Back to work with a bump. On Monday I spent a minute or so staring blankly at my keyboard trying to remember my password, so my week and a half out of the office must have been a decent enough break. It felt as though I needed the Monday and Tuesday to fully warm my brain up, but by Wednesday I was firing on all cylinders.
We hit a key programme architecture deadline last Friday and reviewed our progress on Monday afternoon. The team have done well, but like everything, 80% of the work was done and agreed quickly and there is a danger that the remaining 20% could drag on for some time. It’s my job to ensure we have a well-understood definition of what ‘done’ looks like for this phase and then to push to close it out so that we can move onto the more detailed work.
There are a ton of things coalescing that all require attention right now:
- Finishing off our initial software rollout in our final city in September. We have logistics to plan and some more testing to do, but we’re nearly there.
- Closing out on our broader key architecture vision and getting agreement from all of the key stakeholders that we are done.
- Off the back of the agreed architecture, pulling together an outline plan for how and when we will deliver across all of the sites.
- Budgeting for next year within the strict deadlines for the firm. This is more than just a spreadsheet exercise; we are going to need to prove and justify why and where we need to spend, and win this argument internally. To do this, we’ll need to complete the budgeting for the whole department as the programme has a big impact across everything.
- Representing all of this information into a programme Steering Committee pack that shows that we know what we are doing, gives the Committee sufficient levers for ‘steering’ the programme and doesn’t make commitments that we can’t meet.
Our Steering Committee meeting is on Wednesday and there is still lots of work to do to prepare the materials, so I am going to spend my bank holiday getting these put together as best as I can. It always feels as though the pack would be better if we just had one or two more weeks to get more prepped, but this feeling seems to exist no matter what — there is always more information that we could gather.
There’s only one week left to go until the children are back at school, and my eldest boy starts secondary school. I’m nervous for him but he seems quite relaxed about it; it’s going to be interesting living in a house with a boy who is well on the way to growing into an adult over the next few years.
A new school year means that I need to spend time getting prepped for our school governor year ahead. Every summer break I start the six weeks thinking that I will use some of my time to catch up with email, get our schedule of events drafted etc. but always find myself doing it just before the start of the autumn term. We are going to be a reduced team for a while as we said goodbye to some experienced governors last year, which may prove to be challenging. I am also expecting some shuffling of roles within the team. Hopefully we’ll hit the ground running. A year as a school governor always goes by in such a blur and it’s very difficult with a full time job to keep on top of it all.
A couple of my friends persuaded me to go with them to see a metal band from Seattle at The Black Heart pub on Tuesday (“£8, come on, you can’t go wrong!”). As always, I’m not one for bringing a change clothes to work so went along in my suit and ended up feeling like Chevy Chase as Ed Harley in a biker bar.
I didn’t care too much for the main act — I wonder how much they have got by on their name as opposed to their songs and musicianship — but the support band, Hot Soles, were great, and worth the price of entry alone. The venue was tiny with barely any elevation on the stage so it was very difficult to see, but it wasn’t packed for Hot Soles and we got a good view. From Sheffield, they are kind of a cross between The White Stripes and Peter Kay. In a good way.
The main act’s set was live-streamed to YouTube and is available to view for free.
Here’s a little podcast roundup:
- This episode of Remainiacs is very good as ever, an excellent blend news and humour. No matter what you think about Brexit, the first nine minutes of the podcast are worth listening to, hearing from Simon Allison, a life-long Tory, about how he is being gagged at the upcoming conference. This is where we are now.
- I’ve been getting my Formula 1 fix from the excellent Autosport Podcast as well as BBC’s The Chequered Flag. The latter has been excellent this season since they added Jolyon Palmer alongside the usual presenters of Jack Nicholls, Jennie Gow and occasionally Andrew Benson. The argumentative dynamic between Palmer and Nicholls is great and has made the show so much more interesting.
- WB40 is now back from its summer break and the latest episode catches up with the book club reading list and more besides. I’m still keeping up but I’m not sure how long for. I’m not convinced that there are many other listeners reading along and although the books are great (particularly the current one which I’m enjoying immensely) I don’t have enough time to read these books along with others that are on my list. I need the space for the occasional work of fiction just for sanity’s sake.
I managed to fit in a couple of bike rides this weekend, a 40-mile road ride to a barbecue in Chertsey and then a 12-mile soaking wet ride along the canal path with the family on Sunday. Saturday was great, but without finding a way of fitting in any regular exercise into my week I’m always going to feel like I’m starting from scratch fitness-wise every time I get in the saddle. I don’t have a good answer for this yet but I’ll work on it.
Next week: Holiday season draws to a close, a packed lead-up to our programme Steering Committee meeting, prep for the school governor year, kids’ football training starts again, Album Club #90 and a Ride 999 reunion.
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