Multiple Hats
It’s been a while since I’ve written on here, and I wish it hasn’t been so long. I used to be really active with keeping this site up to date with what’s going on with me, but I’ve been failing at that lately. But, not without reason.
The second phase of the project I am on at Microsoft is in the Planning phase and I’ve been working hard on the deliverables that I have coming up. When this phase started back in January, my role was Sr. Analyst. As time came on and the landscape of the project changed, it was decided that it would be better for me to take on the role of Test Lead. In the interim, I would play both roles. I would be the subject matter expert on the second phase until we could get some more Business Analysts on the team to help with the workload that up until that point was all mine.
As folks came onto the project, my role changed. I began to transfer my knwoledge to them and began to focus more of my time on testing. While more time was increasing the total time spent from zero to somewhere in the neighborhood of eight hours per week. It was more than nothing, and we needed to start setting dates and deliverables for testing.
Near the end of March, Jamie and I went on vacation to Washington D.C. I’ve been hoping to have all of my pictures online, but I’ve only been able to find the time to get two days worth of photos on Flickr. But, after I came back, I was no longer the Sr. Analyst, but the Test Lead for the project. Now, my time was spent figuring out when I needed resources (e.g., peoples) on my team. I also needed to re-evaluate the deliverables that I have been set to deliver to our client.
On top of this, I am spending 50% of my time helping one of our developers write a functional specification. It wasn’t going too bad until he turned in his two weeks. But, he’s been really great in getting the specification comepleted and that has left me with spending less than 50% of my time on this spec. Coming this week, he’ll be leaving and I’ll be responsible for this document. So, I’m thinking that I’ll be spending more time with this document in the upcoming weeks.
That will probably mean more working on the weekends, but I’m OK with that. I don’t mind working on the weekends as long as I have someing constructive to work on. I’ve been having documents to edit and review and the time I’ve been spending has been really productive. So, I don’t mind the weekend time. I plan around it, but I try to find a time where it will have the smallest impact on my weekend. It hasn’t been a problem so far, but I’ll take every weekend as it comes.
On top of it all, I got promoted, effective April 1st, so that’s good news. It wasn’t a real shocker to me, I’ve been working really hard the past year. That’s not to say it’s not nice to get it! But, yea… yay me! Here’s to Monday, and maybe another 6 day work week? Who knows?!
