The New Whip

Listen, it’s Tuesday. The time I regularly write weeknotes is a weekend, but here’s what I got up to last week – a few days late.

I’ll tell you why they’re late: I’m stretched thin! Work is a lot! I’m doing two jobs! But this phase is nearly over. Last week I started onboarding a new product manager, which will mean I can stop running a team alongside being a product lead.

It’s not so bad really. I got into a good headspace for running the team alongside being product lead, so I knew it was only temporary. Having said that, I feel like I’ve been doing a bad job of both – especially since the election has turned the heat up, put more eyes on what we’re doing. But when I stop and think about it, everything is progressing well, as it should.

The team have been great at getting ahead on some tasks, creating join-up where it needs to exist. We’ve also planned how to bring a more regular, collaborative rhythm to sprints across the squads, so the teams will be able to iterate from this point.

The energy is like a startup. Lots of oomph, imperfect information occasionally, but everyone’s pulling together and starting to speak the same language. It’s good. What’s bad is how the organisational layers don’t move at the same tempo as we do. There’s a piece of software I really need and it’s been stuck in some process for well over 6 weeks. The only way I could hurry it along was to find out who should be responsible for it and ask them what they need. (I suspect that backchannels are the norm, hence why the process didn’t work.)

As a result of all this busy-ness, I had to miss Product for the People #5, the first one I’ve ever had to miss! A shame because it looked like an awesome day. But, you know, needs must. Some times you have to change plans. (If you’re free on 19 September and can come to east London, join us for our next thing.)

That’s all I can say about work during this pre-election period, there’s not much detail I can go in to. So let me talk about the new whip. This was supposed to be the summer of fastpacking: running across the countryside, wild-camping, and soaking up the outdoors. But this hip injury put shot to that.

What if I switched from running and camping to biking and camping though? Bikepacking. It felt like a good plan, so I went down to Brixton Cycles and built a bike I wanted before the pandemic: a Brother Kepler frame done up like a gravel bike. Really looking forward to it being ready, I cannot wait to get out there.

The hip is on the mend too. On Saturday I did Parkrun, utilising a new running style off the back of the gait analysis I had the prior week. Thankfully there’s been no hip pain, and I’ve spoken to a physio about exercises I can do to strengthen the muscles. Fingers crossed.

Went to see I Used to Be Funny at the BFI on Friday. A good mix of comedy and drama, Rachel Sennott is as hilarious as ever.

Hope you won’t mind the brief update. (I almost didn’t write these at all, to save headspace.) Finishing now as I need to have some lunch before lunchtime is over. Ta-ra.

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