I am so close to becoming one of ‘those’ people, it’s scary – I have lots to do and somebody stole a day out of my week, and that was before somebody trapped me in a room for three hours and then somebody else required a 2 hour email response.

The problem is I want to lead by example, and working stupid hours all night isn’t the example i want to set.  Yes I want people to do work, but I also want them to have a life, and not get burned out and all stressed on me, in the long run that’s much much harder to deal with, then a missed deadline or two.

anyway procrastination rules, lets just search flickr for photos and maybe play a bit of scrabulous.

In my last job. PDRs where seen as a chore, the boss didn’t like doing them, and he let you know it. some of them would go on for hours and you could see through his office window, he was squirming. you would go in, talk about the same things as you did last time, and get the same responses, often with a sense of resignation. once i got.

“well after being here five years I would expect you to leave” (i did)

they weren’t exactly inspiring.

Looking at them as I do know from the other side. I wonder if he ever did get anything from them? because I get lots.

It has to be said I do them quite differently, for a start they are in a coffee shop (get out the office, people will talk!), and I ask people how they are, what they think, just what is happening… We ramble off subject and talk about tea, children, football, philosophy, art, the west wing, and occasionally work. Yes sometimes they last for two hours – but I get to know people more (i like to think i do talk to people outside of these and I do know them a bit already), and genuine ideas come out of them.

From the last set of PDRs I went away and restructured the team, thats worked really well, from this set it looks like we are going to sort out our strategic direction (I had one, it just needed fine tuning and then we’re going to run with it). It all reinforces my getting to where you want to be by not looking directly at it thing. Which is why I sent all the designers of to an art gallery, and when i get the bottle to do it. all the developers will be off somewhere getting inspiration too.

I don’t know what my staff think, I hope they see them as useful to, I am careful to try and remember what it was like… tell people they are valuable to the team (fortunately they all are!), give people hope.. and try to inspire. It all sounds terribly fluffy doesn’t it.. maybe I am a bit of a floaty in the clouds manager.

*one point I am confused on is PDR or PR&D. It turns out I have no idea which one it is anymore…

It’s been quite a ride, 2 months in my boss left, so 5 months in I was acting head of service then we had a baby, and then I came back restructured the entire team, and started changing how we work. Last week we got a new office, and tomorrow (well today). we are having an away day, where I am considering delivering quite a radical* vision for the team.

but i tell you what.. it’s fun

* radical for public sector born things anyway.

Officially I haven’t actually started the job yet, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t started doing it. After all there is no manager and it’s silly for me to refuse to make decisions now that will be my problem in a few weeks time anyway. So this week I’ve changed my email signature, and I’m getting CC’ed in to email left right and centre.

Fortunately I had a two week break over Christmas to get use to the idea of being a manager, which has helped me not to look like a rabbit in the headlights. I spent at least the first weekend going… 10 staff! there’s ten of them! (there’s 12 if you count contractors), I’m over (most) of that now, I only occasionally look around the room, and then try and hide under my desk. So how is my first ‘unofficial’ week going?

Tuesday was quite an odd day:

I mentioned something I had been thinking about to the head of service (my boss):

“Yes that’s a good idea”

“I don’t think I’m best suited to do it… N is better at this”

“OK then”

and with minutes someone was doing it!
It’s never worked like that before, usually people go “Yes Kevin….” and move on, something actually happened. It gradually dawned on me over the rest of the day, that yes I actually can make things happen now. I need to make sure I know what I am talking about

Today was my first management explosion day.

I’ve still got quite a large project on at work which means technically I should be getting as much done as possible so I can hand some of it over before I become totally pointy haired. Which is fine in practice, but in reality, my list of things today changed from 2 to about 8 in the space of 10 minutes this morning. All ‘urgent’ things that need dealing with. I even reverted to having two coloured pens, a blue one for things I had to do, and a red one for things I HAD to do. It was a very red day for most of the day. and I know that I have a piece of paper on my desk waiting for tomorrow and it’s mostly red.

A lot of today was spent talking to people and working out how we are going to solve problems. Which is what I like and really enjoy. The people bit of the job is the bit other developers keep saying they would hate and is the bit i’m really looking forward to. It’s not measurable in you old fashioned developer way, It’s much more ‘soft’ management type stuff. You know the type of stuff that make you think your manager isn’t really working.

I’m really enjoying it

I haven’t been totally assimilated yet and I do feel a slight fraud, but if I stop and think about it, I’m fairly sure it was all benificial, and I’ve yet to find sympathy for the PHB in Dilbert cartoons, although that Wally need taking in hand.

It turns out it’s been 39 days since I last blogged which is the longest time since i started all this. I don’t have a real definitive reason why, i think it was a combination of a number of things.

1. In early December I had coursework for my leadership course to do, this took quite a bit of time, because like last time, and indeed this time (more due end of January) I left it to the last minute.
2. I went for (and then got) the development managers job in work: during the run up to the interview I found my self in the position of having things I couldn’t say on the internet; this meant the blog became I bit divorced from my reality and my motivation to blog sort of wined.
3. It was Christmas and that was hectic
4. I have website issues:
   • right near the end of the year you may have noticed i took the site down for a few days. this is because it was hacked. I suspect not directly, but via something else on the hosting provider which is very pap indeed!, the site is also incredibly flaky, and if we had any money we would be moving, maybe next month.
   • I don’t actually like the current design for the pages, i know i changed them from the perfectly nice design we had for years and to be honest if i get some time we will be going back to that. but for now I will just have to live with it.
5. I got the management job (oh I’ve said that), and to be honest I got all self conscious about the site. I thought “I’m all responsible and management like now, and well the blog’s doesn’t (well my bits any way) reflect this”. in summary I got all up myself for a little while there. I think I’m getting over that now.
6. the website is flaky (oh I’ve said that too), at least once in that 39 days i got this far and the site crashed, again if we had any money we would be moving….

Anyway that’s the block out of the way, maybe i can start telling you about my new job now…..

Today he was interviewed for, and offered, the Development Manager job in his current place of work, and he’s thrilled to pieces. It’s great in the short term, in that he really wanted the job, the challenge of it, and the opportunity to affect how the place functions. But it’s great in the long term, too, because he’s broken the glass ceiling. You can’t be a programmer forever, the technology moves too quickly, and sooner or later you can’t keep up any more. For a while there, it seemed like the step into management was missing, somehow, and he couldn’t work out how to bridge the gap. But he’s done it.

*beams with pride*

So being the super student i am I pulled an ‘all-nighter’ on Sunday and was up until just past 10:30!! Not quite a proper student then. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything even remotely studenty, but this time it didn’t seem so bad (it does remain to be seen if I pass). Although this time I had my super double-English-degree proof reader. Thanks to Ruth, I didn’t in the end archive my goals, or put measures in place to relive the pressure.

I’ve gone and gotten myself on a leadership course at work, and what at first glance appeared to be a little intense if not useful internal course is infact a full on in partnership with a university thing.

Today I trundled of to the University of Chester (Yes I thought that they have made that up in hollyoaks too), to their business school no-less, to enroll on the ‘leadership academy’ which is the university’s and council’s award winning management course.

It’s quite intense it’s split into 5 modules with the first three taking up around half of the week for four weeks at a time, over the next 6 months and then two modules where you have to present and write stuff.

It’s all a bit nerve racking for me, because as you might have guessed I have no real management experience. I’m excited at the challenges but also a bit worried that I might be pap at the whole thing.

Anyway I’m off to immerse myself in my new student life, lots of beer and sleeping in until noon, oh no wait there! I have a wife, child and job. Responsibilities! I’m a pap student. And it’s only been a day!