Weeknotes 12–16th December

I think I’ll keep this simple otherwise I’m unlikely to keep them up. I’m going to use the format 5 days, 5 interesting things as a way to catalog what I’m getting up to.

So this week marks my first whole week back in full-time employment after nearly 7 months off.

The office is situated in Charlbury, a 8 minute drive from my house and has really beautiful surroundings

At the end of the week, it feels strangely familiar already. Having moved from one agency to another, the onboarding is probably a bit easier than it could have been elsewhere, there are a lot of commonalities in terms of tools, and ways of working.

So now for my 5 interesting things from this week

1. Serendipity has done its magic. I couldn’t believe the image I chose for my blog post announcing my new job is a picture Chris (a front-end developer at Torchbox had taken)
2. I’ve been thinking a lot about confirmation bias, I keep having to check myself as it’s easy to immediately jump to different = not as good
3. I had a really interesting chat with Edd Baldry (new innovation director), they have been doing some internal research and workshops, one of which I attended (I have been inviting myself to things in calendars that people look relevant!). They spoke about how actually Torchbox despite being 22 years old should actually be treated as a relatively new agency as ~50% of the agency has joined in the last 18 months. They reminded me that sometimes removing processes has a good result as adding/changing processes and being wary to add processes to processes that are already inefficient, they just become more inefficient. So lots of great things to ponder on as a result
4. It’s clear there’s a big investment in lots of areas of the business from user research, QA, delivery, and innovation to name a few. So it’s great to be going on this journey together and I’m excited about what we can all achieve together
5. I’m excited to be working with Charmagne (Head of Operations) on implementing some process changes. Today she shared the Self Determination Theory with me and how she has used that in the past as a sense check that the process change is positive. Does it aid autonomy, make people more competent at their jobs, and feel more connected? I’m excited to be working with someone with a different but very complimentary skillset

The week has felt really productive, I was even involved in a last-stage pitch process with a potential US client.

I’m definitely ready for the weekend had a small blip midweek but I’m ending the week feeling more confident. As first weeks go, I think this was a pretty good one.