7.30 AM

Alarm rings, immediately snooze it because my dream is getting to the best part.

7.45 AM

Second ring, time to get up and get myself to the shower.

8.00 AM

All showered and ready for work, time to have a quick breakfast. Usually cereal, coffee and bread. Eggs when I have the time.

8.30 AM

Walk to the train station and catch the first available train. I live quite close to work and there is no shortage of trains in the morning so no rush here. Once I am on the train I take the opportunity to quickly check and reply to any emails. It's great being able to work from anywhere.

9.00 - 10.00 AM

Get off the train and walk to work. I arrive at my desk in between 9.00am - 9.30am. Greet people and then its straight into checking my Scrum board (A Scrum board has lists of tasks to do for a project). As scrum master and project lead it’s my job to regularly monitor this board and ensure everything is going smoothly. I check whether an expected number of tasks are in the “done” list and that people have enough tasks to work on currently. This leads on to the daily “stand-up” meeting.

10.00 AM - 12.00 PM

At 10.00am we usually have our daily stand-up with the team. This is to quickly catch up on what the team is working on and if there are any issues. However, today is special. Today we have a “sprint” planning meeting.

A “sprint” is a set period (2 weeks in our case) in which we will complete an agreed-upon set of tasks. So today in the sprint planning, we will plan the tasks for the next 2 weeks of the project. It includes the “product owner” (The client) who will have the final say on tasks to be included and the developers (Team from DXC) who will give an estimate on what can be accomplished within the 2 weeks. After estimation and negotiation of tasks, at 12.00pm, we have an excel sheet with a backlog of tasks to be worked on during the next 2 weeks.

12.00 PM

Time for lunch. There are many places near work that I like to eat at. Today’s choice is a burger place with my colleague.

1.00 PM

Now it’s back to some final clean up for the sprint planning. I upload the results of the sprint planning into our Scrum board, where I can track them over the next 2 weeks. I notify the team that this is ready to go, and everyone now assigns themselves tasks from the board to work on.

1.30 PM

Aside from being the project lead, I am also a developer on the team. So, I assign myself a task on the board and immediately start working on it. For the current project, we are building an Augmented Reality (AR) application on a Head-Mounted Wearable. This will be used for a major energy provider in a remote/connected worker scenario.

I start developing on my machine and regularly test using the wearable on my head. This particular wearable is completely voice controlled allowing hands free use, so the user can focus on the task on hand. This means I need to put extra care into the user experience, so the app is easy to use and doesn’t take away all their attention.

3.00 PM

Time for a quick break, I usually go down to the coffee shops or upstairs at the kitchen for a quick coffee. Today we’re at the kitchen. It’s great to get away from the desk every now and then.

3.15 - 3.30 PM

Now time for a quick catch up on another project with one of our 2018 grads. He is building upon some AR work I have done previously, and we catch up to check progress and any issues. But as always it looks like great progress has been made and there are no issues. I love getting to play with so many different AR devices in my team.

3.30 - 4.30 PM

Back to development for me. Our team sits next to each other in an open-plan setting. So, we bounce ideas back and forth. Get each other to test/review the work and continue working. Since we’ve already planned a set of tasks, the work happens in a focussed and efficient manner, and as scrum master, I ensure nothing from outside the project is affecting the work.

4.30 - 6.00 PM

Time for some external testing/review. I enlist someone from outside the development team to do a quick review of anything we have developed on the wearable device. This provides an unbiased and fresh point of view and we end up with a list of feedback items. Our clients are in a different city, so I also do a release with the latest features for them to download and test at their leisure. This is to ensure we’re getting regular feedback throughout development. After that it's back to development.

6.00 PM

Time to go home. No more work/emails on the go for now, it’s good to cut-off. Usually, it’s a quick trip to the supermarket to get cooking ingredients for dinner. But today I am going straight to the airport. Going back home to Adelaide over Easter. Can’t wait for mom’s cooking.