Weeknotes 2023 #02 #03

The last couple of weeks have been really busy so here a 2-for-1 edition of weeknotes.

At the Clearleft office

The tempo of work life has changed considerably over these last 2 weeks. I joined a briefing call at the end of Tuesday introducing me to a project that I was about to be swapped into. The rest of the week was a mixture of handover, onboarding and project meetings and observing workshops.

My experience of project handovers like this is that they bring another set of temporary challenges to the mix. Alongside the usual set of project subject matter challenges there is an emphasis of trust-building for the client.

As the new project lead you need to be aware and empathetic toward the client’s situation and put that extra bit of effort and care into building confidence.

This approach has really paid off over the last 10 days. We wrapped up our Thursday meeting with a two thumbs up reaction from the client.

I’ve been using Obsidian as a way to organise and navigate the project. I’m slowly evolving a systematic workflow that can be used consistently for subsequent projects. It’s something I’ll likely write about separately in the future but for now it’s becoming a critical part of my workflow.

Aside from client work, we had a really interesting laundromat about quality. It was interesting how diverse team’s thinking is when it comes to what impacts quality and the strategies we might employ to ensure we attain it.

Away from the keyboard

January’s Grand Sumo is done and dusted. I fell behind with the daily matches early on and never caught up so I still don’t know the results. I did get to try out my custom bingo card which I’ll adapt and use for the next basho in March.

I spent a day at Lewes Depot on Monday and caught Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru and Mark Jenkin’s Enys Man. The former a bitter-sweet reflection of what it is to be human and how you use the fleeting gift. The latter… well… it’s not really a film to describe, it’s one to experience yourself.

One of my focuses for this year is to buy less, do more. I’ve been meaning to get down to the Brighton Youth Centre skatepark for a while and as they opened up early on a Wednesday morning I seised the opportunity. I’d forgotten just how much a supportive community the skate scene is. Complete strangers celebrating your successes and picking you up when you fall… literally. Still landing kickflips at 43 though.