A Great Way to Tackle Life’s To-Do List

It’s back-to-school season, and our team has been sharpening our pencils (okay, more like our FigJam sessions) to map out a game plan that gets straight A’s in efficiency and collaboration!

So, your homework for today is to enjoy August’s edition of The Digital Beast! ??????

To prepare for Q3, we held some great FigJam sessions with our Beast Core teams. We started by working with each team to quantify all of the tasks we’ve been thinking about. Then rack’d and stack’d the features most important to our stakeholders. And organized everything into a roadmap for the quarter.

It sounds like a cliché process, but as we started scaling up the number of teams working on Beast Core, the tasks became more interdependent. The search team relied on the backend services team. And the backend services team relied on our visualization team. And our support team needed to be tied into all of the development teams. This was a challenge last quarter, and we aimed to fix it with more planning upfront to identify and communicate these dependencies.

We wanted to be strategic about upgrading our viewer tools to version 6, worked to close the gap to reach for full parity with version 4, while also improving search functionality and model loading speeds. These efforts aim to create a robust, web-based toolset ready for a self-service product later this year! We are stoked to have such a collaborative environment that values feedback to enhance user experience and meet evolving customer needs. ??

After reading The 37signals Guide to Internal Communication, we were inspired. Now, we're in testing mode and we love an experiment!?We are trying a few things out aimed at improving our workflow and reducing the need for meetings, all while keeping the people-first mindset. Who wants another meeting anyway, am I right??

We selected a few groups of folks who will receive a prompt to outline their main goals for the week using Microsoft updates and Loop, giving everyone a clear overview of what’s happening without the need for lengthy and potentially unnecessary check-ins. So, here’s our goal! By creating intentional weekly objectives, communication will be streamlined and everyone will stay informed without interrupting the flow of progress. Announcements and project-specific discussions will be centralized and organized for easy access so you can find what you need without unnecessary back-and-forth. And most importantly, it’ll reduce the time spent in meetings and teams can focus on delivering impact to our partners.

We’re excited to watch this play out and see if these shifts will help us work more efficiently with fewer meetings. #RelentlessIteration ??

Be sure to say hi to our Beasts at these upcoming events. We promise we don’t bite...???

1. FATHOMWERX Summit 2024

• a.?September 17th - 18th: Micheal Walton and Jake Bal will be in Port Hueneme, CA (to register and for more details, click here)

At Beast Code, our applicants are potential members of our thriving community. We value diversity, creativity, and a passion for excellence, and we're excited to see how you can contribute to our mission of empowering people to make informed decisions. Keep an eye out for open jobs here!

?? Agile Coach I

?? DevOps Engineer II

If you have hung around the software development scene for a while, you have most likely heard the term Agile thrown around. However, it isn't just for tech nerds and project managers, you know! It's actually a great way to tackle life's to-do list. Imagine your life as a giant, epic video game. Agile is like leveling up your character by breaking down those monstrous quests into smaller, totally doable missions.?It's all about staying flexible, rolling with the random zombie attacks, and iterating on everything as necessary.

But Agile isn't just a solo adventure. It's about building a stronger and more transparent team. By sharing your goals and progress openly, you create a supportive community ready to cheer you on and offer sage advice and even an assist when needed! It's like having a personal cheering section and a brain trust all rolled into one! So, next time tasks feel overwhelming, channel your inner gaming pro and give Agile a shot. Your future self will thank you! ?? If you change a lot all at once, it can seem overwhelming. However, if you implement little changes throughout the week, month, or year, think of what that could add up to! Check out this post to read more about these small ways you can improve your quality and overall impact of your daily tasks!