The end, is the beginning! 🏁
Calling out the feats that made July a tremendous end of H1-2022 and a big-bang start of H2-2022, for Rocketium.
Our money doesn’t jiggle-jiggle, it folds! 💸
Two months in a row, our customer-facing teams have topped their game and we can tell the finance team is loving it! 😁
Standing tall and strong, the team delighted us with the highest MRR in a single month (July), in Rocketium’s history.
H2 has begun with a loud echoing gong sound. The year end, is going to be nothing less than firecrackers! 🎉
Mantras to be invincible like the Amazon-ians 🏺
In the July session of Rocketium’s Blue Sky Hour, we invited Madhu Kurup (VP, Indeed), to address the team. Madhu comes with more than two decades of experience witnessing growth with technology leaders (Yahoo, Amazon, Indeed).
The best part about the session was a treasure trunk full of insights from his decade long stint at Amazon, packaged into an hour long session.
Key insights from his session:
Ditch the data, trust the anecdote: Technology and science are here to bring reasoning and rationale into everything we do. However, sometimes, human experiences speak more volume than any data point.
Follow the ‘Rude FAQ’ method to identify pot-holes: Every time you come up with an idea or a project plan, think to yourself, what are some of the most difficult questions that I can be asked about it. You know all the strengths and weaknesses of your proposal. So when you think one layer deeper, you get to analyse the unseen potential breakages.
5 WHYs: A method already used by the largest of organisations, 5 WHYs helps in many ways to decipher problem areas. Diving 5 steps deeper takes you to tapping faster into the source of a problem.
Be honest and clear: If you do not know the right answer, admit it. Never choose to beat around the bush because smart people will always find out. It is okay to be a fool once, to grow into a smarter person.
Be greedy for failures: Let’s just admit, all of us learn more from failures than we ever do from success. Be hungry to reflect on the instances when you failed.
Develop a habit of writing: Writing down your thoughts (either digitally or on a paper) helps in bringing structure to thoughts. At Amazon, everyone is a fan of documenting and it helps them streamline the flow of ideas.
Living the Hackathon tradition 👾
Six months into 2022 and it was time for our bi-annual Hackathon. If you checked out our March edition of this newsletter, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about. Time of the year when the brains behind our product get away from the usual office space, and spend 2 days ideating, innovating, and chilling.
Here is what their day looked like when they were refueling to hack a solution to the next big problem, last month.
What made it special this time was having all the legos together - Product Developers, Product Designers, Product Managers. The outcome spoke for itself in the form of 3 colossal projects that are are live in action as you read this. 🙂
The project names blew minds as much as their impact!
Black pearl: Enabled users switch between different dev environments.
Panaroma: Plugging in all handy & quick editing features, under one collapsed view.
Elder Wand: Enabling designers to magically eliminate repetitive activities by clipping objects in a design, based on their focal point.
Sharing is caring: Be it food, or feedback 🎙
Performance reviews at Rocketium are a high effort:high value bi-annual activity. This means, that every 6 months, we all take a step back to reflect on what we promised and how we did compared to it. Contrary to the usual, we made one big change this time to integrate our prime directive of ‘Share openly and often’ into the review process.
We made our peer reviews non-anonymous to encourage everyone on the team towards sharing critical but actionable feedback. At first, we were skeptical if the decision will be accepted well by the larger team. But, the common purpose of helping each other become better, played its charm.
Here is a snippet from the 4A framework we encourage, to make the art of feedback exchange successful -
Sharing feedback
Aim to assist: Share feedback with positive intent. Refrain from venting out personal frustration or malice. Before sharing, reflect on how your feedback will help the other person. Do not include derogatory remarks.
Actionable: Always share feedback that follows accurate next steps. Avoid sharing generic feedback and wherever possible, include the anecdotes from instances.
Receiving feedback
Appreciate: Positively acknowledge the feedback giver’s intention towards sharing the feedback. Be reflective, than reactive. Stay calm and hear the feedback carefully, ask clarifying questions if needed.
Accept or Discard: Not all feedback needs to be imbibed. Use your judgment to evaluate if the feedback needs immediate action. Do not let your ego or vulnerability come in the way of making the right decision of accepting or discarding the feedback.
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