My day begins
I get up early to take my son to school. After breakfast together, I drop him off at 8 a.m. and have an hour before I start my homework. I use this time to catch up on the news by reading the newspapers. Since I was a child, I was taught to read the newspapers, which used to be on paper, from back to front. Starting with a smile was the norm, as the back cover usually had jokes or comics. Then it was on to the sports section, especially news related to my favourite football team, and then it was on to the rest of the news.
At 9 a.m., punctually, we started the Daily Scrum meeting, as I am part of an agile IT development and implementation team. The Daily is a short meeting, but I remember how difficult it was at first to keep it short when we started with agile methodologies. We also faced challenges with virtual communication. Formal and authentic participation of all members was a very complicated process. Over the years, we have overcome these obstacles thanks to everyone’s commitment, which is reflected in the timeliness and interaction in the proposals. We all consider it a crucial moment to start the day and coordinate tasks. At the beginning, we perceived the Daily more as an obligation of the methodology than as a contribution to the organisation of the group. Over time, we have grown in the methodology.
My tools
During our 15-day sprint, we used a wide range of applications. It is difficult to number some of them, but without a doubt, the most important for us are the communication tools such as Teams and the whole Office 365 suite, from Outlook to SharePoint, to store and share documents that we generate with Visio to design the flows of our systems.
HADA is the most important project I am currently working on. For those who don’t know, it is the system we designed to diagnose problems in all the services offered by Telefónica Argentina, from voice telephony, FTTH, TV and mobile, with the various complexities involved in the variety of technologies offered by the company. Unifying the customer service of the different consultation channels entails a great challenge and complexity in the documentation and the ramification of all the variables.
I also consider it very important to be able to have all these tools in the cloud, as it allows us to be connected all the time via chat with our suppliers.
The best moment of my day
The best moment of my day, without a doubt, is when it ends and I realise that I have made progress on my commitments. It’s when I can relax and enjoy my family. Taking my son to football or having a cup of mate on my balcony with my partner are very special moments.
I don’t have many tricks to organise myself, as the demand of requirements changes from sprint to sprint. Sometimes the issues I have to deal with are simpler or within my knowledge, while others are more difficult and require me to learn new things, which sometimes takes me longer. Fortunately, I like challenges and learning new technologies.
In the beginning, concentrating on what I had to do was difficult due to the virtual nature of our work. Jumping from meeting to meeting was stressful, but the ‘focus time’ feature in Office 365 has really helped me focus on the tasks I need to complete.
In addition, the digital disconnect after working hours allows me to be fresh and focused the next day. This was another challenge of going virtual, but I recognise that the company was very helpful in making this possible.
