First week done!

It’s been a hell of a week; my brain feels like it’s absorbed more information in 5 days then in the last five years (shameful how accurate this probably is).

There have been times that I swear the clocks in these buildings are broken. We have two hours to complete a challenge set by the coach, you get stuck into your work, blink and it’s time up.

However, don’t read any of these as negatives. Its genuinely everything I hoped for in this experience. Every day is a challenge, every five minutes you learn something new. My cohort are fantastic people and everyone in the building has been more than happy to help.

Take today for example, DS14 had an afternoon client meeting but were tasked with pairing up with one of us and creating a project with everyone in DS15, my cohort. They’d be forgiven for being frustrated by that, but not at all. They’d all been in our shoes two months before and were more than happy to explain any questions and give us 100% focus to make sure we were ready for OUR project, not theirs!

I guess in some ways it sheds light on the great structure of the programme, we’re getting ready for placements in which one project in one week would be a walk in the park. Having to manage your workload through the week to make sure all projects make it over the line in time will be exactly the challenges presented to us in the work place.

How much can you progress in one week? The first project had us take an awful viz we’d done before, find a data source and join it to a new one to improve on our first. This embodies a real staple of the company: iteration. No dashboard will ever be complete the first time, get your ideas down, scrape something together and improve from there.

So, to finish check this out:

Before (so bad it’s literally embarrassing to post this):

https://public.tableau.com/profile/joe.stokes#!/vizhome/Deathratespractice/Deathrateofworld

After:

https://public.tableau.com/profile/joe.stokes#!/vizhome/Project1_15599223337450/Dashboard1

Myself and my DS14 partner James created something that is streets ahead of what was before. James taught me a whole host of features like parameter actions, set actions, motion charts and much more. Things I either hadn’t heard of or didn’t quite understand the potential of. It’s a great start and can’t wait to put these things into practice again.

Until next time…