Current situation has forced us to work from home. It’s a new experience for us and you can read about how we manage to deal with it in an interview with another ‘Bartan’.
What is your job at bart.sk?
Process control and optimization, project management.
How has the current situation affected the company’s internal processes?
After 2 weeks of our company working from home, I can say that the only difference I see is that we don’t sit in the same building together. It took us one morning to set up our processes so that we could all work from home. Stand up meetings, demos and retrospectives have been moved to Google Meet, other internal communication takes place on Slack, specifications, assignments and planning are handled through GitLab and Jira. It helped us a lot that we have been using the G Suite for a long time, so we have many tools suitable for working remotely tried and tested. We learn to work with new ones as needed. For example, we needed to draw graphs and diagrams during one online meeting. We tried Google Jamboard, we shared a screen with each other and we could continue drawing and analyzing.
The second big plus is that our company works on the basis of agile methods, specifically scrum, and we are used to everyday standups, joint planning in short cycles, demos, presentations of results to clients, etc. So only the form of these meetings has changed for us really. Thanks to the running VPNs and the fact that most developers use mini computers (INTEL NUC), which are very easy to handle and it was easy to take them home, we were also technically well prepared.
What does your normal day working from home look like?
I’m a person who likes to have a plan and be systematic, so the main thing for me was to create a kind of routine. In the morning, I wake up around seven and I immediately change into more formal clothes. I devote the same time to my styling as if I went to work. So about 5 minutes. By eight o’clock, I prepare breakfast for myself and my daughter, I eat, I prepare materials for work, I run through e-mails and at 8.15 I have the first standup. My first round of online meetings ends around eleven. Around twelve I have a break for an hour or two to be with my daughter, who is also at home now. We try to get out for an hour to catch some sun (we chase vitamin D), we eat, I help her with her homework and I start the second round of meetings at 2 o’clock. I work until half past five to six. Then it’s the time only for myself and my daughter.
Do you have any tips for working from home? What helps you personally to focus on work?
Besides the already mentioned system, the basic rule for me is not to turn on the TV or the washing machine during the day ? I try to have the food ready the day before, so as not to waste time preparing lunch. Since my home office is my living room, I never go to bed in the evening before it’s tidy. I would get distracted by a speck of dust on the table or a crumb on the floor. It helps me a lot that I have meetings scheduled and I know when, with whom and at what time I can communicate.
Because we work remotely and not in the same building, I feel that people are more prepared for meetings, because they know that this is the time when the others are available. I consider this a big positive. It just isn’t like in common office spaces where you simply go see a person at any time, meet them over coffee or discuss things at lunch. I also came across some negatives, but I’ll leave that for evaluation after a few weeks.
When you aren’t working, what do you like to do in your spare time?
Active relaxation. I’m a runner, I prefer long distances such as marathons and that requires systematic training. That’s why I run or exercise or both every day, and a few months ago I discovered great pleasure in yoga. Fortunately, these activities can still be practiced even now.
But just in case we get to the complete restriction of going outside, I have already invested in a treadmill ?
Top 3 apps on your smartphone?
Currently my phone is “on fire” because I get new tasks and assignments for my daughter on EduPage all the time. So one of those apps is definitely EduPage. Before, I only used it to check her grades and her arrival to school. It can be said that all communication with the school runs through this application now.
Garmin Connect is the second one, I’m connected to the sports world through it, but recently I’ve also started to use it to check the length and quality of my sleep.
And definitely WhatsApp through which I communicate with friends.
What does working from home look like for us?
