Five for Friday – 6/16/2023

June 16, 2023
Five for Friday

I've been following the “Five for Friday” blog posts from several people for years. I read one such post from Alan Page, leading me to an article on “Why You Should Send a Weekly Summary Email“. While working as a contractor/consultant, I did this routinely as part of submitting my timesheet every week. Most clients like to know what you accomplish, so I summarized what I'd worked on and planned to accomplish the following week. After I became an employee at the end of last year, those weekly summaries went away. After reading that article, I began sending a weekly summary to my manager…and included a “Five for Friday” list of things I read/learn every week. Life isn't all about work. I'm a strong promoter of continuous learning, so I thought I'd also begin sharing/re-sharing some of the things I learn each week. I'm also an inconsistent blogger, so hopefully, this will help me develop a better routine and be more consistent.

I've spent a lot of time using Pluralsight lately. They were promoting an article about The Secret to Upskilling Talent. What resonated with me was that “37% of technologists say they've used hands-on labs or sandboxes to learn software development skills. They like hands-on experience because they…learn better with hands-on practice.” There's no shortage of resources on the Internet for learning. My problem is setting aside time to take advantage of them. I find it easiest to learn in person, with assistance and no outside distractions. I even drove the two hours to Cedar Rapids–Iowa's second largest city–to participate in the only coding boot camp in the State of Iowa. Why there isn't one in Des Moines (Iowa's largest city and the area where I live) is anyone's guess.
My company has a mentorship program which they highlighted earlier this year. I've never had a mentor or been one myself, but I'm looking forward to doing that. James Thomas recently wrote about his experiences as a mentor, which I thought was very timely.
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” While Shakespeare certainly never heard of Agile, Scrum, Kanban, DevOps, DevEx, etc., I think he'd agree with Alan Page on this point: “Teams like these exist to accelerate the business, and it doesn’t matter what they’re called – just that they’re effective.”
Adam Grant posted a picture on LinkedIn/Twitter showing Why You Should Be Kind to People. It led me to an article on why Kindness Matters in Our Leaders. Small acts of kindness matter to people, and more importantly, happy people are more productive.
If you or anyone in your company deals in OKRs (Objectives and Key Results for the uninitiated) and you're trying to figure out how to craft them better, maybe think about why your Key Results Should Be Verbs, Not Nouns.