On taking notes
Taking notes, especially during meetings, is a VERY easy way to create value, and help save your future self from potential challenges.
I've found myself to be a compulsive note taker. Every meeting I'm I. I'm constantly writing down the topics, what was said and follow ups. If I'm being honest this started when I almost fell asleep in a VERY exciting meeting about the chart of accounts... Regardless of how it started though, it's been a very handy compulsion.
It keeps me engaged
This compulsion started as a way to keep me engaged in the discussion. In order to write down what was going on I had to pay attention. Paying attention meant I had opportunities to be involved in the discussion.
Over time this engagement helped me pick up a lot of new ideas and skills. Simply by being involved in the meetings I learned more about the topics being discussed. Over time, this has helped me understand complex deployments, foreign concepts and new areas of the business. At the very least it demonstrated to my team that I was present and involved.
It provides instant value
Recording notes is an incredibly easy way to show you're creating value. Suddenly you go from being just another person in the meeting, to the person in the meeting who actually knows what happened. After joining a new team I constantly hear I'm providing value quickly.... Just by taking notes. Honestly I find this a bit funny since all I'm doing is writing things down, but it's a real easy win.
It covers your (you get the idea)
Having a stockpile of notes is a great way to cover yourself if you need to. Being able to go back and determine when a decision was made, or when a topic first came up is very powerful. Personally I've used this many many times to remind folks of what we had discussed... And in a few places averted major escalations by proving a point.
Sometimes it's not a stakeholder I need cover from... by myself. Sometimes (ok, many times) my memory feels like swiss cheese... I'm constantly going back to review what we went over, if only to ensure I make the best decision. Having my stockpile of notes gives me an incredible resource to rely on to help me make better decisions.
Short Bite - Get it done
One of the craziest things I’ve done to keep a project deadline was an overnight Seattle -> Portland roundtrip to upload a database… nothing like sleeping on the floor of your office while a script runs to get the blood pumping.
Backing up entire systems is a very data-intensive process. Not only does it involve moving a ton of data, it requires specific timing in terms of jobs, processes and systems to ensure it is done correctly. Even with dedicated data lines, this process can take hours, or sometimes days, which in general is OK. I, however, found myself in a situation where we had to get a copy of our database from Seattle to Portland by 8am the next day.. And it was already 4pm.
The Problem
We had two data centers that mirrored each other, one in Portland, and another in Seattle. This is a common setup for data centers since it allows for fault tolerance in case one goes offline, and can help provide faster speeds depending on which one you’re closer to. We had just completed a big update in Seattle data center, and needed that update to also be made in Portland. These updates were critical to the success of the project, and due to some (I’m sure very important) technical reasons both data centers had to be up to date. One option was to do this “over the wire”, that is copy/paste the information over the internet. This was the simplest method, however, also the most time-intensive. This was an incredibly large update, and despite having a dedicated line between our data centers estimates ranged from 12-48 hours to complete the update. Unfortunately this delay would break out deployment schedule.
The Solution
Someone pointed out that driving from Portland to Seattle only took about (a very boring) 3 hours, which was a LOT faster than going over the wire. We hatched a plan to copy the updates to a laptop, drive them down to Portland and perform the update overnight. (Despite advances in wifi and internet speeds using the “sneaker net”, or physically walking data from point A to point B is still the fastest way to move data).
Wanting to ensure others on the team could focus on their work (and also to maybe get some quality alone time), I volunteered to be the courier. After quickly downloading some new music I was handed a laptop and a list of commands to run when I got to the Portland datacenter. After a (very boring) 3 hour drive (Protip : bring more than 2 CDs), I plugged into the Portland datacenter and took a nap while the updates ran.
A few hours, and one massive update later, I drove back to Seattle.. Where I promptly crashed in my hotel room for a few hours.
The Takeaway
Ideally projects do not present situations where extreme solutions like driving all throughout the night are needed. Ideally.
When those situations are encountered, however, it’s always a good idea to get the team together to brainstorm. See what possible solutions you can come up with (no matter how insane they sound), and then pare them down to what’s possible given your requirements. In this case, we HAD to have the update live the next day, so that ruled out some options. It was also possible to safely use the sneaker net to make the update happen (e.g. I didn’t have to break all the speed limits).
Plus, sometimes you’ll get a great story out of it.