Rita / Week 05 2019
Freedom — how dangerous can it be?
Get yourself a glass of wine or at least a pint of beer otherwise this might not be very amusing read! So it was another week. Felt somehow long. Exciting thing this week was lab day.It was really great to see everyone’s effort the very next day and what they been working on. The most exciting for me was Kirk’s, Sam’s and Priyanga’s work – they made magic and we will be able to download a csv file which we can quickly import in actionable agile website and check relevant data. Being honest with you – the last few mornings I found myself lost – I didn’t have to update 5 sheets with dates and names and everything like I used to, so I had to actually think what I can do that day! So anyway, now that the biggest waste of time is removed I could learn to use that data in the best way I can.
I chose to work on some stuff like put relevant information (or at least I think it is relevant) on Confluence so there is more visibility especially for future new starters on how Kanban works at Novastone. As well tried to work on some actions that came out of retro such as – we don’t have clear process of canvas reviews and meetings and all that so tried to put something together share it with the world and waiting for a shoe to be thrown my way now!
You will ask how is the physical Kanban board these days? It’s ok. It feels like something is missing, but I am not entirely sure what just yet. And no, it’s not gardening tools!
I meant to work on another “real” board which as well came out as an idea from retro to have some sort of process improvement board where when you don’t have anything to do you go and pick up something from there. This week somehow I felt unsure how everyone would react if I would just make up some tasks leave it there, “advertise” it to everyone so that it’s out there and then wait and see if it would fail.I don’t know. Just felt a bit unsure if I am there yet to suggest things to work on. I guess it’s familiar feeling. When you work somewhere for a very long time and suddenly you put out there new ideas usually majority of people will be “What?! Change?! Are you out of your mind?!!”, but joining somewhere new doesn’t add courage to be “loud” cause I guess that uncomfortable feeling of what they will think about you and will that be too much too fast goes first and shuts everything down at first. Problem starts where you are not new anymore you are not old employee yet, but you are not sure if it’s time to do something like that. In short — not sure when and what should be done! But I definitely categorise myself as still new!
Anyway, talking about Novastone it’s actually easier to encourage new ideas and things. It’s welcoming place to try something new which is very important and hopefully will be respected for a while. Nobody realises when suddenly your freedom is taken away and then no becomes everyday word. So I guess what I am trying to say here is that we need to appreciate more that “freedom”, because it’s not many places that offers it. You can achieve great things if you can try them! But need to remember not to go too far. It can be very dangerous when you have freedom to learn, freedom to develop, freedom to implement new things. Something very amazing can come out from all of this or something terribly wrong.
I am still on the same book “Black box thinking”. (Although I can’t wait to start “Agile project management with Kanban”,it felt like I would benefit from extra tips!) I know! It suppose to be 1 book every 2 weeks, but somehow had to fight with time and myself and chose to be a bit more mum this week than a selfish person who would like to have all time in the world to myself. Anyway, I really like this book, it gives a lot of examples about mistakes done and how some managed to use it and improve it and some never really does. For example aviation. In old days planes were not the safest transport to travel around the world! But implementing new tests, checks and all that, learning from mistakes it made it to where it is now and it’s incredible. Unlike hospitals are not yet in the position to say that they managed to put the number of fatalities down significantly due to a doctor mistake. Problem here is a cognitive dissonance and it talks all about it through the book. It’s never easy to establish and “publish” your own mistakes. To agree that you been wrong all that time. And unfortunately research showed that people who has the biggest issue with that usually are a senior members of staff who been working hard to get where they are now and to admit that they been wrong for them is kind of the end of the world. It’s a shame that honesty is still not very popular. It’s a shame that such a silly little thing makes people suffer. I can’t really compare my work with doctors and aviation. It’s not like I open people’s stomachs every day and try to fish out some fork or knife from out there. But overall world would be a better place if people would be honest about mistakes and most importantly would learn from it. “If a culture is open and honest about mistakes, the entire system can learn from them. That is the way to gain improvements”.
I still can’t manage to make so every meeting lasts only as long as expected. Every person is informed about important stuff that is going on. Everyone has enough work. Or everyone leaves work happy and enthusiastic. I do blame myself for every failure. You will say I am too hard on myself, but somehow it feels better (And I am aware that its strange thing to say!). Sometimes I think that maybe I try too much that’s why nothing ever works as I want to. But most likely I still don’t do enough! It helps to have support from Sam and I am always calm when I know that he will come to meetings. Somehow even if there is the most uncomfortable topic in the world to discuss — he knows exactly what to say and how to bring everyone to look towards the same direction. I say — its a gift!
Overall it was a filling week, you know, a bit like when you have a burger for your dinner, then you have some fruit, then you have chocolate and you don’t hesitate to have a pint of Guinness and after all that you think — damn why did I have to eat all fridge!
And now enough of this nonsense. Go and have a lovely weekend!
