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Small things can make a difference
A single, creative decision transformed our interactions with some junior engineers, boosting their morale and integrating them seamlessly into our team.
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Hurdling hierarchy
Often people are afraid to reach out to those above them in the hierarchy or in a different team, even if it is the best solution to their situation.
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Simple task breakdown
We needed to plan the work for the next quarter for the infrastructure team and in doing so came up with a simple way to breakdown the work.
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The One Percent Exercise
At a recent off-site we ran a simple group exercise that will hopefully make a big difference to the success of the company
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The Keeper Test
It is that time of year where performance and salaries are reviewed. In my new role it is the first time I have been part of this. I came across a very timely article that aligned nicely with one of the steps in our process.
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Capturing decisions and those involved
My role has changed recently to include another team. This has also included more interaction with other areas of the business and also the management team.
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Oh no second
An oh no second is that moment in time when you realise that you have done something potentially catastrophic and your stomach turns to mush with the dread and realisation.
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What is different?
Every Monday morning as part of our stand up meeting we ask a “question of the day”. A designated victim person chooses a question that each team member gets to answer. This week the question that was asked was:
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Always agreeing
When interviewing a potential candidate recently I asked them the difference, in their opinion, between the way a consultant/contractor engages with a company and a full time employee.
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Cut to gain
In 2018, Andrew Barnes’ company, Perpetual Guardians, permanently introduced a four day week (FDW). The staff would get 100% pay but work 80% of the time as long as they hit 100% of their productivity goals.
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How might we
The simple use of the phrase “how might we” can open up design discussions and improve company mission statements.
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A hot desk in north Devon
I have been visiting my parents in Devon recently and working from there. It makes a nice change of scenery - I can work during the day and visit places out of hours as well as obviously spending time with them.
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Don't be afraid to ask the stupid question
Ego and the fear of how we appear to others can get in the way sometimes. We don’t want to appear stupid so we avoid finding out things we don’t know.
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The legend of Trevor
It is amazing how one small thing can set the tone or the culture going forward.
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The upstream butterfly effect
The butterfly effect famously states that the flapping of the wings of a butterfly somewhere in the world can impact the weather on the other side of the world - a small change can have a huge impact over time.
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Cultural fit versus contributor
When we recruit people we are obviously looking at their ability to perform the role on offer but we are also looking at how well they will work with the team.
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Negative intelligence
It is very easy to do something negative to try and show how intelligent we are.
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Should meetings be asynchronous?
Every couple of weeks we have a meeting called “FriYay”. Based on a rota, each department has the opportunity to own one of these and present what they are celebrating.
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Which bird are you?
I am a lark.
In the book Time Wise by Amantha Imber she discusses the three main types of people and their alertness through various times of the day. It impacts when they are most productive for certain types of tasks. This has been written about in numerous other places but she summarises it really well:
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Alarms lost in the noise
Adding an alert or alarm for a situation you need to monitor should be a good thing but sometimes, depending on how it is done, it can actually make things worse or at a minimum not work as expected.
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Giving second chances
Sometimes people need a second chance.
In the Simon Sinek interview with Leland Melvin they talk about giving a second chance to an employee and how they can sometimes turn out to be the best employee.
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Music to focus
When I am working I like to have music in the background to help me focus. I find, like a lot of people, that it needs to be music without lyrics most of the time.
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Learnings from my jobs
I have had lots of jobs during my life and I think I can identify at least one thing I have learnt at each of them. I usually know it is time to move to a new role if I no longer enjoy it or I am no longer learning something new.
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Work in 2030
There are two camps of people where I work; those who want to return to the office and those who want to remain working remotely. The former group tend to be those whose work involves spending most of the day talking to people (the “business” side of the company). The latter group tend to be those whose work is mostly focussed around thinking - or have family and enjoy the balance this approach affords. I fall into the latter camp on both counts.
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Kenneth Goanascis
Many years ago when I ran an engineering team for a consultancy we would get calls almost every day from recruitment agencies trying to pitch their services to us.
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Commuting to my office at home
Scott Hanselman posted a tweet with the following tip:
Here’s a tip that my remote team does - When you get up in the morning, if you’re willing and able, try COMMUTING to your home office! Go for a circle around your neighbourhood and arrive back home to your home/remote office! It psychologically marks the start and end of the day.
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Openness, discussions and success
I work very closely with two colleagues - and have done so for a number of years. Together we have experienced some serious ups and downs in the company we work for and also personally. We have each reached a point where we were close to leaving; we have each had something happen in our lives where the others have supported us.
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Fractional talent as an alternative pool of resources
At the startup I work for we used to have a full time HR person. These were in the days when the expectation was that we would have explosive growth and the company would “at least double in size every few months”. Unfortunately that is not the way it played out - we are still making good progress but have much more realistic growth plans.
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How behaviour can shape the culture
Andrew Cherrie is the pastor of Home Church. In a recent sermon entitled “7 lessons from 7 years at Home Church” he gave the following quote:
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How we recharged the team with a fallow week
Due to the ongoing COVID situation the team had been struggling to stay focussed and motivated. The inability to go out, the lack of change of scenery and the sameness every day has been taking its toll. To try to address this we actively encouraged them to take time off - which, given the limitations on travel, was less appealing than it normally would be.
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How to change your day with meeting plans
I recently had a day where I had about 10 different meetings - all on different subjects. I knew that I would struggle to be productive in each of them if I turned up for them unprepared and had to switch subjects each time.
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How to easily implement successful remote team retrospectives
As part of our processes we regularly hold retrospectives. We used to do this all in a room with post-it notes - a fairly traditional approach. We would set up 4 areas: Liked, Longed, Learned and Lacked and proceed to plaster post-it notes over the different sections. Once everyone had finished we would organise each section into themes and then discuss and agree actions.
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Boost productivity with meeting free days
It is very easy for your work week to become a random collection of meetings - all with different attendees and different agendas. For developers in particular this can cause a huge hit on productivity as their day becomes disjointed and they are unable to stay focussed for the longer periods they need for their work.
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A simple addition to every meeting
We have a lot of remote meetings as most of our team work a significant amount of time from home. Face to face meetings are much better for some types of meetings - especially workshops and retrospectives. As the level of expected collaboration increases the more it favours face to face interactions.
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Speed up in the long term by slowing down in the short term
On most projects there is a tendency for someone involved to become the “expert” in one or more areas. As they become comfortable and more knowledgeable in an area they will naturally gravitate to picking up tasks related to it. The need to deliver as quickly as possible can also drive this as the person who knows most is likely to be the person who can do the work quickest.
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How to run a planning workshop
We have just completed a two week exercise with the whole development team to identify, design and estimate the next phase of work. It started as an organic process as we found the best way to do this and then developed into a repeatable process for the latter functionality.
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Do we really need that meeting? - the forgotten costs
We had a meeting recently with 16 people on the video conference call. Due to poor planning and technical issues it took nearly half an hour to decide to postpone the meeting. That is eight man hours wasted - a whole day of work!
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Abolish performance reviews
I have never been a fan of performance reviews. It may have been down to the way they were implemented at the places I worked however they never seemed to achieve what they were set out to do. The review would usually consist of going over the “achievements” for the past period and then setting a bunch of artificial goals for the next period. The only time these new goals were actually consulted was in the run up to the next review.
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Working from home boosts productivity
I am fortunate with my current role that I am able to work 2-3 days per week from home. This saves me about 2.5 hours of commuting time per day as well as about £2000 per year.
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The bosses who change our lives
I have been very fortunate in my career to have some exceptional bosses that have had a massive impact on my career.
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Reducing the team size to deliver
A project was struggling to deliver in time and the project manager resolved it by reducing the team size where the typical approach is to increase the team size. This decision was based on the overhead of communication and Brooks Law.
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Unorthodox leadership by letting others drive
Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, took an usual step recently by allowing his players to coach instead of him. He felt that things had become a little staid and wanted to shake things up … it worked - they won by their highest margin of the season. Sometimes leadership is knowing when to step back.
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