As it ends, so it begins.
Today is my last day at Placecube which, when I started, I’d figured would be my last job. But in the end I’ve not quite made it to 2 years.
This was by no means planned, and in a way I’ve almost fallen into seeing, applying for and landing a new role. It was the first application I’d made, and when I was positive I hadn’t got it (a familiar tale to anyone that knows me) I’d decided “ah well, I’ll just crack on then”. Only to be amazed/surprised/shocked to hear it was actually happening.
Looking back on my first weeknote at Placecube it’s a not dissimilar tale; thoughts had been forming about maybe stepping up this Product stuff and trying to be more strategic and less day-to-day/hands on. Well, it’s happened now, and I’m more than a bit excited.
So what better time to take a look back and put down some thoughts? Having spent some time as part of the handover process doing a mini-retro for my role on what works/doesn’t work, any learning and actions to take next it’s probably time to turn that on myself.
Recently I’ve been cleaning up this site as I realised I may have a batch of potential colleagues wondering who this guy is dropping in on them. And that has meant taking the plunge and insourcing my blog posts onto this site.
No clever scripting here; this was a weekend of copy and paste (still one of my prime skills, unfortunately) but ultimately I’m pleased with having them in one place, despite the lack of images and embedded tweets. Well, Musk saw to the latter.
Although it wasn’t an in-depth reading process I have picked up on some things I’d forgotten, like how I’d had a meeting with my soon-to-be manager before he’d left Placecube about product things. So maybe that’s where the seeds were sown.
I also picked up on the ease at which weeknoting was embraced at Dorset Council but how I became uncomfortable with weeknoting at Placecube, finding it difficult to separate the personal from the private or confidential. I don’t know how Matt Jukes does it.
Also, with the exception of one significant project, there was perhaps too much day-to-day to work with in terms of material to write about. But, the purpose of weeknotes isn’t to entertain other people; it’s to create a personal record of you and your reflections on work to learn from, that others may benefit from learning too. I continue to be guided by Steve Messer on this.
Time (and social media policy) will tell if I manage to pick it up in my new role, but it feels like a wasted opportunity to chart my ongoing development if I don’t.
I used to make this an ongoing topic of Series 2, with a round-up last August of the year. Now, on reflection, this perhaps shows I was focusing on the wrong thing - too much on the process/framework and not enough on the concept of Product. This was thrown sharply into focus at my interview where I was asked to provide the vision for the product I was working on, and I was stumped. That really brought things home for me on where I needed to improve.
While I did get to go Full Agile on a large project, day to day work has been tougher to make it land well, and one consequence of the changes coming in with my leaving is to move away from Scrum and back to Kanban.
I guess that is something I have learned to appreciate - Agile is a framework and not a straightjacket. There are different flavours to taste. Personally I’ve found the lack of documentation in some areas a challenge, and have seen the advantages of simply writing some things down so there is clarity between teams to refer back to.
Having said that, I guess it reveals my falling down the key lesson I learned from Alex Shiell of Agile being “communicate, then communicate again…and then communicate some more”. I certainly haven’t done enough of that over the past year, and in fact there have been moves to give developers more space with fewer meetings to ‘get stuff done’ which may have contributed to this.
I tend to beat myself up when reflecting on my work, so I’m going to set that aside and focus on the positive here.
I’m proudest of the personal connections I’ve made while in the role. It’s traditional to send nice messages to people leaving your organisation, but I’ve been moved by the comments I’ve had from sometimes unexpected quarters after not that long in the post. Yesterday I gatecrashed a regular standup with a customer that I’ve spent a lot of time with, and they were so generous (and friendly) about my contribution. I’ve also made really strong friendships with some key people that I can’t see ebbing away as they’ve become part of a life shared. Creating a sense of trust allows you to understand each other, forgive mistakes and feel confident about the next steps.
I’ve maintained and built on the network of people I respect and work with. I wish I could better impart the importance of this to people starting out on their career. Knowing who to speak to - having people that know and trust you - leads to opportunities and connections that can do more than you think. I want to keep amassing this ‘family’ as I go forward. Although I’m leaving the LocalGov sector behind I’ve been encouraged to stay within the network to impart my experience (and continue to learn from others about theirs).
I’ve got to grips with agile software development pretty successfully. Jira is my plaything and not this scary tool just for developers. I’ve helped shaped the refinement process to get a better way of working, and I’ve been able to support developers in the process rather than just give them instructions. I’m able to communicate with them as well as take the step back and look at the strategic side. They are not practitioners of the dark arts (well, some are. A bit).
I’ve been able to apply the learning I’ve had from my experience; the years in LocalGov as a customer, exposure to best practice in design patterns and components, a focus on accessibility and user centred design, knowing what good content is and how to write it. These are transferrable skills that will work in any setting. They’ve helped me add value where they’ve been used as well.
I’ve delivered on another national project and helped shape other potential projects by focusing on the outome needed, working with technical team members to shape the approach, and crafting proposals to create a comprehensive overview of the work needed. It would have been nice to have done more of this, but economic circumstances haven’t allowed for this. I do hope that changes soon.
I’ve really understood the value of joy at work. Being happy in yourself radiates enthusiam to others, and finding joy in how you work builds relationships. I was delighted to read Coco Chan’s talk at Camp Digital as this nailed it for me. Things like ‘Spanish word of the day’ before a standup, my continued reference to all things cake in meetings, my over-morphing backdrop for internal online meetings over the past two weeks.
So, in the words of my last backdrop: “Last day, Capricorn Fifteens” Renew….