Jason Walker - Technical to Manager Journey

Technical to Manager Journey

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Jason Walker

Day 19. You are still an NFL Quarterback

Day 18 Strategy or Tactical

Day 17 Comp models are ....fun

I have yet to find someone that would do this or any job for free, so we get paid and pay people. Sales comp is complex but at least there is a line from (sell more) to (Make more). When we are going to a put technical role, like a

Day 16. Failure to plan is planning for failure.

There are a lot of plans that a manager has to make, for themselves, their peers, and of course their team. I really need to find a better system. Do we manage this in the HR system, or in the ticketing system, or on my computer, or online somewhere? I

Day 15. Back in the Saddle

After the long holiday break, things started back pretty much where they left off. The new theme is "I need more to do". This is coming from several people on my team. I understand that high achieving teams need to be kept moving and challenged rather than leaving

Day 14. How to hire

I saw this this week. https://youtu.be/23Sxj4wpCVw Here are the ideas that I came up with. Hire people smarter than yourself Hire for gaps on the team. Hire for Potential Hire for drive Hire for Fit. Hire for Diversity, not just in skills, but mindsets. It is pretty

Day 13 Coin operated.

This is a running theme for non sales people about sales people. The idea that the only way to get a sales person to do anything is to show that money is involved either currently or in the future. This is interesting in that it shows the customer that they

Day 12 What do you want?

When you are technical, it is easy to know what someone wants. To fix the problem, the issue is normally how to identify the problem and then find the solution. I am now going to meetings that are far more "nuanced". Today I was a meeting that was

Day 11 Read a book

One thing about switching to management is that there is no lack of books about the subject. When I was technical, there were no real training for the type of things I was working on. I had to test and find people that had some of the same type of

Day 10! Status Reports

This is the one activity that no one gets excited about. My thought it that it feels like having to explain what you did all week/day/month. I think that this is a "necessary" thing, but the way in which information about customers makes it to me

Day 9 if you are not at the table, you might be on the table

My boss mentioned this to me this morning. It was about 5 am meeting and it reminded me of a thing I said before about bringing value to a meeting. Now I need to be at a meeting to bring value to my team that is not at that table.

Day 8 Still a J.O.B.

This is the first day that I could actually breathe, had a few meetings get moved and could take my wife to lunch and reset my reasons why I took this position. My wife is amazing to be my north star, I often get lost in the snowstorm that is

Day 7 Money and politics

I have always known that compensation drives behaviour, but most people that make decisions about how to pay people are not understanding the full ramifications of choices they make. I know that is a little short-sighted and there are people way above my pay grade that are able to see

Day 6 One to Ones

The first week of 1:1s. Mondays are going to stay busy. 14 meetings is not a slow day by any means. What the heck is a 1:1 and how are they successful and how to manage them. I started trials of several options for tools. Work Patterns, Fellow,

Day 5 Finish Strong

Let me be the first to say, I am tired. This has been a long week. I learned a ton, and have been excited about things a lot. There are lots of times I feel that people are just missing the core issue, or that they are focusing on the

Day 4 Finding a new staff member

Today started with following the process to remove a member of my team, and also create a "req" for their replacement. It kind of hit home when I clicked on the "Terminate Employee" button. Lucky that then it took me to a form that I could

Day 3 Decisions

Meetings are a necessary part of work these days, but how one might decide which meetings you are going to go to each day/week. As a technical person, it is easy to decide when you bring value and when you do not. When I have 3 options for a

Bio

Jason Walker came to VMware from a customer 4 years ago as a Staff EUC Customer Success Architect working with the Workspace ONE Platform. Dealing with 1,000,000 authentications a day in Access, to Enrollment flows in UEM, to WIN10 Intelligence reporting and automation. Jason has enabled customer consumption.

Day 2 Firedrill

Day 2 in my new role can only be described as a fire drill, I went to sleep last night with a few meetings and some time set to make some plans and start doing my new job. Nope, Nope on a rope. 8 hours of meetings were added with

Day 1 of being a Manager

Today is my first day as a manager at VMware. I have been an architect for 4 years and now lead a team of 7 Customer Success Architects. I am excited about this journey and wanted to publish what happens so that I might be able to help other technical