I’ve had some unique jobs and schedules over the years.
When I managed a restaurant in Manhattan, my “day” started at about 3:00pm. As a professional lacrosse player, I balanced work as a sales rep at a custom apparel company with the game and practice demands of Major League Lacrosse. Now, as co-founder of The Gnar my weeks tend to be similar but my days are rarely the same.
As The Gnar has grown, my focus has shifted from writing code all day to building processes and structure that enable great code. But one thing that hasn’t changed for myself and my co-founder is a focus on client outcomes. As you’ll see, we believe that doing great work leads to more opportunities to do great work.
This isn’t a real day, but it is a realistic day in the life leading a software development consultancy.
8:55am
I try to maintain a normal work-life balance and be at my desk around 9:00am everyday. The Gnar has a fully remote team so I work from home and my kids (3.5y and 1.5y) are the biggest variables in whether I make it to my computer on time. Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived an entire day before I even log on.
When I structure my mornings, I try to remember a great Mark Twain quote, “"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.”
Today is the start of the week, so this morning my frog is gameplanning the week with our Leadership Team.
9:00am
I log on for my morning meeting with Pete Whiting, our Head of Growth & Client Services. Pete and I touch base every Monday to plan for the week. We talk about new deals he might be working on, follow up items from the previous week, and new business opportunities we need to start thinking about.
Pete just sent off a response for a big RFP last Friday, so we talk briefly about when we might hear back and how we could structure our presentation if we’re asked to talk through our proposal live. He also asks me to review a few estimates that he’s been preparing for a new client. I block some time after 2:00pm to take a closer look at those later in the day.
9:30am
I switch over to a meeting with my co-founder, Nick Maloney. We started The Gnar almost a decade ago and have grown a lot as entrepreneurs together. As technical cofounders, we still directly oversee our engineering team and most of our conversations focus on delivery and management. Today is no different, we discuss the status of the projects we’re each managing, new candidates in our hiring pipeline, and cover some details for the annual reviews we’ll be working together on throughout the week.
10:00am
I’ve got some time before my next meeting so I check out the #pull-requests channel in Slack. There are 2 notifications I’m tagged in, so I dive in and review some code before standup.
New employees are often surprised that a co-founder is doing code review and involved in project standups, but me or Nick are involved in every project we do and still review a lot of code. We have a role called “Project Success” for each project, it’s basically founder oversight to help make sure we’re delivering what the client needs.
10:30am
Standup time - the Gnar and client teams join to discuss what was done last Friday, what plans are for today, and anything blocking our progress. Everything is on track 👍
Time for daily check-in!
10:45am
Our daily check-in is fairly unique to The Gnar. For 15-minutes, our entire team gets together and answers three questions:
- What challenges are you facing?
- What’s getting in the way of you doing your job?
- What are you excited about?
Today we have 16 people on the call. The Gnar has 25 full-time employees plus 10-15 contractors at any given time. Client obligations take priority, so we don’t have a full house everyday.
My favorite answer today was from Kathy, one of our engineers. She has a vacation coming up to Greece and is absolutely stoked for it. I just took a trip to Santorini with my wife earlier in the year, I’ll plan to send over some recommendations to Kathy later.
Meeting everyday might seem like overkill, but I love it. It’s culture-building, relationship-building, and project problem solving all rolled into one.
As the check-in is winding down, I pull up Slack. I’ve got 2 more notifications from the #pull_requests channel. They’ll have to wait.
11:00am
I’ve got a weekly retro and sprint planning for an ongoing project. The combined team (Gnar and client-side) come together to discuss what went well last week, where we can improve, and any action items outside the normal product development work we need to execute. Today we talk about the need to improve communication around breaking changes to our API. The PM has an action item to set up a meeting later in the week to discuss and improve that part of our process.
Creating the space and time to talk through what’s going well and what isn’t helps to ensure mistakes don’t compound. We aim for a weekly or bi-weekly retro on every client project to stay ahead of it all.
We’re just wrapping up when I hear a toddler footsteps racing towards the kitchen…
12:04pm
My son (3.5) goes to school in the morning but is home around noon each day. Don’t get me started on the excruciating cost for 3 hours of school a day, but the great part is that I get to see him much more than I will once he’s in school full-time. At least, that’s the goal.
I sneak up to him while he’s eating his mac and cheese and get a good giggle. We talk about school - all questions have the same “I dunno” answer. He’s growing up too fast.
I remember those code reviews from Slack. Gotta get back to the desk!
12:18pm
I sit down for code review but have a DM from an engineer on the team that I check out first.
“Hey Mike, no luck hunting down that bug with the Chrome browser. Do you have a few min to check it out?”
Paul has been struggling to find a bug that got introduced with a new browser version of Chrome, it broke something on a client site and he’s been trying to hunt down what exactly broke.
I know he’s been trying to figure it out since last Thursday and talked to a few teammates about potential solutions. I’m guessing he wants to talk through how we communicate with the client and what our options are. Our team takes great ownership over their work and the care they put into things like client communication makes me really proud.
I was right - no luck on the bug. We discuss a few options and how we should talk to the client about the issue. Paul had good thoughts and probably didn’t need my feedback, but I’ve found that knowing the team is in alignment helps a lot with confidence in these situations.
I want to help more but it’s 1:00pm and I need to attend another meeting - a followup to a Design & Discovery process. I tell Paul good luck and switch over to a different Google Meet link.
1:00pm
I have a chat scheduled with the Design Lead on one of our "Discovery & Design” engagements. These are initial engagements to understand project scope and build out a clickable prototype design prior to the development effort.
Greg, the lead, has made some great progress wireframing the application based on our workshop last week. We’re tasked with building technology to simplify complex workflows the client is currently using. Greg’s excited because his last project was an internal tool for an insurance company, this work we’re kicking off is for a bank but also an internal tool. We make some tweaks as we align on our understanding of the client's needs, and I provide some direction for next steps before we re-group with the client later in the week.
1:45pm
Finally I’m able to get to those code reviews! I just pulled up Slack to find the links to the code when I get a Slack message from Heather, our Head of People Ops:
“Mike - I need to get back to Andre about the client simulation he sent back last week. Have you looked at it yet?”
Welp - the code reviews will have to wait.
This is the second time Heather has asked me for my feedback. I did review the client simulation and I’d like to walk through it with him.
Our hiring process certainly tests for a high technical bar, but we’re just as interested in great problem solving skills and culture fit. After the client simulation and technical interview, the next step is typically a culture interview to assess if they’ll be a culture add. We’re strict on values but loose on methods, we don’t want our team members to be an exact replica of one another.
I organize my notes for Heather, so they’re semi-coherent and send them off. Then I log into my next meeting a few minutes early.
2:30pm
I’m part of a monthly virtual meetup for agency leaders. We connect as a group and share trends we’re seeing, skillsets we might need support on, and try to help each other problem solve. As smaller consultancies, we’re often competing against the big firms who throw a lot of time and money behind their new business efforts. We’re much more focused on delivering quality work output, so sharing with similar firms that aren’t direct competitors is a huge help.
I take some notes on a few sales outreach strategies to review with Pete later on.
3:30pm
Code review time! By now I’ve got 6 PRs to review. Half have been reviewed by other team members, great to have collaborative teammates! I do a quick pass on those 3 and don’t see anything glaring so I move on to the 3 PRs that haven’t been reviewed yet. I do my best to assess the quality, simplicity, and correctness of the code. It takes a while but it’s worth it, especially long-term. I don’t get to code much anymore, but am glad to still be close to the implementation.
I make the mistake of getting distracted by Slack and notice some messages piling up…
4:23pm
A few of the messages are on project specific channels. For the most part, the team seems to have everything covered. In one channel there’s a misunderstanding between the client’s requirements and our understanding of the feature. I need to dive in before we go too far down the wrong road.
A few Slack messages and a quick Huddle later, we’re back on the right track.
4:32pm
I’m a couple minutes late to our weekly Sales Scrum. Pete reviews the sales pipeline with me and Nick. Unlike this morning’s meeting, this time we get in the weeds on projects that Pete is trying to close and how we can support those efforts. We also review our YTD metrics to see how we’re tracking against our plans. That RFP that Pete submitted last week would definitely help!
I’m organizing my notes when I hear screams from the living room - the kids are psyched that mom is home and I want to join in on the “fun”.
5:12pm
Sales Scrum ran over time but we’re at a good stopping point. A quick glance at Slack tells me there’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow. I find that taking just a few minutes to review my calendar and plan for the next morning makes all the difference in how a day goes.
I make notes for a few meetings I see on my calendar and start to think about what the “frog” is going to be first thing in the morning.
The project estimates!
I shoot Pete a quick note - “I haven’t forgotten about those estimates - will take a look first thing in the AM. Have a good night.”
5:18pm
To the playroom!
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