This was a topsy turvy week but work wise it ended well today so I think I’ll just focus on that.

For the first time in 25 months I went to an office and worked alongside actual flesh and blood humans. I’d been asked to facilitate a ‘whole life’ retrospective for one of the teams/programmes so I gathered up my roll of brown craft paper, tack, packs of Post-Its, Sharpies, dot stickers – all the usual agile accoutrement – and headed off to our Bristol office.

It must be three years since I personally ran a retro in a room – though at one time it felt like it was all I did – so I stuck with a classic Timeline retro give or take. As I was working with a leadership team with a lot of other distractions leaking through, the main challenge was keeping it simple enough for them to contribute without adding an extra burden but probing enough to get people talking and digging deep. 

Despite some challenges from those distractions which at one point threatened to derail things I thought it went well. I tried to steer things while staying as unobtrusive as I could (not easy when you are as large as me!) and on occasion just stepped in to nudge the conversation in a different direction.

It is a shame this was essentially my last significant contribution in this role and that I joined for the dying of the light and not earlier as there really are some great people involved (for the time being) who have done some fantastic work.

Anyway it was fun – I’ve missed doing that kind of thing and I’m nowhere near as effective online due to my aversion to Miro/Mural/Jamboard etc…but I am cream crackered.

Elsewhere I put together and then dismantled a little event/activity series after a pivot changed the focus (it was the right decision no doubt) and did a bunch more 1-2-1s which were mainly career coaching. 

Actually looking at it written down this wasn’t a bad week at all.

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Applied for a couple of jobs and had a couple of conversations about potential upcoming roles – some exciting opportunities are emerging. I’m having another go at trying to break out of the public sector career silo I built myself alongside applying for some that are smack bang in the middle of that silo 🙂 

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Went and saw Everything Everywhere All at Once at the weekend and I cannot recommend it highly enough – on the other hand I haven’t got the words to really describe it. You just have to go and see it.

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Road to 50 (1979)

Movie: The Warriors 

Album: The Specials…by The Specials 🙂