This has been a week of juggling and deliberate switching. I’ve found that being whole hearted in one activity and taking a breath (and some notes) before the next brings best results. Getting distracted with updates on the other things just weakens those boundaries and my energy just leaks out all over the place. Bring clear and honest about my boundaries and where my focus will be helps others be kind to me and get more clear focus in their day too. Most of the time a response does not have to be immediate and asking if tomorrow or next week is ok is a great way to take control.
It’s also been a week of strong opinions and creative ideas. This leaves me feeling buoyant but is most useful when those opinions and ideas are loosely held. A key lesson learned this week was the initial summary of a situation and the written confirmation were quite different. If I was deeply wedded to my initial assumptions it would have been quite an emotional effort to change my thinking in the face of new evidence. I’m so glad I’m comfortable, indeed strangely excited to say “my assumptions need to go out the window“ as I know the following ideas will always be a much better fit for the challenge at hand. I think I’d find it much harder to be a consultant without this skill.
Monday brought a chance at a rarer experience, the chance to sit back and observe another colleague facilitate a training session we’d put together. I got to see how they tackle discussion, questions and time keeping. We also ran a mini retro afterwards to talk about things we’d do differently to make it even better, and also how to write up the session for other facilitators to follow us on the path we are carving.
In the next few weeks I’m expecting to consider that aspect of engineering quite a bit where we pick up prototype work: how to make it easier for people follow after. Key stakeholders for proof of concept are usually counted as product owners and end users. However, having been on the receiving end of assumptions about production releases of prototypes, I believe the engineers who build from (rather than on) the work you’ve done are valuable stakeholders too.
I’ll also be making more of the lighter evenings when travelling – if only to enjoy sights like these…
