Weeknotes #2
I am sorry not sorry for the above image. It was seriously the highlight of the week — Poutine at the Park!
The past two weeks have been of long days. This doesn’t quite register during the week since I’m ‘busy’ and ‘focused’, but I do feel it on the weekend.
One thing I decided to make a habit of is to do a Smiling Mind session during Screen Break. My previous practice got disrupted when I started my new role, and I definitely feel the difference. So, gotta get back to it!
I enjoy like the ‘activity’ sessions, where daily mindfulness can be understood in everyday simple tasks. I did one where it got me to focus on my food, its taste and the way I chew — something I didn’t pay attention to before.
What did you experiment with?
- Engaging with the Product Team
This was something that we addressed during last retro — to be bring in Product earlier so we can: collaborate more, be less siloed in our practices, understand where the entire Project Team is at to launch MVP. Knowing this also prevents design rework. We had a few check ins with Jade this week to walk through our flow and got another one scheduled coming Monday. These check ins also allowed us to consolidate our logic beforehand and subsequently together identify any gaps from all product, dev and design lenses.
What did you enjoy?
- Design team goals
We got together and worked out what we want to achieve as a team. We have always shared learnings, but it was the first time where we shared ambition. I found that it was an interesting exercise to see how people’s personal interests reflected in what they suggested for the team. Defining these objectives together attunes team vision and they would provide a criteria of sorts for us to work and reflect on for the future.
What was fun?
- Usability tests
When the user is also a wedding host and their personality shines through. Trying to keep a straight face to not give anything away is challenging.
What did you learn?
- Keep the same logic
Don’t complicate things and keep the flow that has been tested with. This also makes things easier for dev. - BA 101
Jade hosted a great Lunch & Learn session, she presented User Stories and Acceptance Criteria. I found both concepts quite straightforward — but user stories to me has a similar structure to problem statements, but in first person; so I feel more familiar with it. I am excited to see how an acceptance criteria would come to life, when measuring a real case study. I have lesser experience with implementing projects - User Interview Questions
Be sure to highlight the fact that full disclosure is not necessary before the interview. Practise your interview questions beforehand.
I did not frame one of the questions I asked the way I intended to and it came out the wrong way. Given the sensitivity of the topic it could have had a drastic outcome — but luckily our user was understanding and we moved on. Another way to look at it is also to give more time at the beginning to get to know your user and break the ice, that way they will be more comfortable talking to you too.
Who did you talk to outside of your organisation?
Jait — Initially a ‘LinkedIn coffee catchup’ but we’re pals now! Discussed both work and non-work related happenings.
Alex — We caught up after Startmate. Alex was very candid about this own startup story — the success and failures of running a startup.
Key takeaways:
- Product-market fit is so important.
- the best way to learn about startups is to work at a startup.
In reflection after our conversation, for my interview I could have leveraged my technical understanding more, this would’ve strengthened my point of difference, given that most applicants have a management and/or law background.
What are you looking forward to next week? (from last week)
- Being more succinct during the handover to Dev — Our handover got rescheduled to the coming week, but I have given written feedback this week so I am feeling more confident!
- Running 10k! — I did it! — I had previously made this milestone but due to time off from a tooth infection I had to work my way up again. So it felt good being able to achieve it!
Next week:
- Learning how to launch a product and optimisation strategy
