Playing the Track Lead

It is strange to think that it has been 5 weeks since I left a rainy England behind.  I have been in China for over a week now and have been easing my self into my new role at work.  My primary task whilst in China is to lead a team of 7 Chinese developers to deliver a piece of work I have been preparing since February.  Officially I’m not supposed to get my team until next week but luckily last week I was allowed to use part of their time and get them started.  We spent most of them time going through the background and context of the track as well as each story.  Originally the plan was to spent most of the coming week to do this, so having already completed it means we’re in a good position.  I’m quietly confident that we should be able to finish our tasks well ahead of schedule and then be able to take up some of excess load from India.  Fingers crossed!

The new role is a big step up from what I’ve been doing before and I’m getting to practice many new management skills.  I have pretty much been given complete responsibility for this section of work and I have had to undertake the initial design analysis, pull together the project plan, allocate work to each developer and then get them going.  It has been quite enjoyable and I am quite pleased that so far I have been able to build my own confidence that I have the necessary knowledge and groundwork to make this a work out.

The next week will be the biggest test of my time away because this will be the first time I will have all 7 developers for 100% of their time.  Although each of them have already started looking at their own tasks I will need to ensure they fully understand what is required of them, and then ensure the quality of their work is up to scratch and on time.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how it goes – wish me luck!

The team seem like a good bunch and most of them have been working on the same project for many months.  Although two of team are almost brand new most are fairly experienced so that should help everything go smoothly.  All of the developers work for the company we are outsourcing to and we are based at their offices in a technology park in North West Beijing.

Thankfully the offices aren’t too far from the hotel and can be reached by taxi in 20 minutes or by bus in 30.  Although the bus is a little slower it isn’t all that bad and the longer journey means I get to see more of daily life in the suburbs of Beijing, and all for the measly price of 1 Yuan (about 7 pence)!  I was introduced to the bus system by David, the other guy from London who has been out here since mid January.  I’m not sure I would have ventured onto the bus otherwise!

It has been quite helpful having a friendly British face around who has been here just long enough to have sussed everything out.  We are both staying in the same hotel which makes life far more enjoyable than what I had in India where I was on my own.  It’s nice to be able to go into a restaurant and not get the sympathy treatment that comes when dining alone, especially so when considering that hardly anyone speaks English here.

All in all I am quite looking forward to the next 4 weeks and hope to embrace all of the forthcoming challenges with open arms.  Look out for progress update in a few weeks time

This entry was posted on 30/03/2007 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.