A user manual on what it's like to work with me.
Great products solve real problems. Who better to tell you about those problems than your customers?
Don’t rely on superficial product comparisons. Pay attention to user behaviours and habits too.
Ideas are fleeting. Stay nimble and validate early. Don’t let perfection stand in the way of progress.
Do the work to understand data, its nuances, and how it’s being used to drive decisions and measure success.
Understand the boundaries of the environments you’re designing in, their gaps and opportunity areas.
When introducing new patterns, consider what you’re requiring the customer to learn. Aim for simplicity.
Subject matter experts are gold. Trust in their expertise and take every opportunity to learn from them.
Keep communication open and work cross-functionally. Diversity of ideas leads to better outcomes.
Avoid misunderstandings by aligning on what is expected, as early and clearly as possible.
It’s your responsibility to ensure your team has everything they need to do their best work.
Champion your best ideas by sharing them and educating others at both the team and company level.
It is healthy to have some disagreement. At a minimum, align and commit on the outcomes.
- My day starts at 8 AM. I am less talkative in the mornings.
- I spend the first half-hour catching up with emails and Slack messages.
- The start of the workday is at 8:30 AM and consists of standing meetings like stand ups and getting caught up.
- I prefer to conduct collaborative meetings in the first half of the day.
- I take an hour lunch around noon—if I remember.
- Focused work takes place in the afternoon.
- I end my workday at 6 PM.
Strengths
- I know a little about a lot of things and am enthusiastic to learn something new.
- I can adapt quickly to most situations so long as it is clear what changes are taking place.
- Empathy is the default for me, I always strive to understand different perspectives.
Weaknesses
- I can sometimes fall into overthinking traps, which can lead to decision paralysis.
- I do not adapt well to last-minute changes that aren’t well-communicated.
- I have a hard time speaking to large audiences. This is something I am working on.
- …goals are clear, and I have autonomy in executing the work.
- …I have opportunities to get a pulse on how I am doing.
- …I have a foundational understanding of what I am working on.
- …I can collaborate with others.
Receiving Feedback
- High-value feedback:
- Clear what the feedback is about.
- Actionable and realistic to act on.
- Delivered on a personal level (e.g. one-on-one in a meeting or async in an agreed upon space).
- Low-value feedback:
- Indirect or non-specific feedback on how I can improve.
- Attacks of character, accusations, and or assumptions.
- Delivered impersonally (e.g. somewhere we didn’t mutually agree on like a random public channel or randomly in a large meeting).
Giving Feedback
- I love helping others polish ideas—optimisations and improvements.
- If soliciting my feedback, if not otherwise stated, I will ask what is most useful.
- Unless otherwise stated, feedback will be delivered personally.
Synchronous
- Slack: Messages through Slack are the best way to get my attention. I treat Slack messages as synchronous (rarely asynchronous). If I cannot commit to actively participating, I’ll try my best to let you know when I will respond or schedule a time to follow up with you.
- Meetings: If something can’t be easily summarised in a written sentence, it’s easier for me to discuss it verbally. This is where I may ask for a Slack Huddle or Google Hangout.
Asynchronous
- Documents: Whether in Notion or Google Docs, if you have an idea and want to communicate it to me passively, send me a link to a document.
- Emails: This is the best way to communicate non-urgent things to me. I check emails first thing in the morning and sporadically throughout the day. Though, I am less reliable with checking my inbox later in the day.
Notes
- Recorded meetings are appreciated as I occasionally forget details. I prefer to record over taking notes because I prefer to stay focused on the conversation rather than on note-taking.
I am conflict-averse as a default. However, I won’t back down if I strongly believe in or care about something. Conflict is most likely to occur for me if I feel there is some sort of injustice or oversight happening.
I am likely to attempt to understand where you’re coming from rather than assert things I am assuming about you. When I ask a lot of questions, it's not meant as an attack, but as an attempt to understand.
Receiving
- I will always attempt to find an answer before asking a question.
- Clear and directive support is important to me.
Providing
- I am often the first to jump at the chance to support others in ways I know I can contribute meaningfully.
- I have a tendency to appear rigid about structuring communication or work. This is not because I’m a control freak, but because I need structure to get my work done. I am quite open to new ideas and ways of structuring things if it doesn’t work for others. But I need to be explicit about things.
- Empathy—I believe in putting myself in another person’s shoes regardless of my own experiences and ability to truly empathise. This often manifests as me asking a lot about your experiences or perceptions so I can understand where they are coming from.
- Reliability—Being reliable to others is important to me. I will try my best always to let you know if I cannot commit to something initially agreed upon ahead of time. On the flip side, I generally uphold others to this value as well. If in doubt, over communicate.
- Honesty—Dishonesty is probably the number one thing I try to avoid. I try to always come prepared with the most factual information I can.
- Food—I cook a lot at home. I went into culinary arts early at university, but later on decided on a different direction. That said, I love to talk about cooking techniques and enjoy sharing recipes.
- Traveling—I enjoy traveling to the remote corners of the world. I definitely won’t turn down an opportunity to go somewhere that is non-remote, so long as there are great experiences to be had.
- Reading—Primarily thick hefty fiction books in the SciFi, Fantasy, and Historical genres. Or any mix of those together. My favourite series are Wheel of Time (I’ve read 6 of the 15 books in the series so far) and anything related to Middle-Earth (Lord of the Rings) or Westeros / Old Valyria (Game of Thrones).
- Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)—The Giver, ENFJ-T though the TL;DR is…
- Extroverted ENFJs tend to be ambiverts, meaning we do not get energy from socialising like other extroverts do. We need time to recharge. However, when we have high energy or are interested in something we love to be involved and can be highly social.
- Intuitive
- Feeling
- Judging Judgement stems from the idea of anticipation and planning. We are less go with the flow, like our Perceiving counterparts.
- Turbulent The Turbulent aspect of ENFJs speaks to a perfectionist quality (which, can sometimes be unfortunate). We are always looking for ways to improve and fear making mistakes.
- Enneagram—Type 1 Wing 2, The Advocate
- Four Tendencies—Questioner