Week notes 24–28th May

This week feels a bit of a blur, I got back later than planned from Bologna due to flight delays and despite having the best time, I picked up a cold which then turned into a chesty cough. I’m not sure I’ve had one quite like it before, so with all the good intentions of returning to work feeling refreshed — I feel like I’ve dragged my way through the week.

Even so, it’s been a productive and positive week, and having a break from work after a more settled period, I also realised on Monday when someone said “It’s great to have you back” that I was actually glad to be back to 😊.

So this is some of this week's headlines!

1. Torchbox officially became a B-Corp, it was great to receive this news in a team meeting this week and to see how highly we scored. It makes me feel really proud to work for a company that’s so committed to being a force for good and putting in the work to get here
2. I’ve been thinking a lot about progression pathways and competencies for delivery managers. Lots of work has been put into our competencies and how they overlay with different levels of seniority but the process and expectations related to promotions could be clearer. This will be a key area of focus for me in the coming weeks. I’d love to speak to anyone who feels like they’ve cracked this!
3. I had a good 1:1 with someone I manage and we started talking about Zoom / online meeting etiquette and how to role model good behavior (i.e. avoiding the temptation to work in the background) and to take our remit as DMs of making things fun, engaging, and interesting. I tried out a new ice-breaker at the start of the retro which showed the value of breaking the ‘norm’ bringing a new sense of energy and engagement to the start of a regular meeting. A team member has also ordered some Pip Decks which I’ve been aware of for a while and is planning to use them to run a Community of Practice around giving the team some new idea’s to play with in workshops and meetings

Trying out a new meme icebreaker

1. Torchbox has started having regular lunch and learns called SparkTalk — the last couple has been about AI and fairly technical and when I saw ‘AI’ mentioned in this week's invite, I must admit I might have done an internal eye roll. Not because I don’t believe it should be a focus for us or that it’s not interesting but merely because some of the content so far hasn’t been something which I’ve felt able to engage with. Then walks in Kerry Harrison, Kerry is an AI educator, creative consultant, and yoga facilitator. I found her talk really refreshing and inspirational, it was great to have a more creative angle on the topic of AI — she even talked about AI-generated food and cocktails which has now got me thinking about opening up an AI restaurant 🤣. I also loved hearing more about the ethics of AI and her bringing some other yoga philosophy into the conversation to show where there is a natural tension and conflict with her own ethics and some of the work she’s doing.

Some slides from Kerry’s AI presentation this week

1. QA Chris is back from a 5-week break, it’s great to have him back as we’d started to work together quite closely before his break. We’ve booked tickets for AgileConf Manchester in a couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can bring back some of what we learn into our roles and the teams we’re working with.

The rest of the week has been quite new business focused, I’m eager to hear next week if we’ve won the project!