Yearly Archives: 2015
Here are a few tech related images I found amusing this year.
(I’ve linked to my source but that may not be the original source)
Finally, not tech related, but the Funniest animated GIFs from 2015 are worth a look!
Maybe it’s that time of the year as we reflect but I remembered another annoyance to add the my first – Ask a question, then keep talking!
This one is with instant messaging!
Have you ever got back to your desk to find an instant message where the only message is “Hi” that’s been sitting there for 20 minutes?!
Somedays this drives me mad! Why can’t the person ask the question at the same time without having to wait for a reply!
This isn’t a phone call where you have to wait for an answer before you can begin. If there’s no reply after a few seconds continue to ask your question or say whatever you need to. Then when they’re free they can quickly see what you’re asking and respond.
By waiting for an initial reply you’re not only delaying getting a response to what you need but you’re… Continue reading
At the end of the year I look forward to the Christmas break, it’s a good excuse to rest and enjoy family time. But before that there is the small matter of year-end reviews that need to be done! This can be an arduous task but it’s a very important one! Managers need to spend time on each review so that it can be as beneficial as possible, they can affect the future of the team. Thinking back at my past reviews, the ones that stand out are those where I was challenged in some way. We all want to hear good things and we should be praising good work but giving constructive criticism is just as important, if not more!
Be prepared
They can be difficult conversations to have, which is why time has to be spent for each one. Usually these would be written down in some system… Continue reading
It’s been a number of weeks now since my last post, although I’ve been trying to blog regularly sometimes it drops down on my list of priorities! I do enjoy blogging, it helps me think about situations outside of the busy work life and often helps me put things in perspective or even see a different perspective. Priorities affect all of us inside and outside of work, we constantly make decisions to do one activity before others, and I know I’ve failed many times at trying to do too many things at once!
Stress has become a popular topic with recent studies and findings presented at tech conferences over the world. We’re talking about stress more which is allowing us to more open about how it affects many of us in the workplace. Stress itself can be good for us in moderation to give us focus, but of course our… Continue reading
Geographically distributed teams are commonplace, for some larger teams you could say the sun never goes down on them. There are positives to having teams distributed across different timezones but there are negatives too, even if the teams are in the same timezone but located in different places you lose a certain dynamic in the team. It’s not a surprise that some organisations try to co-locate teams allowing them to self-organise and collaborate together more easily.
Co-location is not always possible, which means a strategy needs to be embraced for the distributed teams. Distributed teams will vary in many ways and one of the biggest barriers to team cohesion is ensuring everyone feels part of the team. If you have one location that has over 60% of the team and other people scattered around, those individuals or smaller groups, are in danger of being isolated.
One area that helps break… Continue reading
I am so guilty of this!
You start out with a question…
“How is the migration project going?”
But then you keep talking!
“…I was talking to Bob and he says there are few questions that still need to be answered before we can progress”
What happens is they begin to answer your question but then have to stop because you’re still talking. Maybe you throw in another question too! Before you know it they have forgotten the first question and maybe don’t know what they are meant to be answering now. Worse still is when you forget what the first question was!
I get that you can ask a couple of questions in one go, this is all about how the sentence is structured so they know not to start talking until you’ve finished.
In a way I think this blog is more for myself in an attempt to… Continue reading
When leading one-on-ones I’ve tried different ways to be engaged with the conversation while also attempting to capture points we discussed. One-on-ones can cover a range of topics rapidly so unless you have a very good memory…I don’t…notes are important, especially for any actions that need to be taken.
When I started out as a manager I did go through a stage of not taking notes. I’ve said I don’t have a great memory so this wasn’t one of my better decisions! The conversation was the priority to me, I was focused on being engaged with the other person so didn’t want to distract myself. I took a notepad with me but only jotted down actions I needed to do. On the long term though I had nothing to look back on when review time came, only my bad memory! Most of the feedback was based on comments from other… Continue reading
