Michelle Krejci (Craychee)

Values

I value co-creation above all else. I want to ensure that you feel I yes-and you and feel like you are yes-and-ing me in turn. No lone wolves. No heroes.
I aspire to be conscientious. I want to do what I say I will do with care.
I aspire to invite curiosity first into the new or unknown rather than respond with skepticism.
The expression of feelings and needs are as important to me as the expression of ideas. I believe most problems in the software development cycle are due to a failure to properly express these other aspects.

I am commanding. I care about forward progress and am willing to make decisions and establish collaboration and enthusiasm around that decision.
I absorb lots of inputs (colleague opinions, research, experience) and love to ideate about high level strategy. Give me some data and I will give you an idea.
I do not suffer silently. I express my needs frankly and expect others to do the same.
I make great efforts to bring lightness into my work. I try to laugh whenever I can and find opportunities to be silly together.

Feedback helps me to thrive. The sooner I hear it, the better. A piece of feedback sounds something like “When I have seen you Y, then X.”
Judgement does not help me thrive. A judgement is something like “you are X”.
I prefer that feedback is a two-way communication rather than an air-drop.
I prefer for that communication to be in the style of connected communication.
Having my work be seen, understood, and evaluated is gratifying. If it is also then worthy of positive comment, even more.

I struggle to pair program but aspire to do it more.
I like to plan out my work day first thing when I get up and stick to that plan.
I go to the gym in the mornings and am usually at work by 9:30am.
When I need time to put things together, I like to go for a walk or a run.

If I have headphones on, please ping me on Slack rather than walk up to me.
If we are in conflict, let’s talk face to face.
In meetings, I prefer to know if it’s an ideation meeting, a consensus building meeting, an action planning meeting, a reflection meeting, or a status meeting. I do not like to have multiple types of meetings at once.

If I say that I am “uncomfortable” then I am.
When I am having trouble holding still, I am not in a “flow” state and am trying to find a path forward.

If I say I am uncomfortable, I want to be engaged in what’s happening for me since I will not be productive or engaged until I am comfortable.
Rubber ducking with me helps when I am stuck.
Giving me alone time and space to process also helps.

You know that feeling right before a test in school when you just crammed a bunch of information last-minute into your brain and you need to hold it all there carefully like a house of cards before you get through the test otherwise you will lose it all? I feel like that most of the time and avoid people when I am trying to hold my fragile understanding of something in my head.

I don’t expect this list to change your actions—but it might help you better understand and empathize with my reactions.

I do not like when people horde work or start a project secretly. See above value of “co-creation”.
I do not respond well to avoidance and passive aggressiveness. It triggers deep pain.
Verbalizations, gestures, and noises that convey “yep, got it! next” shut me down in an unpleasant way.

Short term: fully realize the service strategy that will allow us to scale the team and product’s vision while stabilizing our APIs.
Long term: be a part of higher-level strategy around scaling tech and culture. Ultimately, a COO. Also, write a book.

I do not respond with curiosity the way I would like. I am working on it.
Details
My focus is all over the place. I can’t decide if I should put my energy into building things or planning and describing things.
I have not found a way to collaborate with groups outside of engineering.