Tag Archives: Musings

New year, new starts

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Why does a new year herald the dawn of new directions, new plans, new resolutions. At a very basic level not a lot has changed physically, the Earth is still moving round the Sun, there are still 24 hours in a day (give or take leap seconds). So the sun in is still rising and setting, but we have this need to start afresh as it is a new year.

To me it is a time to look back on the last year and reflect, and work out what went well, what could have been better and what went really badly, a retrospective as I would call it at work – or the Good, the Bad and the Ugly – as I write them up (I should really see the film)

One thing that I have realised is that I was hit by the curse of busyness, and in conjunction with my natural procrastination, some of the big plans and not so big plans did not happen.

So I am viewing this year as a start to living a more simple life, trying not to fill my time with watching too much TV, to having space for the worthwhile things in life, such as spending time with friends and family, getting out in the garden – stretching myself by reading. Saying no to doing things that I would like to do, but I know that there is someone better at it than me.

Teamwork and dragons

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This Sunday I was @ a charity event – dragon boat racing @ Bewl water. Dragon racing is something that I haven’t done before, it is very good fun. It is not one for the loner, you need to be a team player, if you are not in sink (sorry couldn’t resit :-) ) with one and another the most powerful people won’t help.

This is true of a product team if everyone hasn’t got the same goal/aims, or if the product team isn’t being directed – the team will produce something, but it won’t produce it’s best. I wasn’t expecting to learn anything whilst getting wet and sunburnt. But it proves that you can be wrong :-)

Change

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I recently got back from a retreat/pilgrimage to Rome. It was good to have a structure and space to focus and reflect on bigger issues than bugs and computers. Also it was good to have some sunshine :-)

Back in wet (very wet) Bracknell I have been  doing little bits at work as waiting for my team to finish their current work before embarking on a next three week sprint. So I have been using the space to work out how things could and should change from a development process at work – effectively I am starting out on the brown bag sessions – or the formation of them for work

It may be hard, but I believe that people need (and crave ?)  change, otherwise how can we grow, I know I don’t have all the answers but the information is out they, thanks to all those who are giving to the community. Something that we should all aspire to.

Thoughts and best practices, anyone?

Taking responsibility

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Since writing my last post, I have been involved in several sprints/projects (at work) and other projects (outside work), read a few booking on change, teams and leading – some are in progress :-)

But one thing has struck me is that the key element for a successful project – is the fact that all team members (and/or project stakeholders) need to all take responsibility for the success of the project. I was explaining to some guys at work after I had conducted a retrospective that producing some new software that is “done” is not really a result if the team dynamics aren’t there.

That being said, I am not advocating good teams producing rubbish – though I doubt that a good team would allow that to happen -  I am looking (and trying) to build teams that contain members that are willing and able to take responsibility for themselves and ultimately the whole team.

But I need to take responsibility for myself, over the past few months I have found it very easy to loose perspective and to procrastinate especially with to respect to getting thing organised  and learning to say no.

What is a team?

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Can it be made?, does it just happen?

At a basic level team is a collection of individuals working towards a common goal, but is that a realistic model for the world (and in my case the world of software development), it seems to be a bit more complicated than that. But isn’t anything when people are involved.

We have the dynamics of the personal interactions, did everyone get enough sleep, is a family member unwell, things that as a man “shouldn’t matter” but these little ripples have a huge impact on the team. We have people with different styles of working, is this healthy in a team, or should there be a team way, or at least the team agrees to a minimum standard of coding.

There are outside commercial pressures that mean your team suddenly has a member removed, what does that do to the team that has been impacted, but how should that message be communicated to the team of teams (the company) . This raises a point can a company be modelled as a team of teams, or is that to simplistic?

When you are a team leader (as I am) how do you learn the management side, and especially the balance between coding, leading and managing?

I believe that team can be made, but it takes time and the members have to want to be part of the team and the rest of the team want them.

Perhaps as I am part of Generation Y we are different in our outlook our management generation as we are motivated more by a good atmosphere, etc, things that are hard to measure, but when you get right, you know it is right.

Thoughts?