Strategy away day.

Tomorrow we'll be out of the office (I work in IT at in a department of 50 or so people) at a Strategy away day. This will mean sitting around talking about how the department should be run and what we should be doing to. Sounds like fun doesn't it. Actually I'm glad I'm going because the people who are invited are the managers, team leads (we call them dev managers) and the senior developers. Now I'm not actually in any of those groups. but since I've been doing this IT stuff for 10 years I carry on like a senior developer (they are very much like a junior team lead) and managed to get an invite.
The senior developers position is quite a resent thing here. The positions were created back in feb and several of the current developers at the time were invited to apply. I was one of those who applied and like most people at the time, we thought I was a cert to get one of the positions. As you've probably guessed I didn't the post it went to someone more junior than me (4 years experience ) but who is a lot better at the old office politics.
So I'm still both bitter and angry at the whole thing (not least the 5 grand or so pay it cost me) and have been known to mention it now and again.
Fortunately for me (and part of the reason I get to go to the away day) is that we have just got a new CTO for the company and he doesn't yet suffer from effects of the office politics. The away day is his idea and I should get a bit of a forum to get some good ideas across ( we I think they are good ideas). Here's the list of things I plan to say so far:

Strategy away day.

1. IT future direction; big picture;

Views on Structure, teams,

Move to a more open structured system

Currently too few people doing to many things

Don’t need people to have an input into every decision all the time.

Process, methods

REVIEWS we should be doing some!

Fix the method of booking meeting so you can actually tell where people are when you need to speak to them.

Environment, tools

Separate DBA team

Build Server

Views on Lifecycle

How we interact with the business

Development of internal computer systems to support the Business

Automatic of review publish process

Better tools for fininail reporting rather than just using Excel

Better system of storage update, versioning of HR forms and processes

General store for company wide information – extend the wiki

2. Company strategy (from an IT perspective - what should it be)

Driving the company with newest technology

upmystreet on mobiles?

3. What new technologies/ technology approaches should we pursue that could transform the business

i.e., Ajax; search engine keyword optimisation (like Shopzilla); etc etc

Microsoft Partner program/ solution provider.

Gold Partner system.

Use of the new Frameword v3 code

Make the cross application communication more stabile with a technology such as MSMQ

CCTV system so I can see if people are at their desk without having to go around and see!

4. Global strategy USA; EUROPE - what should we be thinking about now?

Localization

Scalability

5. Personal Development - creating a culture of learning - how do we achieve this?

IT Training – Some please

- Languages c#

- Techologies web, nant, nunit, nhibernate,

- Methologies – UML, Agile development

Project planning and estimation

Risk anaylsis

Business Training

- to better understand them and what they need

- and where they want to go

- so the way they do things /think doesn’t come as a supprise to us.

- possibly also mirror to the business system training idea (from the quartely meeting – Susie (HR) presentation)

Soft Skills Training –

Time management,

Writing (IMPORTANT!) and communication,

Team working

Interviews (we do?)

Leadership (we do)

Resources

Electronic

Books, DVDs (microsoft web casts (from gold partner system)

Learning environment PCs prototype boxes

Conferences

Flexible Working

Time for other things

Other Projects

Charity Work (group work team building)

So its up to me to give a good impression and hopefully help put the worst of politics behind me!

D