A very busy week at week. So many things going on at the moment, definitely too many. We have a little bit of a focus problem I think. We need to focus on fewer things. More focus, fewer things.
A symptom of doing too many things means I have too many meetings. 39 meetings last week. We have a little bit of meetings culture issue to go with the focus issue. Been trying to work out why that is and what we can do to fix things. I think there a multitude of reasons but one I am focusing on is true autonomy. People need to be safe/empowered/comfortable to make decisions. Might have to have a few meetings with people next week to try and sort that out.
My delivery squad finished its first sprint last week. I was dreading the retrospective a little as we had a very rocky start, mainly due to my vagueness over what we need to build and we did not have a beautiful clear set of requirements. The reason for that is that I want us to create the requirements together not me just come up with a perfect list of what to build. The retro went really well and the team has been brilliant in the first two weeks. Can’t wait for us to get real momentum and get some things in customers hands at the end of the next sprint.
There was one little highlight of the squad that stood out this week. We got some feedback on some new navigation structures we have built. I spoke with our tester how big a change it would be, he spotted something that would improve it too, then spoke the designer, sketched the changes, then we all spoke to the front end dev and he just said let’s do it. This all happened in about 15 minutes and for most people that might be the norm but it has not been the way we have worked in the past and it felt brilliant.
Outside of work I seem to have fallen into a pleasant book a week reading pace. I finished The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi which I thoroughly enjoyed. A tale of a series of planets linked by something called the Flow which allows travel and trade to happen between planets. Started reading The Dry by Jane Harper.
Watched Upgrade about a man whose wife is murdered and he is paralysed in the attack. He gets an upgrade from a reclusive tech mogul that turns him into part human, part AI, part awesome killing machine. Features a low rent Tom Hardy lookalike and is ridiculous throughout. I enjoyed it more than I should have.
I have been a good boy when it comes to exercise this week. For the first time since I started I have managed five exercise session on consecutive days. 6.30am, Monday to Friday. Three runs and two kettle bell sessions. I felt very smug about it. Then I read this article about an HSBC International Manager and realised I have a lot to live up too.
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