Wed Mar 24:
Don’t you hate it when you know precisely what you are looking for, but you can’t find it?
I gathered some short instructional MS Teams videos sometime last week but I am still looking for a nice infographic for instructions. There is so much info out there already, I thought I could just repurpose, but this may be taking more time than just doing a standard presentation myself, but I want it to look pretty, not just be functional. Anyway. I have my deadline, and it’s not in jeopardy just yet. I will give myself another half-day to find what I am looking for – if I don’t, then I will move on. I bellyache over the littlest things – it’s just some damn instructions. Why is this so hard? It’s hard cause I already have a picture in my head of what I want to see. Anyway, I started my plan B presentation already.
Both our Chief Architect and CTO showed up for our meeting today. My heart goes out to them but especially our CA. I feel like I can’t bridge the gap between different parts of the organization. There’s this deep pain I sensed from him, and just looking at him rubbing his head when speaking, he seems so bothered and stressed. Maybe he doesn’t feel heard, but I listen – Maybe I am not the listener he needs.
I think we had a candid conversation, and I believe our misunderstandings stem from my inability to understand him, like really understand the roots of his concerns, and explain things in a way he will understand. I told him before that I don’t expect him to change his workflow or the tools he uses to do his job, but it’s like in my push to advance the PMO, maybe he feels like I am taking over things that I shouldn’t. I do my best not to infringe on his area, because sometimes I fell like maybe that’s what he thinks I’m doing. I’m guessing all over the place but I told him:
- The stuff I am doing with Teams/Asana is specific to how I want the project office to run and how I’d like communications on projects to take place, internally and externally – I am not trying to dictate what everyone should/shouldn’t use across the org.
- Just like I know to visit Confluence and Jira to see what’s happening in Dev, anyone can come to Teams to see what’s happening in the PMO (and the beauty of the Asana/Teams integration is that you don’t have to leave teams to do your work in Asana – so technically ish you are just using Teams)
- If you haven’t heard anything about a project in a while – stop by
- If you have a project related question – stop by
- If you want to check the status of a project – stop by
- If you want to make an announcement related a project – stop by
- I’m bringing the information to you, in the hopes that you’d use it, but I can’t make you, but I also don’t want to hear you say you didn’t know what was happening. The whole point is to know and if you don’t know, ask!
- I don’t like when he says, “it’s none of my business” or “it’s not my decision.” If something is bothering you, let’s talk about it and figure it out and resolve it
I grab onto any common ground between the CA and me like I’m trying to save myself from drowning. lol. It’s quite pathetic, but I really want us to get along and I feel like there’s something I am missing. I tried to use concrete examples to show him that he doesn’t have to do his work outside of his standard tools.
Maybe our CA could use a long tight hug, and perhaps he needs to cry out all the past pain – my shoulder is available. Then we could get to work on making the future better for all. He shared his concerns with me on our European project, so I have some work to do. I know he cares, and I’d just like to see him happy. It feels like there are these deep emotional fissures in the organization, and I don’t have the expertise to close them. I will talk to my boss tomorrow during our 1:1.
My head hurts – whenever I try not to cry, that’s most likely when I need to. Too bad by proxy emotional release isn’t a thing – I could cry for everybody.
palmsupward.com 
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