Trends and requirements needed in today’s workforce
- 1. Trends and Requirements needed in Today’s Workforce Scott Russell
- 2. Agenda ● Remote meetings ● Ways of Working ● Recurring Problems ● How to do this @Home ○
- 4. What to expect ● Introductions ● Notes will be taken, introduced ● Meetings may be recorded(forever) ● People will ask you questions ● Laughing with you colleagues is normal ● Generally someone will present slides or video ● Breakout rooms might be offered, or used ● You may be asked to present ● You may be asked to accept an action, or activity ● You may be asked to keep meeting timings ● You may have to “stand in” for a colleague ● You may have to share a whiteboard, and participate in exercises online
- 5. Basic Equipment ● Preferred: A laptop with a camera and a microphone ● Minimum: A phone will do the same, but….. Really hard to see a slide that is being shared on a phone ● Ideally add: Earphones, with a microphone and cable if possible(this is for your guests in either your house or your office, don’t be a noisy neighbour/partner) ● Keep your setup simple(less to go wrong) ● Audio is the most important thing. ● A bottle of water, to keep your throat from drying out
- 6. Recommendations for maximum involvement
- 7. Improvements for reliability & ease of use ● A network cable connected from laptop to modem ● A cable modem, if available(ie avoid wifi if possible) ● Keep a phone handy, and the local dial up numbers for the current meeting(so you have a backup plan if the internet fails locally) ● Keep laptop power cable plugged in always(glue it) ● Use a second monitor(bigger = better) ● Wired gaming headsets, tend to be very good value and sound quality
- 8. Backup the backups ● A spare network cable ● Charged batteries for any equipment ● An old computer or laptop or phone(all fully charged) ● local dial up numbers for the current meeting(so you can phone in using the phone network - have a backup plan if the internet fails locally) ● An old wifi access point(working) ● Another phone(your partners), already paired to your laptop to allow backup internet access ● A nearby coffee shop with good wifi ● A nearby neighbour, who will let you share their wifi, electricity, network connection temporarily ● Spare earphone/microphone
- 9. Things to avoid(shiny shiny) ● Bluetooth headphones ● Wireless headphones with batteries ● microphones with batteries ● Loud background noise ● Moving cars ● Expensive microphones with lots of boxes(failure points) between you and the computer ● A home studio, beware the setup costs (every day/time) ● External cameras ● OBS Open Broadcast studio ● Expensive 4K cameras, most video is 720P or 1080p at best ● Expensive lenses for your camera (but you look great!) ● All your dirty washing in the background ● Your partner coming out of the shower (across the hallway) ● Coffee shops
- 10. Etiquette ● If recording, ask permission from attendees(recording of meeting is “normal” and often necessary(perhaps legal regulations, or customer requirements)) ● Turn Cameras On. Set the example for others to follow ● Mute yourself just after the meeting leader starts to speak ● Keep your camera on so others will notice you speaking whilst on mute(and hopefully tell you to unmute - most used feature of cameras) ● Take notes. These will help when you look back, before the next meeting ● Open the attendee list and take a screenshot, or note the attendees, or even better set the meeting to email you the attendee list ● Take note of people’s titles during introductions. Know your audience! ● Keep your background “free of clutter” ie your family washing should not be on display. Your family should not be walking around in the background( ie exiting the shower ). ● Be respectful of others ● Ensure you have your avatar in every tool that you use. Preferably the same avatar ● Stay in the same technology stack as much as possible ● Be aware of other people’s Timezones, and book accordingly ● Use other “side channels” to communicate to colleagues during meetings, really helps
- 12. Working agreements ● How shall we communicate? ● How shall we share text documents? ● How shall we share binary documents? ● How shall we work on shared documents? ● Emergency contacts ● How do we approach timekeeping? ● Where do we store source code? ● Where is our “source of truth” ● Reduce the “friction” in any processes ● How to handle confidentiality? ● Use a Wiki ● Set Up a community
- 13. Agile teams ● Know the agile ceremonies ○ Standups ○ Refinement sessions ○ Sprint planning ○ Demos ○ Retrospectives ● Know the agile manifesto ○ Values ○ #12 principles ● Pair programming ○ It is not just programming, it is how to learn from others
- 15. Oh Nooooes ● The meeting leader may not turn up, you might have to stand in (Hint: don’t cancel the meeting. A lot of people turned up for the meeting, the attendees will be sympathetic(“mostly”)) ● Frozen screen - try turning your video off ● Broken audio ○ try turning your video off ○ Try turning incoming video off ● Unable to connect to conference ○ Restart browser ○ Restart PC/Laptop ● No sound ○ Are your earphones connected ○ Do you have a previous meeting still running? ○ Have you allowed the browser to access your speakers or earphones ○ Is no-one speaking at this moment? Ask a question in the conference ○ Open conference chat and ask if anyone else has a no sound issue? ○ Try dialing in to the local number for the conference by “telephone” ● No Video ○ Is your camera on? ○ Is your camera cover on? ○ Have you selected to turn the camera off in the conference? ○ Check security permissions for camera access in the browser, the OS ● 2nd PC/phone ○ Have either a another PC or a second phone, so you can dial in, or join the meeting from that phone ● 2nd browser ○ Use chrome, edge, firefox or safari to see if you can connect via another browser
- 16. Issues with Enterprise grade software ● Online Cross organisation sharing does not always work with Microsoft(eg whiteboards, other org people accessing breakout rooms, no office 365 license, unable to arrange a teams meeting without o365 license) - High Friction! ● Online Cross organisation sharing with Google(whiteboards are problematic across orgs, or without a google account) - Friction for sure. ● Zoom just generally works - Low friction ● Miro is good for whiteboards across organisations(paid accounts can invite 24hour guests up to a limit) - Low friction
- 17. How to do this @Home
- 18. Some simple things to try ● Make an Agenda for an upcoming meeting ● Practice with a friend on a video call ● Prepare how to introduce yourself ● Add agenda to the calendar invite ● Prepare 30 mins before the meeting ○ Video on ○ mic working ○ agenda read through ○ Test video/mic working ○ Check batteries ● Assign a facilitator, Note taker if possible ● Always save time to discuss and assign actions ● Ask questions from named individuals(they always respond if asked by name) ● Practice, practice, practice ● Test how you look on camera ● Have fun, trying to identify the background of your friends camera shot (what exactly did they have for breakfast, and are they wearing trousers?) ● Mute everyone on the call and see how long it takes for the other person to realise or recover ● Setup a whiteboard and share it with your colleagues, can they access it?
- 19. Homework ● Read the agile manifesto ● Read the 12 principles of Agile software (and debate them with friends) ● Read the 15th state of Agile report ● Attend an Agile meetup ● Avoid waterfall(that would be funny, were it not Agile…….)
- 20. Thanks to all of you for making it this far….. Contact Scott.russell@Nordcloud.com