# Julia Anderson's Manager Readme

**Sr. Program Manager at ActiveCampaign**

# Motivation for this document

This is a quick introduction to me as a manager. You'll get individualized onboarding material, but this is a first step in setting expectations and answering some questions. We will be spending lots more time and energy getting to know each other more organically. And especially in this COVID-19 world, I‘d like to really emphasize relationship building. You can let me know about any specific needs or preferences during our 1:1 or shared in a doc ahead of time.

# A bit about me

I'm Julia and I'm your friendly neighborhood cat herder, to do list nudger, tracker of things, and Mari Kondo of sorts, always asking, "what here brings us value?". I've been at ActiveCampaign for 3 years (July 2018) which feels like the equivalent of 6 years because it just. moves. so. fast. here! 

Prior to ActiveCampaign I worked at Mobiquity which gave me experience project managing a wide range of professional service solutions for customers like IHG, Bain, The Weather Channel, Chik-Fil-A, and Taco Bell. There's nothing like a Jira ticket reporting the inability to choose sour cream for a crunch wrap supreme. 

Before Mobiquity, I worked at a scrappy startup called Grooveshark, from which I have many stories to tell if you buy me a martini. At Grooveshark I got to cut my teeth on a lot of different roles (QA, Email Marketing, Usability Testing, Project Management) and see what worked best for me. Before Grooveshark I was a Web and Print Designer providing customers materials from logo, to political postcards, to html email templates, to websites on a CMS. 

I tell you all of this because I think it gave me valuable perspective on many facets of how groups of people can work together to provide a valuable and delightful product. 

**If you want to talk about non-work things,** I enjoy a good silly TV series (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Kim's Convenience, Bob's Burgers, The Good Place). I rotate reading fantasy fiction, mysteries, memoirs, and work-oriented non-fiction which I obsessively track towards my yearly goal in [goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/juliaandherfun). I'm a sucker for karaoke and often organize groups of around 20 ACer's (#topic-karaoke) to takeover my favorite spot, Brando's, on a Friday night after work.

//www.youtube.com/embed/KUn1hB6xlXk

# 

# Leadership Philosophy

My goal is to make you the best PM possible. I try to do that primarily by providing coaching, context and air-cover. And as much as possible trying to make work fun and a bit more human.

I believe in doing things end-to-end. Meaning if there's something that is hindering you, I'll try to help even if it technically falls in another domain or I will assist you in making connections that will help. It is how I think PMs should lead their teams so it is how I try to lead mine.

Depending on the situation, I might take a hands-on, collaborative approach or a coaching approach where I'm trying to let you come to your own conclusions.

# My job around here

Currently I'm Program Managing all of T&P's planning in half-year segments. We recently developed our own planning framework that we call ActivePriorities. I'm constantly looking for the balance between maturing our planning practices, aligning to deliver customer value, and keeping our teams agile. I will often jump into a project or team problem area to provide consultation, mediation, organization, whatever is needed to get it past it's obstacles. I want the best for my coworkers and am constantly looking for ways to help them and showcase their great work.

**Things I look forward to getting better at: **

- How to be a great leader
- How to set and drive a vision
- Value stream mapping
- Leveraging Jellyfish to gain insights
- How to set OKRs and generally be more metrics driven  

# What do I value most?

- **Honesty and Clear Communication: ** I prefer to bring my full authentic self to work and I want that for my coworkers. I'm a very straight forward person and I struggle when people 'beat around the bush'. I find that there's too much left for interpretation and it makes me anxious. ** **
- **Conflict Resolution: ** If I do something that annoys you or offends you, I want you to tell me as soon as you feel comfortable! I promise to take your feedback and process it. 
- **Collaboration: ** Everyone has unique experiences and knowledge to share. Our work gets better the more we help each other and share ideas. Honestly, it's also just easier to think of new ideas when you're on the outside looking in so I love to provide that for each other. Getting help is important to maintaining our fast pace and scale. Helping me looks like reviewing my work when I post asking for review and providing feedback and new ideas.
- **Iterate everything, always: ** I would rather collaborate with you on a work in progress than have you stare at a blank page for hours. If I have a side initiative, I will often start a doc that I throw materials into over months at a time. Iterating gives you that fresh perspective of walking away from a work of art and coming back the next day to see what really sticks out to you.

# My Expectations

- **My availability: **
  - I'm generally online 9AM - 4PM CST.
  - Please feel free to put time on my calendar whenever I have openings if you need to discuss something. 
  - If you slack me I'll usually get back to you within between 2seconds and 20mins during work hours. I'm happy to jump on a slack 'huddle' or video call to work through something.

- **Your availability:**  

  - Core hours 10am - 3pm where you are online and your slack status shows you are active.
  - If you are unable to join a scheduled call, update the google calendar event RSVP with a note and propose a new time if it’s our 1:1.
  - If you have an internet outage or other emergency, send a quite slack or email to let me know via your phone or another internet option.
  - If you have PTO or will need to be unavailable during the work day, block that time on your calendar as much as 2 weeks ahead if you are able.

- **Definition of Done: ** I consider a work item done when it has been documented, communicated, and _socialized_ for posterity. I like to close topics out so we're moving on to bigger and better problems!c.)

# 1:1s

I like weekly 1:1s but I'm happy to meet as often as someone needs to get up to speed or through an issue. I like for whoever I'm meeting with to be prepared to share a concise update about what you're working on, what your challenges are, and any other topics that have been on your mind lately. In our 1:1 our focus will be making sure we're aligned in goals and expectations, and making sure you are set up for success. 

# Personality quirks

- Due to my background as a Designer, I'm really nit-picky about formatting. Often coworkers will share a doc or sheet with me for content review and I can't help myself but to... freeze the header row and implement alternating colors on the following rows, in the first 5 seconds of looking at it.
- Software nerrrrrrd
  - It makes me feel really validated when people emoji react my slack posts and less like I'm just posting to the ether. 
  - I'm a huge Confluence fan and I want to see all things documented or shared there. Workshop in Google docs or sheets but it makes me really happy when the finished product is in an easy-to-find and well-formatted Confluence page. 
  - Zoom is a better experience than Google Meets and I'm always happier to meet there.
  - I \*love\* finding and sharing more efficient and 'pro-tip' ways to use the various softwares I leverage regularly in my work. I maintain connections with our Atlasssian and Slack reps and share and monitor the #help-jira, #help-confluence, and #help-slack channels.  

# 

# Where to focus on your first 90 days?

In your first 90 days ask all the questions, even the ones that you think are dumb. Due to your fresh perspective and unique experiences, onboarding new people is always an opportunity to understand where we might be doing something confusing or weird. I love to learn from your questions and observations.

Effective onboarding for my team looks like you feeling confident in your priorities, roadmap, and the ability to think of new ideas for how we're working. In the first 30 days, you're doing a good job if you are acting as information sponge by interviewing all the roles around you to understand our shared goals, motivations, and areas of need.