Weeknotes S1E8

Samantha Fanning
Sep 7, 2018 · 3 min read

Monday — the day got off to a bright start, with Thriva emailing to ask if I was on HRT *doesalittlecry*

Took too long to recover from the stone cold shock of that one, so I’ve nothing more to say about Monday…

Tuesday — have finally bitten the bullet and signed up for a certified product owner course. I’m a good product owner, but I could be better when considering products outside my area of expertise, especially when working with people who are new to the process, and due to a lack of developers and delays to the project, we’re not getting stretched at the moment. It would help if I formalised my knowledge a little bit, for when people need some objectivity about the process. Plus with the end of the year approaching, I’ve a bit of budget I can spend on the team, getting everyone speaking the same (certified) language. I’m looking forward to being in a classroom again too, if I’m honest. Too much of what we’ve done recently in Agile has been adapted “on the job”, actually drilling into the whys and wherefores with an expert will be reassuring. My Prince2 qual will be out of date soon, and I’m not sure about renewing it. It’s been a while since I’ve had to run anything directly in Prince2, only stakeholder comms and reporting, but it feels right to keep it and my Agile PM certs updated when I keep getting dragged into existential conversations about managing and delivering digital projects (admit it, you wish you were me, amirite??)

Wednesday — last night I watched a lynda.com UX course on Designing for Voice, and it’s a fascinating topic. I know there is a lot of controversary over the depth to which voice-navigated activity has penetrated daily life (econsultancy does an interesting takedown on the stats here: https://www.econsultancy.com/blog/70214-the-future-of-voice-search-2020-and-beyond) but from a work perspective it interests me because how amazing would it be to get first aid guidance in an emergency like this? We’ve explored Alexa skills previously and hit up against the challenge of meeting clinical protocols — the problem being we need very different approval for a diagnostic tool than we would for a treatment tool, but it’s almost impossible to separate the two when you start talking to users. But when I think about how ubiquitous our use of our home device has become, and we look at their infiltration to our homes, it’s crazy that we’re still talking about the risks rather than the benefits of getting something to market.

Friday — it’s Friday already, how did that happen? It’s been a nicely busy week, too much doing of the day job to think about describing the day job in a useful, weeknotes, learning-focused format. And evenings have been jam packed with kids back to school and a need to get back into a routine. We said goodbye to even more colleagues this week, which was sad, as they have been awesome, and made such a big impact in their short time here — true proponents of Working Out Loud, and managing with integrity. Aim is to try and keep momentum going on the changes they helped bring about, particularly around product management.

Samantha Fanning

Written by

Public and charity sector digital worker. Best job ever. Especially when it involves “going into battle for users”. Failing miserably on Twitter @sjfanning

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade