The Imperfect Tense: Week Notes

s01e02

Vicky Price — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 14:24:56 GMT

TL;DR:

Week two at Microsoft. Another week of training, certification-hunting, a brief glimpse of the new role.

[Week ending: 25/08/2023]

Intro:

A reminder of the background to what week notes are, the why of weeknotes and how to go about writing week notes.

Who did I connect with?

Meeting on Tuesday with an acute trust at the initial stages of engagement. An opportunity to observe Miro and Danish working through the project kick off stage and ask questions. Great to have an opportunity to see what sort of work I will be doing and to get a feel for some of the issues / challenges NHS organisations might have around adoption.

Regular contact with Kevin, as I work through the induction programme. Also an opportunity to meet some of the wider Fast Track team as I joined a couple of update and training calls. It was also great to talk to another FT colleague, Sam, who reached out at the start of the week. Onboarding can be a little solitary and having opportunities to catch up with other members of the team is really helpful.

What did you learn?

Loads and loads and loads. At the risk of coming over all Lego Movie, it’s been awesome. Learning time is so difficult to prioritise when you are immersed in delivery. I am very grateful for this up-front protected time that is giving me so much opportunity to learn new things and (perhaps more importantly) consolidate existing knowledge)

I have mainly been following the MS-900 and SC-900 learning paths, with some specific learning around OneDrive and the Advance Deployment Guides. And the mandatory FT Security training. Which really was awesome. And I learnt:

How to manage the security risk of sharing a BYOD device you use to access corporate data with other family member (hint: don’t do it)
How to spot a phish (and how we can make that easier for end users with tools to identify risks in Outlook)
Breach reporting - why it matters and how to do it

What did you enjoy?

Well, I was impressed by the Netflix-style Trust Code mini-series but that was topped by the security all hands training. There are some creative people developing training here: security training that was clever, funny, engaging and effective.

Badges always make me happy, so ending the week with an accreditation was rather pleasing.

What did you achieve?

Completed MS-900 and SC-900 learning paths
Passed the MS-900 exam (see my MS certified achievement here).

What are you looking forward to next week?

Technical training (sitting the SC-900 next Thursday)
Fast Track Academy - an opportunity to learn in a classroom setting alongside new colleagues).
Making more connections and continuing to learn.

What do I need to think about?

A repeat of last week, really.

Understand more about how the migration programme I will be joining currently works.
Get a deeper understanding of how Fast Track works. I am here to do a fairly specific job with a particular client, but I want to make sure I understand the wider business.
Technical foundations. Continue my badge acquisition with more work around security.

Interesting Stuff read/consumed

Sorry - the security all hands presentation is MS internal. But it really deserves the widest possible audience.

Books finished this week:

Fiction:

No progress on A Change of Climate. Instead, I started another easily digested mystery series. And a Christie re-read where I had genuinely forgotten whodunit. I think my tidy murder phase might last a wee bit longer.

Out of Print

Murderous Misprint

Dead Man’s Folly

Non-Fiction:

Microsoft 365 Certified Fundementals

Currently Reading:

Fiction

Crimes of Cymru

A Change of Climate

Non-Fiction

Northerners: A History

s01e01

Vicky Price — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 10:24:40 GMT

TL;DR:

Started new role at Microsoft. A week of onboarding, training, IT kit-wrangling, introductions, new starts, good intentions. Started week notes.

[Week ending: 18/08/2023]

Intro:

Having started a new role this week as a Fast Track Manager at Microsoft, I thought I would start a new habit (nicked from the example of Andy Callow, CDIO at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, where I was working previously) of closing the week with week notes. Mainly personal discipline for me, but published for accountability and openness.

See these links for background to what week notes are, the why of weeknotes and how to go about writing week notes.

Who did I connect with?

First day on site at TVP in Reading. Met Kevin, my very supportive manager, Danny from Experis (responsible for recruitment / ongoing contract management), Miro (FT Engineer on the project I will be assigned to), Kamal (Program Manager) and Tony (FT Manager for EMEA).

Later in the week Miro facilitated a meet up with the rest of the project team: Kat (tennis), David (racing cars - a rebuilding them after the inevitable on / off track destruction) and Paul (cricket umpire). Items in brackets what I remember from our discussion of our interests out of work interests. Plus I met Danish Mahmood, from NHS England.

I also met with Cecilia and German, fellow Fast Track project managers, who inducted me into the mysteries of FTOP (internal Fast Track project management system).

It wasn’t really on my induction plan, but I spent plenty of time chatting to the Experis IT support team as we tried to get my laptop updated and configured as it needed to be. It was a saga that ran all week…

What did you learn?

So much!

How to troubleshoot a stalling windows 11 install (not successfully, I ended up having a replacement laptop shipped!).
How to join a device to AAD (pretty easy, provided the device is compliant)
How to register my personal devices in Company Portal
My account password (entered so many times this week as my various system access requests were confirmed
The importance of the Trust model for Microsoft. Essential in an organisation that stores and processes customer data at scale.
Lots about data security, privacy and compliance
What is the Fast Track service offer and how do customers engage with the service.

What did you enjoy?

Surprised by how much I enjoyed much of the training, particularly Trust Code, the Microsoft Netflix-style mini-series about standards of business conduct. Only Season 6 was mandatory, but I am binging the previous seasons anyway as the narrative has sucked me in! I remember one of the first bits of corporate training I did was as a graduate trainee at Glasgow University library, where we were obliged to watch John Cleese showing us how to achieve better customer service. This recent example of the corporate training producers’ art shows how much we have progressed since then!

Format aside, much of my training this week has focused on values and behaviour. I am pleased by how much resonates. Organisational culture always matters.

What did you achieve?

Met new colleagues
Got a working, properly configured, laptop!
Filled in my timesheet - I will get paid!
Completed mandatory security training
Discovered the Microsoft library and borrowed three books!

What are you looking forward to next week?

Technical training (working towards MS-900)
Sitting in on a couple of client calls, so I can start to get a feel for how the project is currently operating.
Working from a properly set up home workstation (monitor input adapter arrived Friday afternoon and I could finally connect my laptop to my monitors. I ended the week with a DSE compliant workstation, which is great news for my back).
Making more connections and continuing to learn.

What do I need to think about?

Understand more about how the migration programme I will be joining currently works. I am fizzing with ideas (particularly around how we identify and overcome barriers to uptake), but am aware this is a project in flight, so want to ensure I baseline current processes and understand risks, issues and constraints first.

Get a deeper understanding of how Fast Track works. I am here to do a fairly specific job with a particular client, but I want to make sure I understand the wider business.

Technical foundations. My M365 knowledge is largely experiential. I have an opportunity to learn more about areas of the Modern Workplace product suite I have used less frequently. This is a great opportunity and I want to make the best of it (and acquire badges!).

Interesting Stuff read/consumed

Loads, but all Microsoft internal, so no links here.

Books finished this week:

This section is a direct lift from Andy’s week notes format. But don’t expect erudition.

A few years ago I noticed my reading habits had shifted and I wasn’t reading so much for pleasure and relaxation. So I set myself a stretch target in the Good Reads annual reading challenge, with a promise that quality doesn’t matter, as much a making reading, once again, my default way of unwinding. That, along with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, means my reading matter is generally light and easily consumed. And, once I find a series, I am a completist.

Fiction:

The Secret of the Scarab

Trouble on a Country Lane

I am at the end of Lady Caroline’s currently available sleuthing adventures. Faux golden age. Variable quality, but has put me in the mood for some real golden age next.