Philippa Perry wrote a very useful book, “How to Stay Sane”, which I am reading currently, and the first step that Philippa recommends is to allocate time for self-reflection (along with a prescribed format to do that reflection - the remainder of the post is loosely based on that prescription). Now, however, we all know that self-reflection is something we “need to” do, “love to” do, but at least in my case, never do it enough and/or consistently. Coincidentally, I have been a fan of the weeknotes that Jonny Williams has been publishing throughout the last year and I found them a useful format to not only reflect but to share the notes from the world. There’s intentionality in it and also a social commitment that I love. So, here we go: here’s the first of the 2023! Oh, wishing you a happy new year, by the way (if I can still wish you on the 09th of Jan).

Key themes of focus this week (02 - 06 Jan, 23) #

• I am currently managing a portfolio of initiatives that aim to a) automate how we quote and invoice, b) ensure our customer-facing dashboards reflect accurate products, c) build mechanisms to monitor the health of our workflows and products, d) get better reporting and analytics. Essentially, we have initiatives currently underway to improve our customer experience throughout their life-cycle. It’s busy but damn exciting. So the year started off – to paraphrase my manager, Naomi Tudor – as if we jumped on the motorway through a very short slip-road. Like the ones you get on A30 where you barely get a chance to gather the momentum. But you do it anyways. It’s definitely reminded me the festive dip on the boxing day, purifying the indulgences over the holidays.

• With the number of initiatives across the portfolio, there’s always fine balance between alignment and autonomy, so that we maximise on our shared learnings, outputs, and outcomes and yet have enough freedom to customise the execution to suit the needs of the initiative. As such, another theme this week has been to reflect on the 101 stuff ie. - the stuff that we as programme managers need to help drive despite the nature and size of the initiative. I will share more on this later, but we had a brilliant workshop with my wonderful team of programme and change managers: Malcolm Moore, Ashutosh Panday, Jenny Kidd, Barney Hall, Marcus Blackmore, and Nikki Selmes.

• One of the fascinating things of executing technical programmes is that there are numerous solutions to a single problem. You could solve a customer issue through a self-service tool, or with an AI-based recommendation engine, at the stat of their journey or solve it at the end when they check-out, and so on. Working at the cross-section of architects, engineers, and product managers, it’s our job to manage the tricky conversations and politics - and help land on the solution that is effective, aligns to the enterprise-wide ambition, yet practical, incremental, and agile. While fascinating, I have to admit that I find it - at a personal level - one of the hardest things of the role (perhaps due to the lack of strong assertive skills). Nevertheless, one of the strands running through the last week has been one of these decisions. We’re getting there but the conversations will go into next week as well.

• Finally, our PMO team is growing and as such wonderful colleagues are joining. New colleagues and new friends - and new opportunities to learn together from our varied experiences. Building relationships is another theme this week and working with colleagues with that intention.

Key insights, feelings, and actions from this week (02 - 06 Jan, 23) #

• Intentional leadership: First introduced to me by Adrian Stalham back in 2018, I still benefit from the insight of being an intentional leader. In its essence, it asks for me one to be proactive: reflect on the purpose, relate to others respectfully, but, with the intended purpose, act. I love the deliberateness of this trait and the ownership that drives it. We can always course-correct, but without intentional leadership, I found that I was stalling, and I have been taking steps to be a more intentional leader since Adrian’s coaching a few years ago. The act of writing these weekly reflections, pushing ahead with the conversations around 101 steps in an initiative - are all examples of intentional leadership traits that I am proud to build on. I will continue to work on these over the next few weeks with a bit more focus as to set the tone for the rest of the year. Thank you, Adrian.

• Back to basics: Start of the year is also great opportunity to zoom back to the basics, and I have been conscious this week to reduce noise and focus on these absolute must-dos. The trick is to ensure that the noise doesn’t take over the rest of the year! Please wish me luck.

• Focus on relationships: I love the colleagues I have the privilege to work with, and i missed them while being on holiday. Truly! That’s one of the things that I would like to keep investing time on: focusing more on people. I don’t do it enough, and intend to do so the rest of the year.

What’s in store for the next week (09 - 13 Jan, ‘23) #

• Backlog for ‘23: so that the focus is on the most valuable thigs to do.

• Quarterly planning: Another theme this week is to tackle the question of when and who of the travel. In our remote-1st work culture, which I absolutely love, one of the items to be deliberate about is when to travel and whether we need the in-person events for planning for the next quarter.

• Continue to the focus on technical programme management 101

Things that I read, watched, listened to, which stayed with me (02 - 06 Jan, 23) #

Am also adding the stuff that I spent time on over the holiday period. Hence the longer list of stuff ;-P

• Mylonas and Tudor, 2021. “Nationalism: What We Know and What We Still Need to Know.” Annual Review of Political Science.

• Delivery Management by Jonny Williams (will write a review by end of this month - absolutely loved it).

• Joshua Alan Teter’s Technical Program Manager’s Handbook (just started it and loving the assimilation of a number of things that I have picked up over the years in one place.)

• Happy Valley - Series 3. Oh how much I love Sgt Catherine Cawood!