A very Merry Saturday
August 9th, 2008 | by admin | 103 views
Today we are off on our annual visit to the Globe Theatre.
This time around, its just sdf, jeanyjean and me and we’re seeing The Merry Wives of Windsor. I have no idea what the play is about, but if nothing else, it will be a great opportunity for some reflection on the week that was. And another opportunity to visit Borough market for lunch. And get drenched.
Ironically, I’m grateful that I haven’t been too busy in my first week at M & S as I’ve felt crap. Its been a struggle just to get in and back each day and keep going. By rights I probably should have been home in bed with some dvd’s and loads of lemsips. Oh well - character building, as Hec would say. Not sure sitting in the rain today is a good idea.
Despite that, I have managed to identify some quick wins already at work and to get verbal buy-in for them.
My manager has agreed to me sorting out instant messaging for our eCommerce team and internal stakeholders (I think its around 100 people or so, split over two sites). And I’ve helped various M & S stakeholders to understand the concept of project wikis and how they might help with comms with Amazon and reduce reliance on email. Amazon, as you might expect, already use them with other customers so I just need to work through how we can also get started with using them.
The great news about this is that everyone so far that I’ve spoken to within M & S is up for the changes I’ve suggested, and my manager seems really hands-on and determined to make things happen. This is so important to me because there’s no point coming up with ideas for improvements if I can’t get them through.
M & S as an organisation seems really good. OK, so I’ve had to raise 4 help desk calls so far to sort out my laptop and its locked down so I can’t install firefox - but what’s new? I’m sure there’s a module on some IT Administrator course which is all about how to make people’s jobs more difficult under the guise of “ensuring security”. Its annoying, but I’ve discovered a way around it already if need be. I just need to take my own laptop into work when I want to use firefox or other apps that aren’t on my M & S machine.
The other good thing I’ve noticed is the number of women in senior positions within IT in M & S . e.g. the Development manager, the Support manager, the Testing manager (and my line manager) are all women. So much for IT being dominated by men.
Its really good as I think women are better suited to IT management roles, given our ability to multitask and our better people management and comms skills. All the softer skills stuff, which is really what IT management is about. Men may be better technically, but that’s not what’s needed for those sorts of jobs. OK, I know I’m generalising but trust me - for every man you can point out who can do a good IT management role, I can point to two women.
I expect to start to become busy next week as I pick up a few projects to work on. Let’s just hope I have the energy to get stuck into them.
