Hi Everyone,
I hope you’re doing ok.
The picture is of Hectar the rabbit. Look at those incredible ears! He’s not fully grown at around 5kg! He spends his days with a dog, two cats and some fish, popping out to the garden for a run around when he feels like it. I got to feed him the pear in the picture.
I worked with one of my team on their personal development plan based around a management essentials training course they are doing. I love this part of the job. We discussed a variety of management skills and where they felt they want to focus and grow.
We had an excellent capacity planning discussion with our directors where we discussed some ideas around capacity requirements for the future and agreed some actions to explore these ideas. They listened really well and asked some great questions. It felt like we were all working together, which we are, which is great and as it should be.
It’s been a bit of a week of flexing my hours what with having to take my bike in for a service which required a lot of cleaning the bike before hand so as not to embarrass myself at the bike shop (why oh why didn’t I clean it straight after the weekend ride?!). Then Elwood the cat was well so I had to go and collect some stuff from the vets, only to have to return a few days later to drop some stuff off at the vets. And then there was Friday. The result of some tests revealed Elwood had some stones in his bladder! So he needed an injection Friday afternoon and the start of a special (expensive) diet to increase his acid levels to desolve the stones. I didn’t ride my bike on Friday afternoon. He’s a nice cat though.
We said goodbye to two of our contracting agile delivery managers this week. It was sad to see them leave as it’s been great to have them as part of our profession. I believe they are moving straight onto new contracts though which is great for them.
My profession got together to discuss the latest with our portfolio and the shape of our squads. We’re making a few tweaks and it’s important that they know what’s going on as they lead our Scrum teams.
I joined our Delivery Board this week where we approved version 1 of our Terms of Reference. That felt good. We also had some updates on several projects which I’m enjoying because it gives me the opportunity to see the projects from a difference perspective but also be the voice of our Scrums. We also had an excellent presentation of our GDS phase assessment performance which will help us inspect and adapt our way to increasing our pass rate.
We had our first Product Delivery leadership team meeting with our new Head of User Centred design, it being their first day with us. It was great to have a full complement present and I can see already how they’ll add value and fit right in.
I met up with my own team to refine their roles in our service squads. They’re already starting to translate the scrum master role into that of squad… we need a second word… guide? facilitator? leader? coach? No matter the title, they’re asking questions about how a good squad might operate and engaging their peers in answering those questions. We also looked at their role in our Agile Community which was a far broader topic and one which they will work further on next week.
I met up with a friend and ex-colleague for a walk around Roath Park Lake and a coffee. I’d met them just once in a chance passing for mere seconds previously (in real life, there were plenty of video meetings) so it was nice to spend some quality time together with very little talk about work.
I had a mentoring session with my mentoree.
Like I said, no Friday biking, just vets.
Be excellent to yourselves and each other,
Si
