30 Days of Team-Building: Week 3 Update
Of my own accord, I independently created these project pieces to test my professional skills and expand my knowledge and experience. I was not hired or paid to complete this work.
I am nearing the finish line of my month-long effort creating the building blocks to recruit, retain, and empower a solid team for Temple Coffee Roasters.
The third week involved researching and designing my favorite components of this process: identifying quality people and empowering them to do their best work.
In my research, I came across this quote that is still resonating:
“Great leaders would never sacrifice the people to save the numbers. They would sooner sacrifice the numbers to save the people.”
WHAT I TACKLED THIS WEEK
This week, I:
Dove headfirst into researching Behavioral Interviewing Techniques and intelligent recruitment strategies to incorporate into my next project pieces
With those findings, I created and designed a Standard Operating Procedure for the interview process
I researched employee retainment and empowerment dynamics in the workplace
With that research, I created and designed a Standard Operating Procedure for monthly check in’s and goal-setting
I filmed a time-lapse video walking through how I used Piktochart to create engaging visuals to house my SOPs
I filmed a walk-through of the features I love most in Piktochart
I filmed a second latte art video demonstrating how to pour a rosetta (see it below!)
I wrote: "Decode and Reduce Turnover with Speed Reading” where I argue that with a more psychology-based approach, hiring managers can choose the best candidate out the gate and avoid employee turnover down the road
SPEED BUMPS
The biggest speed bump I encountered this week was difficulty in time-lapsing my Piktochart design video.
My computer storage kept capping out with the the lengthy screen-capture I was attempting to record, making it time-consuming to then move the big file elsewhere, return to designing, and then piece together the broken segments later.
In addition, it took some storage maneuvering when I didn’t have enough space on my computer to download iMovie in order to time-lapse my screen-capture. I pivoted then to re-downloading the iMovie app on my iPhone, moving the pieces of the video to my phone and then applying the time-lapse effect from there.
The app only allowed me to quicken the 40-minute video by 2-speed which gave me a 20-minute video in duration. I wouldn’t watch a time-lapse that long, so I didn’t expect anyone else to.
My goal was to create a video of 5 minutes or less, so I repeated the time-lapse process 2 more times.
I time-lapsed my edited video. 20 minutes became 10. I time-lapsed it again. 10 minutes became 5.
Downloading, editing, exporting, uploading, re-editing in multiple waves ate up a chunk of my work time. I didn’t anticipate this step in the process to involve that many layers of editing, so I switched gears as I waited for things to export and load.
I made the most of my waiting time by researching for my blog post: "Decode and Reduce Turnover with Speed Reading” as my phone worked to process the videos. In the unanticipated speed bump, I worked to use the “pause time” to my advantage.
WHERE THINGS RAN SMOOTHLY
This week I learned something vital about the way my brain likes to work: I am at my most efficient when given space to dive deep into research and let the overflow of what I learn spill into what I create.
Before this week, I pressured myself into limiting my research time in an attempt to move on to the “building portion” of my project blocks as quickly as possible. In an effort to have ample time to receive feedback, I rushed the preliminary steps and in retrospect, I see now how that was to my detriment.
Even with the rushed approach, I was still able to create substantial project pieces. However, I ended up having to do additional research as I worked, realizing holes in what I was creating. Switching back and forth between researching, outlining, and designing wasn’t efficient and it felt like a creative fight.
Swapping that approach with one that allowed my curiosity to determine the direction of my research and giving myself time to outline the steps of the project’s layers, served me much better. It actually cut down the “creation stage” I was previously hurrying to get to. I simply created the final product out of what I had internalized in my research and it came about more fluidly.
This made for a much more seamless mindset as I worked.
3 WEEKS DOWN, 1 TO GO
I’m looking forward to moving into the homestretch of this month-long project, proud of what I’ve created thus far!
I had planned to keep my workload a few days ahead in order to have a buffer week for finishing any last-minute portions, to polish the previous week’s deliverables, and add final touches. It looks like I’m on track to enjoy that time to tweak and enhance what I’ve built.
Until we meet again at the finish line!