The past two weeks have felt like there’s a change in the air/water/whatever so I’m feeling like we’re starting to move away from a reactive way of working and looking more to the future. This has probably come about for a number of reasons:
I’m still in that space of finding my place in the role. Some days it can feel pretty natural, usually when I’m on familiar ground and am able to contribute more. Other days I realise how much I still need to learn and it’s a bit overwhelming.
It was great to get involved in recruitment again — something I’ve always enjoyed. It’s part detective work, part relationship building, and also exciting as you get to see the possibilities of what someone new can bring to things. I’d also like to think I’ve done OK with making appointments at other organisations in the past. Now for that agonising wait until they start!
I also caught up with my replacement at Dorset Council, who started after a long notice period. I remember spending an age trying to download everything into handover notes on OneNote before I left, but wasn’t able to take a copy with me (thanks Microsoft) so I totally forgot what I’d put in it. But actually, the more useful part of the conversation was probably less about the mechanics of the role and more about the people side.
Some very exciting news for me with a new Product Manager joining our ranks — someone I’ve admired and respected for years (but don’t tell him that, I kind of enjoy our routine exchange of friendly insults) and actually tried to work with many moons ago on leaving another organisation. There’s something Karmic about how I’ve ended up working with people like this — those stars aligning again.
I’ve also been feeling the benefit of a recent (more senior) colleague starting to share his experience with us from past roles. Sometimes it’s a bit uncomfortable, as I realise what he’s saying highlights areas I’m either not strong in or have limited experience with, but I do admire the way he imparts this in such a positive way that points towards joint improvements rather than admonishment.
In recent weeks I’ve immersed myself in Confluence, moving from regarding it as ‘that thing developers used to write technical stuff down’ to a centrepiece for how we do all our documentation.
When I started one of my first priorities was to help with our product document rewrites, which I took to with enthusiasm as I saw it as a great way to learn about product capabilities, but also to look at them through customer eyes. Things have come a long way since (as a customer) I got hold of a 15-page document that covered the entirety of the platform, to now helping push out a 106-page manual just on our CMS.
Some exciting talk this week about how we take this all forward in the future which I think will benefit us and customers. Nuff said for now.
One of the things I need to watch for in this role is slipping back into my comfort zone, one of which is being too focused on CMS-based work. There’s a whole lotta products we look after, and I can’t just stay with the one I know best!
Having said that, I do feel that being more proactive on talking to customers about solutions and approaches with the CMS that have worked for me in past roles is bearing fruit. Understanding their motivations and issues helps in my role in taking that back to backlog discussions on prioritisation. It’s also helping validate discussions were having on new features we’re looking at for our roadmap.
It was also nice to sit in on a customer’s training session with its content writing community — lots of positive affirmation about accessibility, and I was able to point out some of the features we have that can help them with this. I was delighted to highlight my favourite NHS article about using ‘real words’ when writing content, plus point them towards the excellent Hemingway app that my old content design team swore by.
Recently I’ve been more involved in pushing along a new feature with one of our developers, and having that extra bit of technical knowledge was recognised in our exchanges (it was just a thought on CSS). Having just enough to engage properly in the discussions is really helpful, but not too much. Getting very excited about this one shipping as we’re starting to utilise some of the new capabilities our recent upgrade has brought in.
I also dug my heels in on a user story I didn’t think was all there. It was for a feature where I didn’t feel the intended outcome would actually benefit the end user. To get a steer on this I reached out on Mastodon to check with the A11y community if I was on the right lines, and it was nice to get some positive feedback from them about asking the question and listening. It did mean sending the feature back for a complete re-write, however…
Again, these examples are still within my comfort zone, and I need to get to a place where I have that confidence across our whole backlog. I’m hoping our more proactive approach, and joint planning of the roadmap will get me there.
For no particular reason I’ve decided to document the different places our cat chooses to spend its days. This week’s spot of the week is the bathroom windowsill. Enjoy