A bed of roses

It was a 'coffee roulette' day, today - but we both had hot chocolate :D We'd arranged to meet at one of the uni's cafés but it was closed due to building work, so we went to a teeny, tiny café just round the corner. The hot chocolate was hot! and absolutely delicious. This time I met a colleague who I already knew slightly but it was nice to hear a bit more about them and their life and their work. And it prompted me to book catch ups with gamer colleague and favourite colleague before Christmas!

Back at the office, one of the PMs and I met a colleague from a different department who wanted to take advantage of the uni's 'shadowing' programme. It's designed for people who maybe want to move into a different career to get a flavour of what's involved. I'd quite like to do it, but more as an info-gathering exercise, just to understand a bit more about what different teams actually do. Anyway, the request was to spend a day a week with a PM seeing a project from start to finish - but they might come on a day when all the PM is doing is updating their plan and replying to emails. Not a lot to learn there. And anyway, they seemed to pretty much be doing the role now, just under a different title. We suggested a) have a bit more confidence in yourself and b) begin small with a simple process map. I also sent links to the PDT webpages with the new PMF, the request form and various other useful stuff, Laura Barnard's podcasts, and some YT videos on using P4W.

After dinner, it was on to another PM who wanted to talk through what they needed for their next stage gate. I said I'd be comfortable with them getting on with dev even if we delayed the SG meeting, as long as they'd completed the form for linking all the deliverables. PMs only come to the SG when they're ready to go through it, so in some ways it's more a formality than a decision point. It's more about getting the governance in place ready to move on. I really think we're on to something with the current PMF - it might even last longer than the 6 months I've given us to bed it in!

The other point we made to the would be shadower was that we ARE still bedding in, and our SA is still very new in the role. In another 6-12 months, the ground will be a lot firmer under our feet.

I rounded off the day by tackling the update to the portfolio dashboard and beginning to draft the monthly report to ELT.

Note to self - now might be a good time to offer to do more with the finance stuff...?

Liverpool are currently beating Brighton in the League Cup, so I managed to get 90 minutes with Stray Blade. Another boss down! There are definitely 6 and I've defeated 4 of them. Then I'm guessing there's a final boss - and possibly another before that...? I'm up to about 9 hours game time, and the internet told me it was an 18 hour game, but I don't know if that's main story or completionist.

So, all in all, a very good day!

A few weeks ago I wrote to one of my aunts because I want to keep vaguely in touch with my family. Today I got her reply. Looks like it was my father's birthday on Sunday - the day after granddaughter arrived. My youngest cousin and I share a birthday; now my father and granddaughter almost do. 

Feelings about my father are most definitely Complicated. I never knew him, so I rely on other people's memories of him. But I'm also of a disposition where I'm uncurious about people whilst being very interested in what they choose to tell me about themselves - but I let them lead by telling me what they want me to know. This means a) I don't know what I don't know about my father and b) I don't know what I WANT to know! Just realised I've lived more than twice as long as him.

In work news, I managed to turn around two sets of minutes in record time, updated both the Dynamics and Forms versions of our project request form, and drafted my monthly report. I really Got Shit Done!

I've also started the part of the Snowflake Method where you write the story from the POV of each character. This helps give the story layers because, of course, everyone has a slightly different take. It also helps develop the relationships between the characters because you're writing about how A feels about B and vice versa - and that might be the same or very different. And it also gives an early indication of where some ideas are going to really, really work, and where they really, really aren't - without you having to write the whole bloody thing first! It's a great method and I'm glad I've given myself enough time to do it properly this time.

Finished off with an episode of Umbrella Academy. Talk about terrible people in terrible relationships :D

And now to bed to prepare for my last day in work. Sooo looking forward to my week off.