Onboarding
not much of onboarding experience
became lead within two month of joining team
one past lead was MIA, Megan needed help
lead documents were lot of admin stuff just passwords
directors at the time there wasn't a lot of support there
Conall was managing Icarus airframe at the time so transition went smoothly
Current onboarding process
lot of documents and admin things
Conall doing best to be around for the knowledge transfer, trying to explain things to PMs and junior leads as much as possible
pushing the culture of continually teaching
lead onboarding shouldn't be just one week, ongoing process of teaching leaders
Term
14 months (5 terms)
stream: 2 months onsite, 4 off, 4 on, 4 pseudo on
transition being offsite for first co-op was very tough bc not a lot of support structure
he couldn’t really step back
part of reason of stepping down is wants to pass off the time requirements over co-op
especially first co-op was a lot of time
Projects
lots of stuff is directly comp focused
scoping of Houston is pretty tough
eventually integration kind of becomes leads job
projects weren't poorly scoped it was more so people weren’t able to do the required leg work
didnt know how or weren’t willing to
lot of people tried to outsource critical thinking to leads
struggle to give people actual tasks
transition in mindset throughout being a lead
better defined projects and forcing people to critical think on it
spend time building up team to give people knowledge
alison, smile, etc
Meeting structure
widely shared frustration: fact people don't go to aeac syncs anoys people (including conall)
people dont read meeting mins, skip meetings, then they dont know anything
if u wanna drive (be a lead/pm) u have to read the map (go to meetings).
leads meetings broadly are fine
we don't drag things out so much anymore
ensuring things get time
occasionally we get into the weeds which is bad
leads is no longer an operations meeting which is good
no solutions on general meetings
same symptoms where people skip aeac meetings, people feel they dont rlly need to be there
now that general isnt about what details are happening, the aeac and leads meetings the leads feel like they need to be there to help
nobody had a hand in general made it feel less important
technical depth and duration for aeac sync
how to get people to show up
issue isn't breadth vs depth
team members should have a responsibility to attend
cant rlly change structure, need personal accountability
if subteam has a bunch of leads, some of them should attend aeac sync
Inter-subteam communication
gotten better over time
stronger directorship (people who know a bit about everything)
technical leadership has improved this not rlly meeting structure
Technical Direction of Mech / Growth and future pathways
are there enough technical people? yes
team is on a good path right now
current leads very strong, PMs very strong
maybe more of the broader skillset a gap is arising, more of a transition toward docu and knowledge transfer
New Members
bootcamper retention
wasn’t as strong as desired this fall,
was also overall on team not too strong
moving in right direction
net wise positive
team pitch
nebulous
Sysint Thoughts
not a problem lacking one
some integration from leads, some from directors
careful on Individual Reliance
part of goal is to build team, not just organization
want people to excel working with groups and people
transferring knowledge etc
Director-Lead interactions
start of term director syncs
avoid micro-managy stuff from directors
team has come a long way, common Conall W
final product this year is much better then in the past and strong team to keep it going !
General
Content
Integrations