This Business and Moment...

Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2017
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Beds
Painfully relatable! TBF it's a little more on me - I think I was promoted sideways into a role I had promise for, but not a lot of grounding. Most of my useful skills were and are around DevOps, testing, quality assurance type stuff. And sadly I don't think I've skilled up nearly fast enough, largely because being WFH the last year I can't look over people's shoulder and absorb information. I still look after all the stuff I was doing which got me into this role, but the job title now feels a bit off...
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2008
Posts
6,769
I feel like this post is about 3 years in the making... I handed in my notice today.

Last few weeks I've been going through a process with the parent company of a significant UK Motor insurer, they want to inhouse their accounting at Group level and no longer be reliant on the subsidiary to produce its own accounts. Had a couple of chats with the senior leadership team over there and I've never gelled so well with a group of people at interview stage before, its a role that will challenge me and that really gets me excited, and the long term learning opportunities to develop and expand my knowledge base outside of Motor its just a no-brainer for me.

Absolutely chuffed to have landed it, really wanted this one. Financially its certainly a hit in the short term from losing my shares in my current role, and it puts my house plans back a couple of years, but this role has some pretty chunky long-term incentives so as long as I can stick it out and make a good go of it I should end up in a much better position over all.

I feel absolutely relieved today, hopefully no more moaning posts from me for at least 6 months !!
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Feb 2004
Posts
21,202
Location
Hondon de las Nieves, Spain
I feel like this post is about 3 years in the making... I handed in my notice today.

Last few weeks I've been going through a process with the parent company of a significant UK Motor insurer, they want to inhouse their accounting at Group level and no longer be reliant on the subsidiary to produce its own accounts. Had a couple of chats with the senior leadership team over there and I've never gelled so well with a group of people at interview stage before, its a role that will challenge me and that really gets me excited, and the long term learning opportunities to develop and expand my knowledge base outside of Motor its just a no-brainer for me.

Absolutely chuffed to have landed it, really wanted this one. Financially its certainly a hit in the short term from losing my shares in my current role, and it puts my house plans back a couple of years, but this role has some pretty chunky long-term incentives so as long as I can stick it out and make a good go of it I should end up in a much better position over all.

I feel absolutely relieved today, hopefully no more moaning posts from me for at least 6 months !!

Awesome, long term it's unlikely you'll regret the move and as you say it's been a long time in the making based on your posts on here.

How longs your notice period?


Plus side for me, when we were on holiday we were talking about how it'd be nice to move over there, we've talked about it before as a long term goal, but with home working being so well done in the last 12 months it made us talk of bringing it forward. I jokingly mentioned it to my boss on my return catchup call and she was fairly positive about it as an option, whereas i think my old boss would've been against it. Especially since i've only been here ~3 months so it's good they already trust me to not see it as a permanent holiday.

We're still going to be here for a few years whilst our daughter finishes her apprenticeship, but i think after that we'll seriously look into it. Hopefully by then there'll be some loosening around free movement of people as the current visa limitations of 3 months make it hard to get a good feel for whether it's right.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,821
Weird turn around when it comes to job openings - last few years we'd have 100s of applicants per opening, at the moment just no one seems to be wanting jobs or the market is such they can choose - we've not even hit 10 applicants in total over nearly a dozen openings (some temporary/seasonal others temp to perm).
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
11 Sep 2009
Posts
13,911
Location
France, Alsace
Having some really busy weeks at the moment. I've realised if I want to get anywhere here it's got to be done with a big push from me and pushing back on certain things, not being afraid to put my thoughts across, as long as it's constructive and done well. I keep getting buried in low level operations work, which could be easily done by someone else, which would free me up to work on more product stuff. I had perviously raised this and the response was to prioritize more... I was like yea, sure, but you want all these things... so....? Spelling it out that the mix of strategic and operational work they were expecting from the hours in the day just didn't go and someone would have to support me in some of the tasks. Got told a couple of people would, was told to email them. Included their line managers, zero response. fffffffssss.

In light of my "being brave" in providing feedback, I sent a huge 4 pager to the CTO last week with my thoughts on where we had some fundamental gaps, which is what I believed was causing some issues with teams down the chain. It seemed to be taken well and he asked a lot of clarifying questions and we opened an interesting dialogue. I was very honest about my role and how I thought it didn't make much sense how it was and where it sits in the org. I still have a job so hasn't got me fired just yet. Lets see if it changes anything, or if it's lip service as usual and we plod on dysfunctionally again :)
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
Posts
21,949
Having some really busy weeks at the moment. I've realised if I want to get anywhere here it's got to be done with a big push from me and pushing back on certain things, not being afraid to put my thoughts across, as long as it's constructive and done well. I keep getting buried in low level operations work, which could be easily done by someone else, which would free me up to work on more product stuff. I had perviously raised this and the response was to prioritize more... I was like yea, sure, but you want all these things... so....? Spelling it out that the mix of strategic and operational work they were expecting from the hours in the day just didn't go and someone would have to support me in some of the tasks. Got told a couple of people would, was told to email them. Included their line managers, zero response. fffffffssss.

In light of my "being brave" in providing feedback, I sent a huge 4 pager to the CTO last week with my thoughts on where we had some fundamental gaps, which is what I believed was causing some issues with teams down the chain. It seemed to be taken well and he asked a lot of clarifying questions and we opened an interesting dialogue. I was very honest about my role and how I thought it didn't make much sense how it was and where it sits in the org. I still have a job so hasn't got me fired just yet. Lets see if it changes anything, or if it's lip service as usual and we plod on dysfunctionally again :)
Are you following up any of this stuff with a call? Are you investing the time and effort in getting folk bought into the purpose of the work and what it is meant to achieve? I know your post isn't the full story but if it was as easy as firing an email and then expecting the cavalry to arrive, the work place would be a very difficult place to be!

I get so many emails asking for help from me/my team - and honestly, step 1 is to just ignore and see who is serious. The amount of times I get fire and forget requests to fulfil someone elses short-term off the cuff good idea is ridiculous. It is those who are persistent and can clearly articulate how their help is contributing to a bigger picture, and a specific, measurable, achievable, ..... you get where this is going :p It also allows me to manage the "help" that they provide, with an end game insight. Me providing the resource I've fought for ad infinium to do tasks you are accountable for isn't how I get famous - quite the opposite!

Anyone can fire an email to a senior with some good ideas in. The trick is convincing people you can be accountable for the so-what, including mobilising a team to achieve those goals.

Anyway, you know all this - you clearly do it on Cheezus. Just a reminder than a one-man-band is sometimes easier than convincing other humans in a corporate environment :p. I often say my optimal team size is 1 - me - for these very reasons! :cry:
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
11 Sep 2009
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13,911
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France, Alsace
100% agree with you and you're totally right. It was one of the things I really didn't want to do (as so many in the org do) just fire off a swampy email about how things are not right with no context, no thoughts and no willing to be a part of the solution in getting to where we want to be.

The two biggest things I think will help the organisation at the moment is a product strategy, but one that is real and inline with the NIBR 2.1 strategy they just released. They did one last year that was so disconnected it is impossible to set our OKRs against it and see how we're providing value against anything tangible. While I can't set the strategy, Mark (CTO) highlighted the lack of strategy and asked if I thought a lot stemmed from this. Which I agreed but also said it was important to have the strategy and it's alignment to the business outcomes extremely well linked.
I said I'd be happy to help define this with someone or give guidance and expressed the importance of a north star metric linked to that strategy that helps align all product and services to measure more impact. I have one of the best product speakers around at the moment lined up to do a talk, followed by a north star setting workshop for the product leaders, which I think will really help the business. He's coming into do all this for free.

I'm also starting a PoC with Atlassian on their JIRA Align product to help product teams capture their OKRs, as well as the progress on them. This should also help with the transparency of data, getting "alignment" on product strategy -> OKRs and that hierarchy which is missing now. And a huge one being cross team dependencies which we have a huge issue with at the moment. Hopefully this will be kicking off officially in a couple of weeks for a 3 month programme, which I kinda went off piste on and have been working on this for some time. I'm not one to jump to a tool to solve problems, but when the org is new to product like they are, I really think having something that spoon feeds a lot of this process will make it easier.

I did express that in general I felt there was some confusion on roles. The head of product management sits below the head of IPDS (Information products and Data Science - but includes product lines/teams, BAs, UX, product service managers, and the whole data science team) and just with those roles alone, I was like who is responsible for the creation and ownership of that strategy? It's not clear and then operationally in defining how product works with other groups in the business who deal with that?
Then you have me, who is apparently the "owner" of all product management processes in the business, but in reality, what does that really mean? How do they interact, who has decision rights? How can we make it make more sense?

Anyone can fire an email to a senior with some good ideas in. The trick is convincing people you can be accountable for the so-what, including mobilising a team to achieve those goals.
This is really it. I was a bit "I've not been asked to do this" and I hate feeling like that, as where I sit my group doesn't do product, they do operations, so I'm the only one in here representing a group I'm not a part of, so often feel I need to educate my group, in order to get visibility on what I'm doing first and then convince the rest of the org that I'm not a moron :D I think also as I was pretty new, I felt that people wouldn't listen to me, no matter which way I approached it and I had to earn my stripes, which is why I'm trying to get some big ticket things out that have some great impact, to try and do this. Whilst at the same time building as many relationships in the business so they know what I'm about and what I can do.
It was going well on that until the old head of product left, so now the ad interim guy is a Swiss guy who hates process and has been in the business for over 30yrs lol so I have my work cut out there.

I did mention in this email that I was confident I could get us to where we wanted to be, and I'd put myself forward for the head of product management, if they thought my value could fit that (I know it doesn't... they want a science person for some unknown reason since all our product managers are from a science background and I think more product focused would be a much better fit) but hey, let's see where it takes my role anyway. I love the mission of the company and working with scientists is cool. Just trying to move an old enterprise to a more agile and dynamic way of working is LOOONG and painful :p

Thanks for your comments though, I really do agree with what you're saying and that was my first major concern about voicing input and feedback without making sure it was done in the right way.
 
Caporegime
Joined
21 Nov 2005
Posts
40,284
Location
Cornwall
Applied for a job via Reed on Friday after being unemployed since Feb last year. Was happy to sit back and wait for a job that really appealed to me rather than work for the sake of it. I've since been contacted by multiple companies by email and phone telling me about jobs I have absolutely no interest in. No, I don't want to be a teacher! No, I don't want to work in Dubai! :mad:
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
Posts
21,949
Great bit of reflection here... thank you for taking my post how it was intended!

It sounds like you need to make sense of the operating model before you go too far down implementing tools (I include the OKR framework in here too). It sounds like you could clearly articulate the gaps against what other companies do as a starter for ten to get your product owner question posed in a really structured way (and luckily folks like Spotify publish their operating model as a candidate reference model). You can bring in personas then to get your data science =! product manager point of view. I mean if I left my data scientists to do anything other than data science, it is an absolute disaster.

You may want to pay for some exec-level coaching as well, or ask for some exec-level coaching. The bit that shifts your mindset from operational instruments (OKRs) to full strategy system measures (balanced score card/kaplan norton strategy management system). OKRs are great for team priorities but do very little in my experience for product backlogs - people just pick the features they want to work on and lean on the OKR system to self-approve that.

If you aren't one to build empires of humans, but you want power, influence and decision making rights - strategy is definitely a path to formally consider - if not here, somewhere else. As you sit in the tools/process part of the business it feels on the right lines...?

Totally with you on the pain of moving to a dynamic model...periodically revisited north stars ensures you don't get too distracted but it needs buy-in to a very well disciplined outline framework where changes are good.

100% agree with you and you're totally right. It was one of the things I really didn't want to do (as so many in the org do) just fire off a swampy email about how things are not right with no context, no thoughts and no willing to be a part of the solution in getting to where we want to be.

The two biggest things I think will help the organisation at the moment is a product strategy, but one that is real and inline with the NIBR 2.1 strategy they just released. They did one last year that was so disconnected it is impossible to set our OKRs against it and see how we're providing value against anything tangible. While I can't set the strategy, Mark (CTO) highlighted the lack of strategy and asked if I thought a lot stemmed from this. Which I agreed but also said it was important to have the strategy and it's alignment to the business outcomes extremely well linked.
I said I'd be happy to help define this with someone or give guidance and expressed the importance of a north star metric linked to that strategy that helps align all product and services to measure more impact. I have one of the best product speakers around at the moment lined up to do a talk, followed by a north star setting workshop for the product leaders, which I think will really help the business. He's coming into do all this for free.

I'm also starting a PoC with Atlassian on their JIRA Align product to help product teams capture their OKRs, as well as the progress on them. This should also help with the transparency of data, getting "alignment" on product strategy -> OKRs and that hierarchy which is missing now. And a huge one being cross team dependencies which we have a huge issue with at the moment. Hopefully this will be kicking off officially in a couple of weeks for a 3 month programme, which I kinda went off piste on and have been working on this for some time. I'm not one to jump to a tool to solve problems, but when the org is new to product like they are, I really think having something that spoon feeds a lot of this process will make it easier.

I did express that in general I felt there was some confusion on roles. The head of product management sits below the head of IPDS (Information products and Data Science - but includes product lines/teams, BAs, UX, product service managers, and the whole data science team) and just with those roles alone, I was like who is responsible for the creation and ownership of that strategy? It's not clear and then operationally in defining how product works with other groups in the business who deal with that?
Then you have me, who is apparently the "owner" of all product management processes in the business, but in reality, what does that really mean? How do they interact, who has decision rights? How can we make it make more sense?


This is really it. I was a bit "I've not been asked to do this" and I hate feeling like that, as where I sit my group doesn't do product, they do operations, so I'm the only one in here representing a group I'm not a part of, so often feel I need to educate my group, in order to get visibility on what I'm doing first and then convince the rest of the org that I'm not a moron :D I think also as I was pretty new, I felt that people wouldn't listen to me, no matter which way I approached it and I had to earn my stripes, which is why I'm trying to get some big ticket things out that have some great impact, to try and do this. Whilst at the same time building as many relationships in the business so they know what I'm about and what I can do.
It was going well on that until the old head of product left, so now the ad interim guy is a Swiss guy who hates process and has been in the business for over 30yrs lol so I have my work cut out there.

I did mention in this email that I was confident I could get us to where we wanted to be, and I'd put myself forward for the head of product management, if they thought my value could fit that (I know it doesn't... they want a science person for some unknown reason since all our product managers are from a science background and I think more product focused would be a much better fit) but hey, let's see where it takes my role anyway. I love the mission of the company and working with scientists is cool. Just trying to move an old enterprise to a more agile and dynamic way of working is LOOONG and painful :p

Thanks for your comments though, I really do agree with what you're saying and that was my first major concern about voicing input and feedback without making sure it was done in the right way.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Dec 2010
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13,973
Location
Anywhere but here
So I got a new position on promotion and I'm really keen to start. Been waiting 8 weeks this Friday for my formal offer, it's crazy how long it takes especially as it's an internal move.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
30 Dec 2010
Posts
13,973
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Anywhere but here
8 weeks is too long for a formal offer - 8 weeks to change roles sure, but not 8 weeks for the actual offer after being told you have the job!
What is the explanation?

It's an issue with my post number, it shows as temporary instead of permanent so they can't move me into it knowing it's wrong. Public sector joys :)
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,821
Interesting day at work - can't go into details but had someone do something which they thought was a civil matter, the police have explained to us how due to lets say nuances in how they've gone about it it is actually a criminal matter and usually comes with a custodial sentence - I don't think they are expecting that.

Then we had a flood, and a fairly bad one, just as I was about to finish shift so I've spent 2 hours doing damage control and ensuring continuity of operation under some quite difficult conditions.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
Posts
21,949
Interesting day at work - can't go into details but had someone do something which they thought was a civil matter, the police have explained to us how due to lets say nuances in how they've gone about it it is actually a criminal matter and usually comes with a custodial sentence - I don't think they are expecting that.

Then we had a flood, and a fairly bad one, just as I was about to finish shift so I've spent 2 hours doing damage control and ensuring continuity of operation under some quite difficult conditions.
I couldn't think of a better man for an emergency Rroff. I hope you got the pick-up involved somehow? :D

Was the flood unrelated to the police matter?
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,821
I couldn't think of a better man for an emergency Rroff. I hope you got the pick-up involved somehow? :D

Was the flood unrelated to the police matter?

Yeah completely unrelated.

We had torrential rain for a couple of hours resulting in lots of flooding and debris on the roads so the pickup was marginally useful but nothing a good car couldn't cope with.

Not fun at all as what was a run of the mill shift suddenly turned into trying to deal with dozens of considerations.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Mar 2006
Posts
3,720
Location
Scotland, UK
Managed to be successful in a new internal role, moving from our enterprise sales team (I am an account aligned technical seller at the moment) to a role recruiting and developing new partners into the Microsoft Eco System. Really happy as it’s a new area of the business for me, and shows good progression I think from when I started 5 years back - will be my third role, all in different parts of the business.
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Sep 2009
Posts
2,876
Location
Manchester
A crazy few weeks have been had and a few more crazy weeks ahead as we prep for Black Friday on our retail side. 7 new storage arrays in this week and a lot of new hosts racked, just need to configure now.

I've come in over the last few months to move us away from a manual process to automate what we can so looking forward to that. Plus lots of issues on the hosting side too, VMware are doing my nuts in with support, 21 days recently for a response, and chasing 4 tiers of escalation constantly what a nightmare.
 
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