Week notes 13–17th March

Since about this time last week, I could feel my body was fighting something —by Monday I had a sore throat and then by Wednesday evening I was full of cold and was feeling pretty rubbish. I decided to take Thursday off but the caffeine-fueled Sudafed and my noisy brain telling me that I “should” be working didn’t make it the restful day I had pictured but I did spend the day in bed and felt well enough to work yesterday despite not feeling 100%.

1. Chris (QA lead) and I led a good internal session focused on quality and process with a project team I’m working with — it was good to set some time aside to align and focus on ways we could improve the process to deliver a better outcome for the client. I think we found a good balance between upfront thinking and definition and collaborative involvement and it’s good to end the week with a section on the client's Confluence to define our process which will be a valuable resource for any new members that join the team in the future.
2. On another project, we’ve been asked to present to their staff meeting early next week to 40+ people — so Mark (Product Director) and I have been working on a slide deck to take them through a condensed discovery playback and status update.
3. We interviewed an impressive candidate for Senior DM and made an offer which looks like it’s been verbally accepted — it’s great to be growing our capabilities and experience in the team.
4. I enjoyed reading Rachael Shah (Ball)’s blog post on Creating inclusion and safety through check-in questions. Another inclusive meeting tip I’ve learned lately is the concept of talking in rounds

Talking in rounds means taking it in turns to talk, one person after another. You do this without interrupting, cross talking or responding directly. If you have something to say that responds to someone else, you wait for your turn in the order to do so. Similar to a stand-up format but with more discipline

5. Inspired by Jo Garwood and Jonny Williams mentioning he joined the BBC CoP this week on LinkedIn I’m keen to invite some external speakers to our CoP to gain some different perspectives. I’ve got a couple of people on my mind but I’d love to hear from you if this is something that interests you.

This week I’ve been reflecting on how I need to build up my resilience when implementing new ways of working and challenging the status quo — I’m bound to come up against challenges, setbacks, and at times even push back and I need to get better at welcoming that as an opportunity rather than seeing it as a threat. Any tips are welcome 🙏🏻