Week 1: Personal Contributions & Organizational Culture
My first week has been spent figuring exactly how I fit at my new organization. In the first few days there were a few small projects and responsibilities that I was given, and I was able to show that I could take care of them and that I could handle more responsibilities going forward. Towards the end of the week I was being given other projects with more import, and that have a greater impact on the goals of the company.
I’ve also learned a lot about the culture of my company. There is an interesting dichotomy, where the moment to moment atmosphere seems relatively chill, but during the morning standup meetings and other times when deadlines and roadblocks are discussed, there is a degree of urgency placed on certain tasks for the company to be on the timeline that they need to be on. It is very interesting to me how much work gets done, but it doesn’t feel like there is a crunch, at least since I’ve been here. I am curious to see whether or not this continues as certain deadlines get closer.
The biggest thing from my first week is that I’ve learned a lot about the organizational culture, the way I can fit in the business and be helpful and productive towards their overall aims, and about the technical side of the business, what goes into creating a product and bringing it to market, especially in the medical device industry.
Sounds like it was a fairly productive first week, having moved from relatively small to more significant projects within that short amount of time. As for the organizational culture, would like to hear more about whether you have learned about it via a structure orientation/training or through observation and discussion with others? Also interested to hear about the communication; it is predominantly face-to-face (presume morning stand-up meetings are in person) or is technology also used (messaging programs, workflow systems, etc.). Going forward, it would be good to consider how your site’s context (type of industry or history) affects the way it functions and is led, including whether the site’s context requires the leadership to be more attentive to certain issues than to others. Insights of this sort will be useful when completing the academic assignments in the fall.