This week has been the start of crunch time. Lead for Project-R, author for Project-R2 and now Cloud Practice Director has meant long hours with context switching fuelled by caffeine and some good work collegues. I say crunch time because I’m doing this with full awareness that is is short term (a few weeks - not a sustained position) and what comes out the other side will hopefully be worth it. Despite the support (at work and at home) and the shining light at the end of the tunnel I’m not sure it’s made it any easier. It’s been a rough one.
- 🪆 - The Project-R2 bid keeps going. This has been the first time where I have worked on the content of a bid using AI for support and I’ve discovered something new. Writing with copilot at scale is more difficult than expected. I’ve been using copilot daily pretty much since it was released but this is first oppertunity to use it at scale for writing thousands of words of content and many prompts and tweaking both for output and for questions and discovery. I’ve found that the process is just as draining sometimes at the writing itself. I’ve also noticed that the more I use copilot the more I feel the blank-page axiety and go to reach for it like a habit. This blog might be one of the few place where I don’t use it and I don’t have that anxiety.
- 👂🏻 - This week included by first proper 1:1s with my new team, the first time to really deep-dive with them on their development, their concerns and their oppertunities. I now have 8 direct reports, something I’ve not had in about four years, so it’s taking a bit of getting used to. Having said that, I’ve certaintly learnt a few things since last time and I have higher expectations for myself as a manager this time around. While I’m not a fan of the extra admin, I am loving the oppertunity to get to know these people much better.
- 🅿️ - As I start to bed in to the new role, I have also had a week littered with smaller meetings and adhoc 1:1s to get me back up to speed on things. I’ve been focusing on the 4 Ps (people, projects, portfolio, partners)as these are the things that will help be understand the current landscape, any fires and start to scribble down the start of a strategy.
📈 - This weeks stats:
- 67 minutes of podcasts
- 3,338 average weekly steps
- 37 book pages read (1984 - p0-37)
📺 - This weeks background entertainment: