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# System prepended metadata

title: Reflections

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# Reflections

1. RE: "What's on fire, or time sensitive ..."

    While you're correct that there isn't anything literally falling apart in our team's day to day operations and we are mostly getting enough work done to keep the wheels from falling off, I sort of see it like this:

    We are a car that is still able to get on the road, and get someone from point A to point B; however, we aren't doing so in a very effective away. Our car is running on two spare tires and has no more to spare. The gas tank is nearly empty. Two of the windows are broken and covered with saran-wrap. The car is not insured. The car's registration is expired. Will it get me to work? yes. But, that doesn't mean it doesn't need immediate/quick attention.

2. RE: Interpersonal issues with Tovio and I

    Something you mentioned along the lines of "Tovio may not be ready to recieve an olive branch from you, despite you being ready to offer it to them." While I understand and respect this notion, the truth of the matter is that in order for our team to operate effectively we do need to maintain a healthy working and communication relationship that is not toxic for the sake of our individual team members, team, or Galvanize as an organization.

    I am coming from a place, where I have made repeated efforts to extend an olive branch/bury the hatchet/clear the air/whatever over a 6-9 month period without any or much reciprocity, I can't help but wonder "how long is an acceptable time frame to wait for them to recieve the olive branch?" At the end of the day there is a job that needs to be done, and the toxicity around our interactions has been a regular blocker not only to me personally, but for the team as a whole.

    Furthermore, all relationships take work to repair/maintain but I think what is sometimes forgotten is that it takes a willingness and ability to put in that work from all parties involved. Strictly from my perspective, I have regularly and explicitly told Tovio how much I appreciate and respect their work, and shown that I am willing to put in the time and effort to complete that work to repair our working relationship. Again, there has been a lack of willingness from Tovio to reciprocate those efforts.

3. RE: Leadership without formal recognition or agency

    I've been finding myself in an interesting situation. When things were going awry under David's leadership, I would often find myself interjecting in areas where there was a deficiency in leadership. Based on our first 1:1, you made it clear that I should not have to do these sorts of things, especially because there is not compensation or titles that reflect as such. I have been empowered to a point where it is no longer expected of me to do so, however during the transition period it now feels like there is still a laundry list of things that need to be done but due to bandwidth issues and transition, they aren't. Certainly some more patience might start to play a part here, but in a usual cycle by this time we'd have retrospectived about:

    * precourse (we did already, as this was something I scheduled)
    * the interviews in the last cycle (we haven't)
    * the state of basic prep (we haven't)
    * the state of premium prep (this has not been done formally, but there has been ongoing work done with Clark, Tovio, Jess)
    * mentoring (we haven't)

    From those retrospectives, we would have areas of improvement that we could discuss and plan around to determine what our biggest goals for the next iteration will be, how they'll be accomplished, and who will be doing the work in each area. Typically, the bulk of improvements/curriculum development/interview adjustments/plans for future PP changes, etc... is done during the time frame starting around 10 weeks before the next DSI cohort start date, with the work winding down when we approach about 5-6 weeks pre-cohort start date as interviews and precourse ramp up.

    I am concerned because as a team, we have more-or-less been "waiting for Jess," to be sure that she's involved and available to help determine our team priorities, but we are now rapidly entering in our somewhat limited time-frame in which we are able to get meaningful improvements, and it seems to be slipping through our fingers as we've barely scratched the surface in discussing what is our priority and it will soon be interview/precourse season.

    My internal dialogue/instincts are screaming at the top of their lungs to intervene so we can get some work started, and get things accomplished while we have the time, but I'm doing everything in my power to be patient. We only get 3 or 4 of these sort of "high production/bandwidth months" per year; hence, my desire for urgency. It's painful to watch a quarter's worth of work slip away from us.

    Lastly, alongside me not taking on management responsibilities around precourse specifically, it is tough to not step in or to be in some ways less involved (specifically with some of the prep -> precourse -> DSI curriculum continuity) with something I've sunk a ton of time and effort into. It can feel as if something is being taken away from me. i.e. "thanks for laying all the groundwork and getting this set up without formal recognition, now we're going to have someone else take it over, and they'll get the ongoing recognition."

4. RE: "We love this job, when we're able to do it"

    I definitely heard this sentiment from someone else but it spoke to me directly and described my experience at times. There does seem to be a bit of "waiting," amongst the team right now. There are certainly things to be done - but we have all prioritized giving Jess the space to be effective as our new manager, and at times that has translated to several team members who have initiatives that they want and could be working on - waiting for some approval from Jess and/or an opportunity to discuss it with the whole team to find consensus.

    Example: There's a bunch of stuff that needs to be done to precourse before the next iteration to make both the student and employee experience better and we discussed much of it during a retro, but being in limbo - not wanting to take reigns that aren't mine and instead waiting for Jess to be involved with that planning, and to meet with the other stakeholders to determine what we're going to do. Again, in the past I'd have arranged a meeting with Phil in the past few weeks, determined the priorities, and started working on them. Right now ... "hurry up and wait."

    The "when we're able to do it," also recalls back to a previous lack of ability to settle disagreements and choose a path forward, where most things without unanimous consensus were typically just left idle - no solutions being implemented. The perfect example is our incredibly talented curriculum developer Devon, who has put forth multiple proposals to improve basic prep, but Tovio didn't agree with those changes, so in the end those materials have become somewhat stale, and leave much to be desired.

5. RE: Videos

    I get the impression that each of our unique perspectives tell a different side or facet of every story. It sounds a little bit as if Tovio has painted Remi, Devon, and myself as wanting to "complete move away from video content," where that has not ever been proposed. What we have tried to say is the following:

    * There is an issue that the three of us personally experience that leads us to beleive that students are not using our video content appropriately, and it is detrimental to both their own learning experience, and their future potential as successful conversions to the DSI, and landing a job as graduates afterwards. [Examples](https://hackmd.io/@ddejohn/HJ8yJyeiu).

    * We would like to explore other ways that we could support these students asynchronously, while also ensuring that we are appropriately preparing students for the skills that are necessary for success in and beyond the DSI. Specifically, we need students who have developed their own __*critical thinking and problem solving skill set*__, moving beyond the level of being able to regurgitate information and to ensure that they are able to synthesize their own solutions.

    * We understand and respect the importance of offering content offered in different mediums to improve access to different learning styles. Many of our lessons in their current form rely __*too heavily*__ on video, or at least there is information in the videos that does not exist in the text of the lessons. Balancing these things so all things are presented both ways is what we should be working towards.

    * Devon, Remi, and myself have been the primary instructors supporting the Basic Prep students. Other team members may not perceive this as a problem because of a lesser exposure to that student group. I'm always a proponent of "let those who are doing the work have a voice in how it's being done, and in this case - we're just looking to brainstorm of things that might be more effective for the students, and therefore Galvanize (through providing more well-prepared students to the immersive).

6. RE: Asana/Github projects board

    * I may have overstated my commitment to using GitHub projects to track our work. If it's visibility that's the issue, that's easily solved. It's been brought to my attention that some members of the team don't feel as if there was consensus around switching to that tool. However, I did some digging through my schedule/kanban boards/slack and found the following:

        1. The first two tickets were created on June 18th, as a part of a test/exploration of the tool's viability to our team. The week prior, Devon had stumbled across the abandoned project board from Rush and Faisal. There was also a ticket from February 2020 created by Clark, and completed by Tovio.

        2. On June 19, 2020 there was a ticket created on the curriculum development for "research using github projects," assigned to and created by Devon. The due date was June 26th, 2020.

        3. On June 22's standup, Devon reported back, showed the tool again with more functionality/knowledge to the team during standup. Provided that it is best for github repository based things, the advice given by Devon, and heeded by the group was that we keep an admin board on Asana for some "bigger picture," Epics that don't necessarily live in relation to code. Either through consensus, or the decision of David the tool was adopted, Devon was asked to schedule a training the following day, and that training occured.

        4. After that training, there were no future tickets created on Asana regarding curriculum development, and all future tickets were created on github projects. We then created a separate board for precourse, as we had just taken it over as a team.

    I know that's a lot - but I want to be clear, that this was not some members of the team deciding to "go rogue," and use a new tool. There was discussion and directive to do so.

    THAT SAID, __*I'm just happy that we're planning again, and I'll gladly use any tool you'd like us to*__. Just know there's a lot of functionality in github that makes our lives easier as we're commiting code/copy when working on curriculum or our tools to help manage students.

## Personal Current State

It's not awesome. I wish I was better at controlling my thoughts and emotions when things are going well, and I can see the negative effect that is having on my career. That said, all is not lost, and there are small victories happening. The thing I fear is that many of the same things that led us down the path to this toxic place as a team are still happening, and though I was immediately hopeful that the team would be able to make an about-face, it looks like that's not in the cards. Just because it is not happening right now, doesn't mean that it's not going to happen; also patience is an area where I can use improvement.

There were a lot of things in that EQ seminar that really hit home, and there are definitely some tools that were presented there that might help us heal some wounds as a team. It's particularly clear that we have not "developed a language," amongst our team where we an express ideas or opinions without causing injury, even when there is no intention of doing so.
