LloydPickering

The hardest bit you are going to have to overcome is the ursge to step in and do the job yourself. Up until now your career has been built on your ability to get things done. From now on, your career will be built on your ability to help others get things over the line themselves.

This is not to say you should down tools and never touch code again, far from it, but you should strictly cap the time you spend coding for at least 12months as it's too easy to fall back into the habit of feeling productive becase you have your IDE open. If you spend too much time coding, you are avoiding your real job. I generally pick up bugs, scut work or the occasional prototype. I also enjoy clearing up some technical debt from time to time. Either choose quick tasks that no one is relying on, or longer term items that wont cause any blocks if you are delayed.

Related to the above - as manager, you are no longer in the best place to decide on a technical solution. It is your job to make sure that the best technical approach is decided on. In fact you can generalise this to management as a whole - its not your job to make decisions, its your job to make sure decisions get made.

You fail if your team fails, you succeed if your team succeeds. Therefore do everything you can to remove impediments, and shield your team from shit that distracts them wherever it comes from. Encourage them to speak out when they think something is wrong. Play the role of facilitator in meetings to make sure every option is heard and discussed. Have regular informal one to ones with your staff with no fixed agenda - just ask them how they are getting on and how they think things are going. If you have a good connection with them, then you can ask them what you personally should be doing better to help them. If there is little to no trust, then expect them to clam up and say all is great and you are awesome even if you are not.

I loved the transition to dev manager because I was able to make a bigger difference to productivity than if I was doing coding myself. Bigger longer term impact, more strategic but less of an instant 'sugar hit' from tech related fun.

One final piece of advice that I was given by a CTO. He asked me who my team was. I replied with the developers and QA who worked for me. He told me I was wrong, they were my 2nd team. My 1st team was my peers. The other dev managers, QA manager, support team manager, product manager, project manager and ops manager were my team. We needed to start working more closely together as a team rather than in our own little 2nd team silos. What a difference that made to my perspective.

edit:some spelling

If you're happy to accept the Manifesto in 2001 as the start of agile, then https://www.scrum.org/about under 'Creating Scrum' states "Jeff Sutherland and I had been using Scrum for ten years prior to the meeting at Snowbird where we and others signed the Agile Manifesto"

The Governor of the Bank of England disagrees with you that there has not been an economic impact yet. His estimates are that we have lost possibly as much as 2% of GDP as a result of the vote. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44207677

I'd also point out that last year in the first 3Qs the UK grew its economy, true, but at by far the slowest rate of any of the G7 countries indicating we are lagging behind. Not all of that can be definitively put at the feet of Brexit of course. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economy-performanc...

I don't think the government is actively ignoring the economy, I just think they are hamstrung by the clear divisions in the nation (and indeed their party) as to whether we pursue a hard Brexit, or a Brexit in name only.

Shorts and a t-shirt would very much be scandalous! In fact there's a good chance the Tyler wouldn't let you in.

Normal lodge dress code is a dark suit and black tie (or the relevant masonic tie). Some lodges like mine are Dinner Jackets (Tuxedo). Provincial and Grand Officers wear a 3 piece morning suit (striped trousers with a black waistcoat and jacket).

My lodge is meeting tonight so I'm sat at work with my DJ trousers and a white shirt on and my DJ jacket in a suit carrier.

I agree that the man is more important than the exterior, but the way we view things over here is that it's not much to afford a black suit nowadays, and it means everyone looks more or less 'uniform' and therefore on the level. Culturally we tend be rather formal over here anyway.

We once held a meeting on the same night as a carol service in our local cathedral, so we were told that we were just going to open and close the lodge and open the festive board more like a ladies evening and DJ wasn't necessary due to the service, just wear a lounge suit. I wore a black suit as per normal, but with an orange tie and that caused quite a stir!

Really? See https://www.owf.org.uk/ In the UK Lady masons have their own lodges and we are very supportive of their efforts often sharing masonic halls and facilities.

As for Prince Hall Masonry yes there was racial segregation in America, but nowadays most State Grand Lodges recognise each other with a few hold outs in the deep south.

That's fascinating! In England we are a lot more easy going over the proficiency required to progress. Normally your proposer or a lodge mentor will chat with you and go through your questions and responses, but there isn't any certificates etc. When the candidate is asked the questions to prove proficiency he is accompanied by the relevant Deacon who will prompt him, and in some cases actually prompt the whole thing. That doesn't look very good, but it does happen (particularly when there are extenuating circumstances). The candidate is still passed/raised. Once you have completed your raising you are issued with a certificate from grand lodge to prove your status as a mason, but it is not graded in any way. It simple states in flowery language when you were raised to the degree of a Master Mason.

In England there are multiple rituals in common practice and there isn't a move to formally standardise, mainly from the fact there were lodges operating before Grand Lodge was formed. The most common in use is Emulation Ritual which was designed to emulate the majority of the work done by lodges at the time the two English Grand Lodges merged. You can buy copies of the ritual freely, but various parts are obscured in shorthand so as not to divulge too much.

I'm a British Freemason. I joined because I was intrigued as to what it was about, and my old school had a lodge for past pupils. In England there are many lodges for different groups of people. In the city where my lodge meets there are other school lodges, lodges for musicians, farmers, university, rotarians, scouts and those who have been a Worshipful Master of a lodge along with lodges that have a more general makeup of members.

Masonry is founded on 3 principles; Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth which can be loosely thought of as Friendship, Charity and Self Actualisation via being a good citizen / considering your role in society. Through tradition it is a necessary requirement that you have a belief in a Supreme Being, but in most jurisdictions, that belief doesn't necessarily have to conform to any prescribed or organised religion and the Supreme Being is referred to non-specific ways such as The Great Architect of the Universe. Conversations around Religion and Politics are forbidden in English lodges as they are the two main topics which divide men.

All prospective members have to express an interest in joining, and in some jurisdictions that can mean anything from the extreme of having to ask 3 times before being acknowledged, to in my own jurisdiction, you can sign post you are a Freemason and what it's about, and wait to see if they express an interest in finding out more.

As the worlds oldest and largest fraternity we have a lot of tradition and there are 3 ceremonies that every new member goes through. These are allegorical and are a bit strange to understand at first, but certainly nothing to worry about. All the rumours of nefarious deeds and devil worshipping etc are a load of crap (and I say that as the current Worshipful Master of my lodge who is about to be appointed as a Provincial Officer).

If you are looking for friendship with people from all walks of life, enjoy tradition and ceremony and consider yourself a good man (or woman, as there are lady masons too in England under a ladies only Grand Lodge), then freemasonry might be for you. On the flip side, at least in my jurisdiction, freemasonry is dying off as the older members age and less younger people join. Freemasonry has just celebrated 300 years of the formation of the world's oldest Grand Lodge. Freemasonry will keep going for many years, but in the future it will consolidate.

I'm a British Freemason, but in my jurisdiction so long as you resigned in good standing (without any money owed), then you just need to open a dialog with a local lodge (in amity/recognition with your mother lodge's jurisdiction) and explain the situation to them. In England the secretary of your new lodge would either contact the secretary of your mother lodge to check you are in good standing, or ask you to contact them for a certificate/letter stating you resigned in good standing. I think in the US you might do that with dues cards. Your new lodge can help you get back up to speed and should be very understanding.

I'd suggest contacting a few local lodges and get to know the members before you commit to one. You have to feel comfortable with the makeup and ambiance of the lodge just like any social group. You will almost certainly need to be proposed and seconded again as a joining member.

Finally recognise that while you have completed your three degree ceremonies it is expected that there is still a lot for you to learn in freemasonry. The ritual most commonly used in England suggests you to 'make a daily advancement in masonic knowledge' and you are taught the masonic ceremonies are 'veiled in allegory' meaning they are meant to be gradually understood over time as you see them repeated for new candidates, and by taking part yourself in the various officer roles in the Lodge. Don't feel bad that it was too fast - yes it's disappointing that you ended up in that situation, but even without it, masonry is not meant to be understood in one go. Don't be hard on yourself.

If they went back and looked at business theory from the 20s and 30s they might have come across a famous phenomenon called the Hawthorne/Observer effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

Basically, when employees are being observed (which you could read as under surveillance) their productivity improves.

Rather than suggest we turn into a panopticon loving society, it speaks to me that restaurant owners should in fact be paying more attention to their staff, and creating a workplace where they feel valued. This should improve productivity, and reduce turnover - but maybe my perspective is skewed because of the differences in being a restaurant waiter/ress vs a software dev.

In any case, if you want better profitability then why not incentivise staff? If they have a share of profits, then you can be sure they will be trying to maximise profits - including reducing wastage, up-selling and reporting other members of staff not pulling their weight/stealing.