Daily Learning Blog Experiment Day 2

I began this experiment on a Friday and already I've skipped the weekend. I did still learn a few things this weekend but somehow I wanted a real weekend off for a change. Should weekends count for this experiment? I haven't decided yet, let's see how next weekend (the first sans kids) feels like.

Tomorrow, I send my 16yo daughter off to Japan for a semester abroad. She's wrapping up the final final packing check now, I must confess my mind is rather distracted. On my nightly walk with my wife we were reflecting just how crazy this summer was:

• We both began new jobs, me as CPO of a very early stage startup and she began her post-surgeon coaching career, having retired from her clinical practice

• We almost didn't make it, with the number of huge transitions, my wife and I got vulnerable and raw. There was a 'thermonuclear incident' as she puts it. However, we started having weekly relationship check-ins and recovered from a near break-up, it looks like we will make it to 20 years of marriage and are back on a solid foundation after a couple rocky months.

• Both kids are leaving the house within the span of a week

If anything, the lesson for the summer is that sometimes the universe just likes to have a good laugh as it teaches us to grow.

So, what did I learn today?

While leading sprint my co-founder asked me 'so, what's the theme of this sprint?' A great question, and it took me a moment to answer. Fortunately there actually was a theme that I had thought through but in my final preparations I got myself somewhat lost in the details.

It's just too easy to get lost in the details.

My takeaway today is that I need to make it easier and more visible to actually see the sprint theme, now I just need to figure out what that means without wasting hours on tooling to make it happen :).

In my day 1 entry I learned that I need to feel more prepared so that the team can feel more prepared. Staying up till 2 am is all well and good but it doesn't give anyone else any time to reflect on the work, or the strategic direction.

Following on that lesson, today I was reminded that every sprint/lane needs to have a clearly articulated theme. This helps the team feel like we are making headway and making a real impact. After all, if I can get lost in the details, the rest of the team surely will follow suit, it's up to me to be mindful of this.