Presentation: When Work Doesn’t Fit the Mold, a Chief of Staff Steps In

Originally presented at Support Driven Leadership Summit 2023 Oakland.

Abstract

When you have a lot of work that doesn’t clearly fit into the organization chart reporting lines, a Chief of Staff may be the right person to help better execute on cross-team collaboration and your strategic vision.

In any department, team and individual responsibilities are typically defined and scoped. What happens when work doesn’t fit that scope or crosses lines in messy ways? It often falls to the head of a department, but a single person only has so much time and already has a stack of other problems. While a “Chief of Staff” is often used to describe someone reporting to an executive, whatever the title you choose for your cross-team collaboration leader, having an individual in such a role can improve efficiency, and strategic planning and execution. We’ll briefly talk about what a Chief of Staff is, how we’ve used Chief of Staff at GitLab, and how it can apply to your support organization. Continue reading “Presentation: When Work Doesn’t Fit the Mold, a Chief of Staff Steps In”

Reflection: The first half of my sixth year at GitLab: helping other (Support Engineers) and leaving Support

It’s a bit mind boggling to me that I’m talking about my sixth year at GitLab. It’s not quite been half (5 months), but as I’m internally transferring out of Support, I thought this was a good place to break up “the year”.

First time readers may want to check out my previous reflection posts. Continue reading “Reflection: The first half of my sixth year at GitLab: helping other (Support Engineers) and leaving Support”

Getting better at resume writing: Results oriented job descriptions

Note: This a copy of the Notes Between Us post.

I used to think I was good at resume writing. I recently realized I was okay, but not great at it. Considering my success rate, I’d like to say it was “good enough”, but who am I to shy away from thinking about how to get better, especially when I often get asked to review people’s applications and provide feedback.

I originally posted on LinkedIn and on Mastodon about this topic, but wanted to expand on it. Continue reading “Getting better at resume writing: Results oriented job descriptions”

Internship for Learning: OKRs with Chief of Staff (Team) to CEO

Since I finished the first one, I have been doing a second internship for learning with the Chief of Staff Team to CEO. If you would like to know what an internship for learning is, and why I chose to do one, take a look at the reflection post from my first internship for learning (just internship for short from here on out).

Even though I haven’t technically finished, since I’m done the majority of the work, I thought it was the right time to do a reflection. Continue reading “Internship for Learning: OKRs with Chief of Staff (Team) to CEO”

Presentation: A Public Handbook: Building trust with the team, customers, and beyond

How do you build trust before you ever interact with others? A public handbook! Having a handbook publicly available provides lots of benefits including consistency for the team, being literally on the same page as a customer, and providing the opportunity to collaborate with others, such as the Support community.

Presented at Support Driven Expo 2023. Continue reading “Presentation: A Public Handbook: Building trust with the team, customers, and beyond”