{"id":4182,"date":"2018-06-03T23:12:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T23:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/?p=4182"},"modified":"2018-06-03T23:12:24","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T23:12:24","slug":"weeknote-20-say-no-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2018\/06\/03\/weeknote-20-say-no-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeknote #20 \u2014 Say No Go"},"content":{"rendered":"
It felt good to have taken Monday off (along with the rest of the UK) to get some things done around the house and not worried about work. However, the long weekend translated to me firing on what felt like only three of the four cylinders the next day. It\u2019s very difficult to be \u2018off the ball\u2019 at work when you\u2019re in a leadership role. Many years ago in my career I might have a day where I didn\u2019t feel like talking to too many people and could just get my head down to do some solo work; this is impossible now.<\/p>\n

I found a fantastic feature<\/a> in Outlook<\/a> that I had never known about which allows the use of logical OR in search folders. I use search folders all the time<\/em>; this feature is a game-changer for me in being able to keep up with all of the most important stuff in my email. In broad terms, I\u2019ve given up for now with trying to read everything that comes in and am instead focusing on emails where I am in the \u2018to\u2019 field. Anything where I am \u2018cc\u2019ed\u2019 is being generally ignored at my desk; I may pick these up later on my commute using Outlook on iOS which doesn\u2019t have the search folder feature. I stayed up late on Monday night trying to get on top of the most important emails and it was amazing how quickly this setup helped me to get through them.<\/p>\n

It was lovely to have someone randomly speak to me about being a programme manager and telling me (with tongue somewhat in cheek) \u201cthat\u2019s what I want to do when I grow up.\u201d They\u2019ve asked for a coffee and a chat which of course I\u2019m very happy to do. It stopped me dead in my tracks and reminded me of where I am in my career. It\u2019s easy to forget what my current role would have looked like to a much younger version of me.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately we had to call a \u2018no-go\u2019 for our rollout in Asia as the technical work is not ready. Our current provider is going through some resourcing challenges which means that we are stuck with a \u2018best efforts\u2019 approach to getting things fixed. It isn\u2019t great that we have to delay our plans and is made more difficult by the fact that we don\u2019t have a clear timeline to be back on track; until we know what the issues are we can\u2019t make a sensible estimate of how long they will take to fix. We\u2019ve now got (another) weekly meeting in the diary with the management team in Asia to report on our progress and revisions to the plan.<\/p>\n

My programme isn\u2019t the only one happening at the firm, and not the only thing that\u2019s making demands of our incumbent infrastructure provider. In order to help both them and us, we\u2019re going to have to pull together a single prioritised backlog of items for them to work through. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how we can make the prioritisation work and how quickly we will get to the point of making a call on which of two things is more important to the firm.<\/p>\n

We have lots of work to do on processes, and not just those for our future end-state. With the small amount of change we\u2019ve implemented so far we have already broken a few things and highlighted problems that were already there. Previously, when users moved between countries, they had no expectations of keeping their data, their email address etc.. It\u2019s now much less clear about whether they can keep these things and if so, who has to do what to make that happen. The volume of these types of issues is low enough right now that we don\u2019t need to drop everything to fix it, but it does need to be prioritised sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

The next few weeks will see quite a bit of change in the makeup of the programme team. We had the first of a number of new team members join us this week and it will ramp up in a couple of weeks. At the start of the year my puzzle to solve was trying to get the programme delivering through multiple streams at the same time and it finally feels that we are starting to see this bear fruit. There are plenty of adventures ahead. We have more vendors to talk to over the next couple of weeks with at least two workshops in the next few days alone which will hopefully kick off more work in parallel. I still have lots<\/em> to do myself to contribute to the effort aside from overseeing it all; my focus is going to be in trying to find time to plan the work between the streams on the programme as well as with the other projects with which we have dependencies.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine had to leave work suddenly in the middle of last week as their child was feeling ill at school. Things escalated quickly and they ended up spending a few nights in hospital to recover. Thankfully they are fine, but it was a bit scary for a time and of course makes you think about how quickly events can change in your day, or even your life. Three years ago I ended up in hospital with pneumonia<\/a> while we were on a family holiday; it wasn\u2019t fun but it could\u2019ve been a lot worse. In our house our unspoken philosophy seems to be that unless you have a fever or are puking up, you\u2019re going to work\/school and getting on with it. There\u2019s very little sympathy and low tolerance for disrupting the things we have all committed to do. I think that it is so much harder for the partner who spends more time with the children; even if you feel rotten you are still expected to do all of the things that you usually do for those that are dependent on you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve managed to spend quite a bit of time with the kids over the past few weekends. Our little guy was at a sleepover last Sunday so the remaining three of us watched Les Miserables<\/em>, which the eldest boy loved. I\u2019d never seen\/read it in any form and it was interesting in how clearly it showed itself as a stage play that had been translated to film. In the theatre you are expected to use your imagination, whereas film is a lot more literal. It felt a little strange to have the big budget film effects alongside props and sets that could have appeared on a stage, such as the ridiculously inadequate barricade in the street. Still, it was something very different and by the end we were all really enjoying it. I couldn\u2019t help but think about the film of Macbeth with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench<\/a> which I watched at school, with sets so sparse but rendered completey unecessary by how utterly engrossing the performances were.<\/p>\n

My bike has been serviced and I managed to get out on a 60mi ride on Saturday. My eldest boy had a 1,500m British Milers Club<\/a> run in Milton Keynes so I made my way there by bike in time for the run and came back again straight after while my wife took the boys in the car. It felt great<\/em> to be in the saddle again. Incorporating a ride into a thing we\u2019re doing anyway is a very good way to get the miles in and I\u2019m going to try and take every opportunity I can to do it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This weekend we\u2019ve had to spend a lot of time getting everything out of our lounge ready for it to be decorated for the first time in 13 years. It\u2019s only when you clear out a room that you realise how much stuff<\/em> there is in it; one of Berkhamsted\u2019s charity shops are soon to be in for a bumper haul of books and DVDs. Also, I\u2019ve learned that untangling the web of wires and dust clumps behind the TV is a job I don\u2019t want to do any more frequently than every 13 years.<\/p>\n

Next week:<\/strong> A beautiful new lounge! School governor meeting time again (with plenty of reading beforehand), and trying to get on top of the meetings we have between now and the end of term. More of the same at work with trying to battle for time to get the planning done, both for the immediate future \u2014 workshops this week and next \u2014 as well as the road further ahead.<\/div>\n

It felt good to have taken Monday off (along with the rest of the UK) to get some things done around the house and not worried about work. However, the long weekend translated to me firing on what felt like only three of the four cylinders the next day. It\u2019s very difficult to be \u2018off […]<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-weeknotes","7":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12214,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2025\/06\/25\/weeknotes-330-heat-hangover\/","url_meta":{"origin":4182,"position":0},"title":"Weeknotes #330 \u2014 Heat hangover","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"25 June 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"A busy, productive and enjoyable week. It has been super hot and humid in the UK. Our houses are built to keep the heat in, so sleeping can be a challenge, with the only solace being that it is generally a shared experience. You pass people in the street and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\u201cNot far from our flat \u2014 renamed Wee Nooke \u2014 was Gay's the Word, London's first and only gay bookshop, in the middle of Marchmont Street at the council end of Bloomsbury. It stocked everything that you now find in mainstream bookshops on the shelves marked 'gay and lesbian interest', from scholarly works on Magnus Hirschfeld to histories of the Hollywood musical. At the back there was a coffee shop, really just a table surrounded by chairs, and it was there I first met Jimmy Somerville. Well, where I first met Jimmy Somerville by name and in daylight.\u201d \u2014 from Fathomless Riches by Richard Coles","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/DraggedImage-4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/DraggedImage-4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/DraggedImage-4.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/DraggedImage-4.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/DraggedImage-4.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8016,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2021\/09\/05\/weeknotes-132-cycle-silverstone\/","url_meta":{"origin":4182,"position":1},"title":"Weeknotes #132 \u2014 Cycle Silverstone","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"5 September 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Monday saw our last public holiday before Christmas here in the UK, extending my time off and making it a four-day week. I had planned to go into the office on Wednesday to start getting used to being there again, but I had forgotten about a dentist appointment booked long\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/DraggedImage-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/DraggedImage-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/DraggedImage-scaled.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/DraggedImage-scaled.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/DraggedImage-scaled.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/DraggedImage-scaled.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11459,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2024\/12\/24\/weeknotes-304-pottering\/","url_meta":{"origin":4182,"position":2},"title":"Weeknotes #304 \u2014 Pottering","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"24 December 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A week off work, largely spent pottering around at home. My wife and the boys were still going to school, so it didn\u2019t feel quite right to spend the morning lounging around in bed while they dashed about as they got ready to leave the house. 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Mainly did Christmas. We travelled up to Ross-on-Wye on Christmas Eve to stay with my wife\u2019s parents for a couple of days. It was lovely to be there with them. 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Monday set the tone; in the afternoon we had a \u2018town hall\u2019-style event in the office followed by our Christmas party, the first one that I\u2019ve been to in half a decade or so. 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