Accidentally in Code

Tag: planning

Blood, Bones and Butter

Blood, Bones and Butter

I read about Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton (Amazon) on the Eloquent Woman blog, which discussed a section of the book in which the author writes about a panel she was on, and things she wanted to say, but didn’t. It was a panel about female chefs. Initially she has an attitude of “why are we still talking about this?” but it turns into frustration with the other panelists, as they come out with trite things and she wants to say, but doesn’t, that it is hard to do the second shift, to constantly second guess yourself, make tradeoffs between your work and your family.

I was fascinated, drawing parallels between that and women in tech, and trying to find some broader variety in my reading matter. So I bought it.

That is my favorite chapter in the book, but the book as a whole I also really enjoyed and it gave context for it. This woman has had a fascinating and extremely eventful life. So many stories. They can seem a little disjointed, and the ending a little abrupt, but it’s an autobiography not a novel, so I forgive it.

I think, ultimately, the thing that gripped me most is that this woman is fantastically successful, and it’s clear – and she writes about this – that she never had a plan. She never set out to be a chef. She went off to grad school thinking about becoming a writer. And here she is, apparently both. There are so many people who are all about the plan, say they always knew. It’s refreshing to see this other, honest, perspective, of not knowing what the hell you’re doing but working incredibly hard and figuring it out as you go along.

October 5, 2011
How Not To Get Things Done
Credit: Flickr / programwitch

I have had a pretty appalling week in terms of the difference between what I wanted to achieve, and what I did achieve.

Things outside my control:
- Re-aggravating shoulder injury. So much pain. Increased sleeping due to pain killers. Two trips to chiro (feeling a lot better now – finally).
- Car is broken and needs a bunch of work, so we have to decide – do we buy a new one?
- Server issue on something I was working on sent me down a rabbit hole where I assumed it was my fault.
- Hotel sent me away with someone else’s bill (turns out, you can’t use that to do your expense report).
Things I planned/did badly:
- Did not plan for a 4-day week (supposed to be on holiday today. Instead I will try and do a couple of hours work whilst packing).
- Did not plan for sorting things out in order to go away. Including – checking everything for an event we’re running the week I return.
- Did not plan for coming back after a week away.
- Agreed – in fact, suggested – that I should go back to New York for two days, the week I get back.
- Got overwhelmed and panicked.
- Did not break what I was doing up well.
- Did not say no. The biggest stress has come from working on something for my old team. A series of events have meant that I wasn’t able to make much progress on this until Monday afternoon. I’ve been stressed by and resenting that what I’m doing is some way away from the circumstances I agreed to. Could also have postponed a couple of meetings.
- Prioritized that over the one thing that I really hoped to achieve for myself and my new team this week – getting readability.
- Broke my email once a day as I tried to get through the backlog before I go away. Probably necessary, but could have structured it better rather than just going to email “between” things or instead of thinking about what to do next.
Things that worked well:
Broke things up better once it was apparently that someone else was going to have to finish what I started.

Was transparent about what I wasn’t going to get done to my new team.

Have amazing colleagues who are taking control of the event stuff whilst I’m gone.

Spoke to another amazing colleague so she can finish the feature I’ve been working on. Outlining what was happening and how it was working made me feel more capable of doing it myself in the short amount of time left!

Very lucky that my chiro was willing to be flexible and fit me in.

When working through the evening, (9pm Wednesday, 11pm Thursday) took a break for dinner. Wednesday was just a sandwich and some time with my book, Thursday I went out with work colleagues. Reminded me how much I love my job and how awesome most of the people I work with are.
September 2, 2011
In Pursuit of Awesome: The Difference Between a Vision and a Goal

I got an amazing response to my In Pursuit of Awesome post, here and on Geek Feminism. It’s inspired me to write a series of posts where I explore some of the tips I wrote about and related topics in more depth.

Credit: donald tetto / http://photos.tetto.org/

I don’t have a bucket list. Nor do I have a 5-year plan. I just keep asking myself the question – “am I being challenged?”. When I look at what I do, I ask – “is this the path I take in order to change the world?”

Some people might find a lot of value in a 5-year plan, or a bucket list. I know people who are planners like that. I admire them, but I can’t do it. It’s not that I have anything against them, per se. It’s just not something I do.

Lately, I’ve been giving one of my mentees some tough love. Something I’ve been talking about is the difference between a vision and a goal.

A vision is a snapshot taken of your future. What can you tell me about future-you? Where have you lived, who have you loved, what have you done? What’s your job title, socioeconomic status, what tax bracket, how many kids?

A goal is a concrete, single thing. Like – I want to get a promotion to the role X in the next 12 months. Or, I want to buy a house/condo in the next 24 months. I want to live in country Y for at least one year, and I want to leave by 20ZZ.

My mentee has a very clear vision for what she wants her life to look like in 10 years. What’s lacking is execution of the steps needed to achieve the goals that are part of making that vision reality.

So I’m calling her on it. When she talks about her vision, I ask – if that’s what you want, why aren’t you working on the thing that will make that happen?

The reason is interesting. This vision is so important to her, she’s so attached to it, that the goals take on an additional importance. If she fails to meet them, she might destroy her vision. It becomes safer not to try.

If you’re someone who needs or has a vision, I’m not saying to ditch it, but think of it as a compass. The goals are your map. You can take a wrong turn (fail) and still make it to your intended destination.

But, get moving. The surest way never to get there… is never to leave home at all.

November 16, 2010
The Waterfall Method is No Way to Plan Your Life

I have a new mentee, her name’s AY Daring and you should check her out because she’s awesome.

The other day we were talking about what she wants to do with her life, and she has this great stuff that she’s doing with respect to LGBT youth, and I said, “sure, that’s great but will there be a need for that in 20 years?” Honestly I hope there won’t be – I mean, look at how far we’ve come in terms of acceptance as a society.

This led me to talk about how you don’t want to use the Waterfall approach to planning your life – an agile approach is better because 1. we live in times where things are changing fast and 2. I think an agile approach to life planning makes for a more interesting life because you will be able to take advantage of options that don’t even exist now.

This is not to say that AY may not have found her life’s passion. Just that she doesn’t need to make that decision now.

Credit: wikipedia

Anyway, let’s break down what the waterfall method is. Basically, it’s the idea that first you identify all the requirements of your project, and then you design it. Only when the design is done do you implement it. Eventually, it’s all implemented and you test it. And this is normally when you discover that either the project has taken so long that it is obsolete, or that it is extremely broken and you go back to fix it. In theory, eventually the project is maintained. The reality is that the majority of software projects are late and/or over budget or fail completely.

The waterfall method is a terrible way to plan a software project, and perhaps a worse way to plan your life. The parallel would be, school is the requirements phase and you would never leave it and join the real world – you’d definitely be over budget then!

Agile is based on iterative or incremental development. Iterations in the scrum process are typically 1-2 weeks, and every day there is a daily stand up where you say what you did yesterday, what you hope to do today, and what roadblocks you have. The parallel in life might be weekly or monthly checkins with your mentor(s).

I’m not saying that big picture is not important, but there is no need – I would say even, no point – planning out your whole life in advance. First up – choosing what you want to spend your whole life on is a huge decision. Choosing what project you’re devoting yourself to for the next 3 months to 1 year is a smaller, and more realistic way to go. A theme, or general direction is more than enough. Identifying places where you might be lacking skills and choosing a path that ensures you build them as you go along allows you to stay flexible.

I am 25 and I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. That’s OK! I just try and prepare myself for the new – and even more awesome things – that will become possible as I go. I have a vague, but ambitious theme of world changing. Awesome Ottawa fits into this (more awesome is always better than less awesome), as does CompSci Woman (need more women in tech to code a better world). What skills am I working on right now? Leadership – because it seems like a crucial skill for world changing. Communication – because I need to be able to articulate what I’m doing and why it’s important, and also I must share what I’m learning along the way. Software Engineering – much as industrial research appealed to me I decided that I needed to find a job where I would ship products; I think this is a really important thing to know.

AY’s theme seems to be community building. But themes change and evolve, so we’ll see. Meanwhile at our next mentoring chat I’ll be asking – what did you do since we last spoke? What do you plan to do next? And what’s standing in your way?

October 7, 2010