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”