burnout
I’m not sure if this was possible for the project given the work we were doing.
However, I found myself burning out faster than I have before.
If I were to go back, I’d consider taking small breaks in the day and ensuring my outside-of-work activities were restorative (meditation, yoga, dance, art or creativity, etc).
Although necessary for health and safety, not being able to leave the house for walks or exercise possibly contributed to the quick burnout.
Conclusions
Gratitude
I was and continue to be grateful for being part of an incredible cross-government and cross-collaborative project.
I saw so many people bring their best selves to demanding circumstances, working incredibly hard to serve the public during a global pandemic.
It was an honour to be part of this project.
Thought experiment: emergency task force
I’d be curious to see the effectiveness of emergency task forces embedded in different parts of organisation.
These would be small teams (five to six people) drawing from various skill sets: full-stack, infrastructure, cyber security, and product/delivery management.
Participating on the task force would be voluntary, sort of like a first aid or fire warden role.
Individuals would meet once a quarter for a week or two to practice responding to a disaster scenario, again similar to fire wardens during a fire drill.
The goal would be to practice building and deploying applications quickly and securely in a high stake scenario.
Individuals would not only gain experience responding to emergencies quickly and securely, but also build trust and communication within the group.
This thought experiment is based on reading Michael Lewis’ book The Fifth Risk.