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Functions TechTip Tuesday

Tuesday TechTip – Chrome Tab Groups

At previous companies, when setting up the web applications that I used on a regular basis I would typically set up AutoHotKey shortcuts to launch the web applications in a Google Chrome app window using code similar to this:

Run, [path to chrome.exe] --app="[url to launch]"

However, when setting up my laptop at ServiceNow I didn’t have AutoHotKey installed right away so I decided to give Google Chrome tab groups a try. Since using them, I’ve really grown to like them and will probably not go back to the way I was doing it before because the old way cluttered up my taskbar.

To get started, right-click on a tab (or you can shift or control-click tabs to select multiple tabs) and choose Add tab(s) to new group. (I’m not aware of a shortcut key at this time).

Once you click that menu option, you get a popup like this:

Enter the name for the group and choose the color and press enter. (You can use the tab key to navigate to the colors and use the enter key to select the color you want, however you must be on the name field for the enter key to close the popup).

After pressing enter, you will see something like this (notice the colored outline on the tabs).

By single-clicking on the group name you can collapse the group and see something like this:

I typically have multiple tab groups defined and have found tab groups to be extremely useful. There’s only one problem that I would love for Google to add. I typically have a _start bookmark folder defined with things grouped into logical, at least to me, groupings and use the right-click Open all (#) menu option to open them all at one time. What I would love to add to this menu is an Open all (#) in a new tab group menu option, that would be awesome!

Hopefully, this tip was useful and can help you organize your computer a little easier.

12/15/2021 Update: Since writing this article Google has added the feature to open a group of favorites in a tab group:

To take advantage of this, I created the following AutoHotKey macro:

; win+2
#*2::
MouseClick, right
Send {Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Enter}
return

Enjoy!!!

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Follow Friday Functions

Follow Friday – Gene Kim

I love to read, but I much parables to a straight textbook-style book when it comes to business-type books or personal growth books. For example, some of my favorite business-type/personal growth books are:

If/when I write my personal development book that has been rolling around in the back of my mind, I’m definitely going to make it a parable-style book.

Many companies are trying to become more agile and adopt a DevOps (or DevSecOps) mindset. If you are a leader in any of these companies (or an individual contributor for that matter), you need to read books by Gene Kim.

The Phoenix Project: Most people who are considering a move to Agile have heard of The Phoenix Project and I would definitely recommend reading it to get an understanding of Agile and Lean principles.

The DevOps Handbook: In his second book, Gene Kim definitely goes more practical and gets into the nuts and bolts. This is not a parable-style book. This one gets into the details of how (and why) to implement DevOps. When I was at my previous company, I lent this book to both our IT Audit lead as well as our Change Management lead to help get ahead of some of the objections that I knew would come if we were to fully implement Agile/DevOps practices.

The Unicorn Project: Gene Kim returns to storytelling in his latest book as he dives into the story of Parts Unlimited as a group of rogues implement the Three Ways of DevOps. A lot of people haven’t heard about The Unicorn Project which is a shame because it is a fantastic book and a great companion to the other books.

I hope this post was helpful, especially to those looking to implement Agile/Dev(Sec)Ops practices within their organizations.

Follow Gene Kim: Website | Blog | Twitter

Follow Friday posts are posts where I highlight someone I follow as a way to promote and encourage others.

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Functions TechTip Tuesday

Tuesday TechTip – Multiple Time Zones in Outlook

This week, I’m continuing my series of Tuesday TechTips related to setting up my new laptop at ServiceNow with the hope that as I share how I am productive, it will help you out as well. One thing that I had to account for working for ServiceNow is that everything that is sent out from HQ is sent out referring to Pacific Standard/Date Time. I also have to account for my supervisor being in a different time zone (that changes in relation to mine) as well. Enter multiple time zones in Outlook.

A view of how I use multiple time zones in Outlook.

To access this setting go to File > Options > Calendar > Time zones and you will see this screen.

My current Time zones settings

I worked with folks in the UK, India, & Germany at different points of my tenure in my previous role. To accommodate, I would update my time zone settings based on which team I was working with most commonly.

Hopefully, this tip helps make your life easier, please share with your network if you find this helpful.

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Functions TechTip Tuesday

Tuesday TechTip – Outlook Quick Steps

This week, I’m continuing my series of Tuesday TechTips related to setting up my new laptop at ServiceNow with the hope that as I share how I am productive, it will help you out as well. This week, I’m going to introduce you to Outlook Quick Steps. This referenced support article from Microsoft walks you through the default Quick Steps that come with Outlook and how to set up new Quick Steps. In this post, I’m going to share what I use for Quick Steps as well as some tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way.

To start, here’s a graphic showing my current Quick Steps as well as the configuration of one of them.

I use a very simple folder system in Outlook. My main folders are:

  • Inbox – Items only live for a short time in my inbox. I subscribe to the inbox zero philosophy of inbox management but do not get overly zealous about it.
  • Calendar Folders – I have 3 folders set up with rules set up to filter meeting invite responses into Accept, Tentative, & Declined folders so I can see very quickly what people have responded.
  • Purgatory – This is where emails go to live while there is an active task in my to-do list application that needs to hang around until the task is done. I keep the contents of this folder to an absolute minimum.
  • Newsletters – This folder is used for regularly occurring internal newsletters that occur. This folder came about because I found myself regularly referring to newsletters with other employees and needing a way to quickly find them so I could pass them along highlighting specific sections because, in my experience, most people do not read internal newsletters to the degree you wish they would.
  • Travel & Expense – I use this folder for digital receipts that need to be included in expense reports that have not been filed yet. When the associated expense report is filed, the items in this folder get deleted.
  • __Archive – This is my catch-all folder. I have found throughout the years that simplicity is best. I have seen people who have extensive & elaborate folder/tagging systems (and I’ve been that person in the past) but the tools that are available now in searching and conversation views etcetera make it such that you only need a handful of folders with one main catch-all folder. I turn on conversation view for all of my folders which allows me to see all emails in a chain in my inbox regardless of which folder they’re in as well as the search capabilities have greatly improved over the years.

When it comes to Quick Steps, I recommend the following:

  • Stick to nine or less for a reason I will explain in the next bullet.
  • Ensure that each Quick Steps is assigned a shortcut key (CTRL+SHIFT+1-9 are the only available shortcut keys. This is the reason I recommend only 9 Quick Steps.
  • With the advent of Microsoft To-Do, Outlook tasks are finally usable so I would advise one of your Quick Steps to be assigned to creating a task from the selected email. The basic ad talk function well as the task to your main tasks list in To-Do, but if you want, you can move it to another list from the To-Do app.

Hopefully, this post was helpful. If you have any questions, hit me up on your favorite social network.

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Functions TechTip Tuesday

Tuesday TechTip – Outlook Categories

I’m continuing my Tuesday TechTips posts following setting up my new laptop for my new job this week with a post about Outlook categories. I have always been an avid user of categories but fairly recently changed my strategy. When the pandemic hit, a lot of us with already crazy schedules were slammed with even more meetings. I used to categorize my meetings by project but during the pandemic, I learned a new way to categorize meetings that has drastically changed the way I look at my calendar. I hope this helps.

First, to access categories, look at the Home tab in Outlook and you see the categories menu.

Categories Menu

Click All Categories… and you will see this screen.

Color Categories Form

On this form you can create, edit, delete, and rename Color Categories, including assigning a shortcut key, which I highly recommend you do.

In the screenshot above you see my new scheme. For meetings, I have a three-category scheme (not pictured are two other meetings types that I use which will come into play in a future blog post, OOO & Blocking Time). The nerd in me had to use Blue, Purple, & Red because they make a scale that made sense in my mind. The labels are pretty self-explanatory but I have a couple of rules I try to follow.

  1. Only one ___Must Attend (blue) may fill any given slot unless there is a chance where the meetings only overlap. If there is a conflict, it needs to be resolved or one of the meetings needs to be downgraded to a __Delegate (this decision can be made the day of).
  2. When an appointment is marked as a __Delegate a meeting response of Tentative must be sent to the requestor and the meeting may or may not be forwarded to a delegate. Delegate really holds an “if possible” on the end of it but my intent is to not attend the meeting.
  3. The Do not attend category is used for meetings where I know I have no intention of going, but for whatever reason I want to be aware the meeting is happening so I can follow-up if necessary.
  4. Any number of __Delegate or Do not attend meetings may fill any given slot on my calendar.

Here’s how the categories look in practice:

Hopefully, this post was helpful, please let me know if there are other productivity/TechTips you would like to see in future posts.

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Functions TechTip Tuesday

Tuesday TechTip – Outlook End Appointments & Meetings Early

As I’m getting my new laptop set up for my new job, I’m remembering a bunch of the tweaks I’ve made over the years to my setup so I’m sharing in the hopes that it helps you be more productive.

No one likes being in back-to-back meetings all jammed up against each other. In the past, I wrote an Outlook macro to chop the last 5 minutes off an appointment or move the appointment back 5 minutes off the 1/2 hour. Now, Outlook will allow you to do this without having to script any macros. I’ve seen two different iterations of this so your mileage may vary depending on which version of Microsoft Outlook you’re using at your organization. I’ll offer both screenshots below. Both screenshots are accessed via the Calendar Options menu by going to File > Options > Calendar > Calendar Options. In both cases, you select that you’d like to modify the length of meetings, then specify how.

Basic options with ability to end early
Advanced options with ability to end early or start late

Hopefully, this tip was helpful, please let me know if there are other TechTips you’d be interested in.

10/28/2021 Update: Due to the nature of the way my organization works, I have since shifted my setting to start meetings late. You will have to see what works for your organization.

I have also been made aware that this setting is not currently available for Macs. It is unfortunately only available on Windows PCs at this point in time.

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Functions

(Service)Now we’re Talking

For those that know me personally, they know I have always been a software guy. I’m a developer by training and have always enjoyed software. Apart from a short stint at Arthur Andersen right after the dot-com bust (4 months before they got rid of my entire group several months before the Enron scandal) ConocoPhillips/Phillips 66 was the only company I worked for where what I did wasn’t directly related to what we sold as a company. Before working there, I had run my own software company Two Miles Solutions (I still keep it as a side gig). Before that, I had worked at Epic and WTS Paradigm (both are leading software companies in their respective industries).

In a previous role at Phillips 66, I had been the platform owner for ServiceNow and had worked very closely with several folks, and had been very impressed with the quality of people I worked with. As I learned more about the company like their purpose statement (which I have seen them embody).

We make the world of work, work better for people.

I found with each piece I learned I aligned closer and closer to who they are as a company. For instance, their Code of Ethics could be boiled down into 3 simple words that resonate deeply with me. Integrity, Teamwork, and Trust.

As I worked my way through the interview process, each person I interviewed with I was very impressed with and could envision myself working for very easily.

The piece of information that sealed the deal was at the end of my last interview, the panel members asked me if I had any questions. I asked them

“What is the question you wished you would have asked before joining ServiceNow? What is the answer to that question?”

The panelist who answered didn’t skip a beat and addressed his major concern when he joined on whether or not ServiceNow was really a family as everyone said they were. He had come in from one of ServiceNow‘s partners so he felt like they had to treat him nicely because he was a partner. He spent the first 18 months of his 2 years at ServiceNow trying to disprove the premise they were all a family and he said he finally had to give up because he just couldn’t. They really were a family. That did it for me, I was sold.

So there you have it. A lot of people guessed I had landed at ServiceNow as a Principal Success Architect in the Customer Outcomes organization. Well, pat yourself on the back, you were correct!

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Functions News

Hanging up the Shield

Today is a bittersweet day for me. Today, I hang up the shield. After 10 years at Phillips 66 (Phillips 66 was spun off from ConocoPhillips in 2012, the split was announced a month after I started and I began working on the split at that point so I consider pretty much all of my time at ConocoPhillips as Phillips 66 work) I am moving on to a new opportunity starting on Monday, but before I go, I wanted to reflect on my time at Phillips 66. I have much to be thankful to Phillips 66 for. I started as an individual contributor and worked through several levels of leadership including functional leadership in some of our IT and company global events. I met some of the best people I’ve ever worked with in my entire 20-year career and was able to channel my passion for personal productivity into a group that is now one of the primary vehicles for end-user training at the company. I have been very blessed to have been at Phillips 66, my personal growth has been astronomical.

As I move onto a new endeavor though, I want to speak to my friends, former employees, and mentees at Phillips 66. I meant it when I said I wanted to stay in touch. You are all phenomenal people and I am deeply grateful to have met you and I’m one of your biggest fans and hope you go on to crush all of your goals. Remember, I’m only a text/email/phone call away and I mean that.

Keep Providing Energy and Improving Lives with Safety, Honor, & Commitment and I will be over here cheering you on!

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Functions

Ask the Dumb Question…

I recently made a post on LinkedIn that got a lot of attention and interactions so I wanted to take a moment to share it here and expound on it with a blog post.

I’ve been in IT/Software Development troubleshooting problems for 20 years now and it never ceases to amaze me what question unlocks the answer to solving the problem at hand.

I was on a troubleshooting call with my team and the other teams involved with troubleshooting an issue that has been plaguing one of our servers for months now. About halfway through the conversation I thought about asking a dumb question because I knew it really wouldn’t solve our problem.

We were getting towards the end of the conversation and the only option we really had at that point was a Hail Mary type solution that no one was particularly fond of but was the only option we could see with the information we had.

So I asked my dumb question…

Which led to a question from one of the server experts on the call…

Which led to an explanation that triggered a light bulb moment for the expert.

Now we have a good path forward and our teams will hopefully be able to solve this longstanding issue today.

As we hung up the phone last night I realized that in most of the troubleshooting situations I’ve found myself in over the years, it’s the seemingly dumb question that unlocks the resolution…

LinkedIn post on asking the dumb question – 2/10/2021

The post above got a lot of interaction (for me) and resonated with a lot of people. To expound on the post though, how do you ask the dumb question well?

  1. Don’t be known for the dumb question. This one should be pretty self-explanatory but if you’re known for asking the dumb questions, that’s not a good thing.
  2. Admit that it’s a dumb question. I’m not a big fan of the term “thinking outside the box” because I subscribe more to the concept of throwing away the box in the first place. Not everyone is there though so you may need to make sure people understand that you’re asking the question to spur on discussion, not because you feel the question has merit.
  3. As a leader, use the dumb question sparingly. In the scenario I described above, we had come to the point where we had pretty much exhausted all options. What was needed was something that would get people out of their current mental groove so they could look at the problem in a different light and see things they hadn’t seen before. In most cases, the grooves are there for a reason so knocking people out of the groove too often is just plain annoying.

Two of the commenters on the post mentioned humility/vulnerability and while I wasn’t thinking in those terms when I asked the question, I think they’re on to something. If our teams see us willing to ask the dumb question and not always try to save face, how much better will they be because they’re willing to ask the dumb question because they’ve seen it modeled?

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Functions Uncategorized

Resolutions Fade… Now What?

Statistically speaking, more than likely, when (if?) you went to the gym this morning, the parking lot was probably a little emptier, you’ve had that tub of ice cream, or are already behind on some other resolution you set at the beginning of the year. As nice as it is that you can now get your favorite bench for International Chest Day (a.k.a. Monday) you’re probably pretty frustrated with yourself at this moment.

Let yourself off the hook… and move forward…

I’ve never been a fan of new year’s resolutions; what I am a big fan of is continuous improvement and building systems that move you towards your goals and who you want to be. When people ask me how to do that, one of the first tips I give them is to find that slack time in their schedule and find some small habit to implement.

For me, from a personal improvement standpoint, my favorite slack time to take advantage of is that few minutes while my laptop is starting up in the morning. My coffee is always ready before I sit down so it truly is slack time. I always keep some business or personal improvement book on my desk and read a chapter as I’m waiting for my laptop to log in and my autostart applications (you are automatically starting the applications you use every day aren’t you?).

As I mentioned above, they’re usually business or personal improvement books, however, I would recommend you start with either Tools of Titans or Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss. Why do I recommend you start with one of these two books? Because they’re MASSIVE! Tools of Titans is 736 9″ x 7″ pages and Tribe of Mentors is 624 9″ x 7″ pages, these things are tomes. I want to teach you a lesson. A lot of people I talk to tell me they don’t have time to read when in reality they have plenty of time to read and by taking it in small bite-sized chunks anyone can get through these extremely large books, it may take you a year to get through one but, if you can get through one of these suckers those tiny little business parable books you have on your shelf will be nothing.