What's in this document
Trivia
Why CloudAcademy?
Communication
Feedback
1:1s
Empowerment
Work / Life
When things go wrong
F.L.A.M.E.
- Alex trivia
- A bit about me and how I think
- Expectations about what you can depend on from me as your coworker
- I accept pull requests :)
- 1 spouse (Sarah), 2 dogs (Hachi + Pixie), 1 cat (Elliott)
- Eats green things (vegan diet, not pushy)
- Loves snowboarding in the winter and camping in the summer
- An amazing product...
- Built by great people...
- With a big vision
- The opportunity to help you continue to achieve that vision and deliver great products that help our customers succeed
- Communication is the key differentiator of successful teams
- Direct communication is best
- I have an open door policy
- Email, slack, or call
- Anytime, day or night
- I'll respond as quickly as I can, and if you feel like something could be better, please tell me so
- Remind me if you don't get a prompt answer
- I try to at least set expectations for a response as soon as I see a message
- Feedback is a vital to understanding expectations and improving outcomes
- Feedback is bi-directional
- Direct is better than subtle
- Frequent is better than formal
- It's safe to talk to me about anything - I abhor retaliation
- Initially, I schedule 1:1s once a week - then adjust frequency as needed
- Your time to talk - please feel free to bring up anything
- People who feel empowered deliver powerful results
- If there's no clear policy on something, do what you think is right
- I may email or IM you outside of work hours
- Unless I clearly indicate it's an emergency, if I reach out to you via IM or email outside of work hours, feel free to ignore me until next day
- If I call you outside of work hours, this means it's an emergency and a rare event - I'll treat this as a last resort
- Finding the root cause and improving processes is the only way to do better next time
- I use 5 whys to help determine root cause
- Feel free to talk openly about what went wrong - I'm never looking to blame anyone, just improve the process
A process I use to help triage and resolve problems of any size - feel free to use them yourself!
- Find out the facts
- What is the primary question?
- Who is involved?
- When did the problem start/incident occur?
- Who is it impacting?
- Listen to all parties to ensure that all stakeholders have had a chance to be heard and give their input
- Once you have gathered all the information that you can, analyze it
- Take all of the facts that you gathered during the F and L parts of the process and consider your understanding of the technical and product ramifications of the matter at hand
- Work with all parties involved until an outcome is reached that seems to function well
- Whenever possible, facilitate the parties reaching their own joint solution
- People are much more likely to stick to a solution when they feel ownership of the process and that the resolution came from them
- Explain the outcome of the mediation process to everyone involved, ensuring that all parties have come to a consensus and we have a clear path forward