Weeknotes E4 S2
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What could have been better
I hurt my back again. It’s really been impacting my mood and energy in and out of work. Commuting to West London is a real struggle. I hope things improve.
The sore back meant I took a few days out of work and didn’t get all of the things done I’d hoped for. Caveat/excuse/moan for not doing the stuff below.
What went well
My employer offer a day a month for learning. This is a bit of a revelation for me and makes me realise how important dedicated time to learn is in any digital type role. I chose to begin a course on linked data. I enjoyed spending the day learning something new. Only problem is one day isn’t going to be enough. Give him an inch etc etc.
I did my first 1–2–1 with one of my team (hi Mark!). It went quite well, I followed a template I’ve used before, tweaked to my own purposes. I’ve found springing folk with questions about their strengths and feedback on my performance can be awkward so I went easy on that.
I’ve also been working on the idea of an inception sprint or sprint zero. This will need to involve a mission workshop, I wanted to do a session on what we are NOT here to do, tools and ways of working, standard sprint planning on cadence, goals and objectives (but for the first time). My colleague Saurabh pointed out it’s really important we cover the how we work together bit. Hybrid working will be a challenge over this period (no one wants to be in the office on a Monday really) but I’ll need to facilitate all of that. Feels like I’ve just talked about this and not done anything useful.
More tangibly I worked on and got a draft ready for a user story for a piece of work that will release value to users. I’m not sure where it sits strategically yet but it’s a start. I met with an important user (hello Anna!) and talked it through. This felt like first proper product manager type meeting I’d had, although that’s just my imposter syndrome. All the other stuff counts.
I spent some time thinking about recruitment. I found some useful resources, and examples I want to refer back to.
Listening, reading, watching
This is the best thing I’ve watched in ages, gory.
Biohackers Encoded Malware in a Strand of DNA | WIRED — what?
From polenta to lemons: the everyday foods demonised by Britain’s class wars The Guardian
Radicalised normal: how Britain fell to the conspiracy… — The Face
dxw is now owned by its employees — dxw
Shreyas Doshi is really good value on Twitter
Open Working — Catalyst (thecatalyst.org.uk)
Opinion | Britain’s Fuel Shortages Are Just the Start — The New York Times