Working With Me

Working With Me

NOTE: I may update this in the future. Its not a static document.

Inspired by others I have seen over the years, I can’t claim complete originality for this.

The following is intended to be a guide for working with me. It attempts to compile a group of areas and methods with an eye towards our collaboration in the workplace being efficient and effective.

Here we go…

First a couple of things I apply everywhere:

• Less is More in ALL Things

• Readable AND Raidable

• Very Interesting, why?

• Lifelong learning

• Semper Fidelis or Always Faithful

There are others I may share at a later date, but the above are likely the most important with respect to how I operate. I wasn’t always this way.

I will make some posts explaining the above in the future. Keep an eye out for them.

GENERAL OPERATING

So how I operate:

• Situational Awareness

  • I try to maintain situational awareness. Whats going on, where its happening, who is involved, why, and how its being handled.

• Tactical vs. Strategic

  • There are really two classes of work: Tactical and Strategic. Business as Usual (BAU) falls under Tactical. Strategic is a future state, forward leaning activity that iterates towards what will become BAU. Generally BAU activities should be primed for automation.

• Know Your Audience

  • Aware of my audience and their communication needs. How I operate and how I communicate will change with my understanding of the immediate audience. Not everyone need know about everything. Keep it simple and straightforward. I do not like to speak for the sake of speaking.

  • Listen first

  • Understand the situation

  • Acknowledge whats been heard

  • Speak as necessary to address the situation.

• Diving In

  • Fully capable of diving in, I’ve been known to sit with my teams in the past and debug. I’ve written and patched a lot of software in my career. I do not generally write code any longer though. Almost never. Thats for the teams. I admit sometimes I miss solely concerning myself with coding.

• 1 on 1’s

  • I like to understand the career aspirations of those around me and try to work with them to get them closer.

  • 1 on 1’s with me are your time. You set the agenda unless I have something pressing the conversation will always start with you. Straight, transparent talk about what you are concerned about offering my responses through my lens.

• Meetings

  • Team meetings. Honestly, I like to have as few meeting as possible. I do think its necessary to have some sort of checkin’s as a group to ensure we are getting things done and are focused on the right things. Measuring what matters is expected. Knowing what matters is expected.

• Planning

  • Planning is an interesting bit. I think most times planning too far in advance ends up being a waste of time. Having strategic goals is not, but planning exactly how they will be delivered may prove to be if its done too far out. Too far out is a localized variable based on the team involved. I like to plan out strategically where we want to be in say 1, 3, 5 years. The specifics in delivery lessen the farther out you go. In other words, I prefer a decent target understanding, and being fungible about how to get there based on needs as milestones are approached.

• Team of Teams

  • Team of teams. Assuming we are at the same company we are ultimately on the same team. I can’t claim to be a politician. I am a US Marine and being so has drilled into me for life a certain set of inherit expectations for those around me and the places I work for. Accomplishing the mission is the work of the day, and the next, and the next.

Ok, enough about how I operate in general. It wasn’t exhaustive but you get the idea. Now on to other business. Lets dig into some details. I’m using others I have seen as a model. If you have seen the same, these groupings may seem familiar. That said, they made enough sense to me I did them too.

MANAGEMENT APPROACH

So whats my management style? I think it can be summed up in the following:

• Collaborative

  • I like to work as part of a team. I do not like folks that develop their ideas in a vacuum, present and then are not open to any change. Its unlikely that you were tasked in a vacuum. Work with others to get the job done. Take input, give feedback, develop an idea and gain consensus about the approach. Do it quickly. Be decisive as a team.

• Hands off

  • Unless I find I must, I will do everything in my power to let folks operate as they need to in order to be most effective. The key word is effective. If I am finding that effective is not a result you can expect me to investigate why and dive in to turn things around.

• Accountable

  • Own it as they say. If not you who, as they say. I concur. Everyone is accountable for everything to the degree that they are capable of delivering it. There is a part to play for everyone and everyone is accountable for that. The whole is owned and accountable to the whole.

• Organized

  • Organization is key. That doesn’t mean my desk isn’t a mess. It means projects are organized and little time is ever wasted. The Marine in me has me thinking about things in terms like Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Or even D3A, Decide, Detect, Deliver, Assess. Or F3EAD, Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze, Disseminate. Using something like one or all of those, or a mix of a sort can help stay organized and on target.

• Data Driven

  • Data doesn’t lie. I’m very much a show me the data person. I’m that way on most things. I will operate on my gut at times, but generally thats also been previously informed by data. If you can bring technical data to a discussion that demonstrates your point, you win. End of story. Being data driven is extremely helpful in steering your own efforts towards what success looks like.

• Intuitiveness?

  • Sometimes you just get that feeling right? You know for yourself whether or not it should be trusted. I trust mine on some things and not on others. I’ve learned this with experience over time. I will however intuit things at times based on a variety of information and experiences. So, while I think data wins, in the absence of it you have to make a decision somehow.

• Strategic

  • Its always a goal to keep iterating towards the strategic vision. This how things get there. One step at a time, eventually you will be there. In order for that to be the eventuality you have to keep the strategy in focus. If it falls out of focus, the iterations will start walking off the strategy.

• User Oriented

  • It pays to think about things from the user or customers perspective. If you do this, and if possible engaged them along the way for valuable feedback, in the end you will deliver useful functionality to them faster that meets the need. This always seems to be true in my experience.

COMMUNICATION

• 1 on 1’s

  • Regular chats are important. However, 1 on 1’s go both ways. That said, I prefer to hold it as time for folks working with me vs. time for me to dictate more tasks or get an update. Occassionally that happens, but thats not my goal. If you have a 1 on 1 with me and I am operating in the capacity of your supervisor, well, know its your time.

• Email

  • Feel free to use email, but understand I only check it once or twice a day. If it needs same day response you should draw my attention to it via a chat message.

• Chat

  • This is a great way to drop me a quick message. I try to stay on top of these all day long. There will be times where I may be heads down and it may take longer for my response or acknowledgement. If my response time is to slow, you may want to call.

• Phone

  • This is reserved for immediate attention largely and for emergency. I do not appreciate getting calls that do not fall into those categories. By the way, if my phone does not know your number, I am likely to not pick up until it does. Please leave a message.

FEEDBACK

Just give it to me straight. I prefer straightforward conversation to talking all around a subject. I want you to be open to my feedback, in turn I must be open to yours. I appreciate the perspective regardless of whether or not it is positive or negative. Its important to understand. You can expect the same from me.

RESULTS

Measure what matters is the name of the game. The organizations customers decide what matters. Determine a method to measure it and track progress. There is little sense in tackling something if you have no definition of done, or what success looks like. I prefer to determine that either for myself or in the group as a whole. I need and want a target that I’ve helped determine and identified how to measure it. I would expect everyone wants the same or similar.

HUMOR

At times I have been accused of not taking things seriously. I readily admit to occassionally laughing at inopportune times that may even seem inappropriate. Our work is generally serious, but I like to have fun while I do it. I like to laugh. I hope people I work with like to as well. I will make a joke about just about anything. Laughing is good for you. There is a line though. Don’t cross it with anyone. Keep the jokes at the expense of things.

Well, I hope this helps anyone that sees this and works with me or would like to. I’d love to learn about others as well. Enjoy the day! I hope it finds you well!