Jackie Porter's — README.md

I am a big fan of GitLab's 👁️ Transparency value. I am a public by default type of person and am excited to share with you how I work. This document was inspired by the Product team README's.

• GitLab Profile
• Team Page
• ReadMe Project

Who I am

• My friends and family call me Jack or Jacks. Everyone else calls me Jackie. Currently, I am a Director, Product for the Verify and Package Stage.
• Happily, I call Weatherford, Texas home! I relocated from Austin, Texas where I attended the University of Texas at Austin to study engineering.
• I share a house with my better other half, Justin and my loving lab, Piper.
• I recieved my Masters in Business Administration from Texas State while working full-time as a Construction Manager. This was my first career that taught me so much about my love of building things. I am currently pursuing my Doctorate in Change Management.
• I was an athlete growing up and spend over a quarter of my awake time training for races, tournaments and (pre-COVID) boxing.

How I work

• My timezone is CST
• My days are non-linear
• I will take calls between 7AM - 8PM, and will work between 5AM-10PM on any given day
• If I have tasks that take less than 5 minutes, I will do it immediately
• I priortize deep work in the mornings before 7AM
• I have a strong bias for async communication
• I have Do Not Book, Lunch, Dinner, Workouts. If there is a block you are interested in for a customer call, please reach out!

How I spend my time

• I spend the first three hours on Monday going through my calendar hygiene, filling in agendas, and declining or accepting meetings
• I spend the one of the first hours of the day clearing out my Todos
• I spend the last hour of my work day clearing Todos, going to bed with a Todo is nerve wrecking for me
• I try to consolidate internal meetings on W, T and TH. I am always free for customer or vendor calls and will schedule those on any day
• I workout 6 days a week, I used to do two-a-day trainings and recently converted to longer one-a-day training in the afternoons

What I am focused on

• I am pursuing my Doctorate in Change Management and Leadership from Baylor University

How to reach me

• Slack: Mentioning me is the best way to reach me during the day (my handle is @jreporter). I will always have Slack open during business hours and will respond to @ as soon as I see it. I do occasionally review other channels like #questions, #product, and #ops_section. If you need something - @ me directly in a channel or link me to an issue in a DM. Sometimes I will set my self to away when I am in deep work. Expect my responses on email and Slack to be asynchronous in this state.
• GitLab: Mentioning me in issues and MRs is a surefire way to get my fastest response. I am super active in burning my Todos down.
• E-mail: I read my emails 3 times a day, if you need something immediately or I am not responding quickly enough, please reach out on Slack.

Weak spots

I am continuously improving and in FY25-Q1 I was told that I needed to continue:

• Driving results for our customers and team
• Bringing in PMs into issues for awareness
• Continue to challenge assumptions being made
• Regulate my action bias to make sure that people feel supported while respecting other's work hours
• Continue to coach my team and provide timely relevant feedback

In my latest 360 feedback I received some comments to improve in the following:

• Increase delegation of operational tasks
• Regular, frequent recognition of teammate accomplishments
• Increase sharing of broader, more vision outside of own domain
• Address bias and help shape GitLab culture systems to challenge bias

In this 360 feedback the majority of responses were grouped to focus on delegation and continue to support the teammates. There was one teammate that did share bias at GitLab and in my leadership was a gap. I have scheduled a workshop with my direct reports to discuss bias and how to create a safe, bias aware culture in May 2024.

Personality tests

• My Myers-Briggs is INTJ
• My Social Style is a Driver
• My Insights is a Directing Reformer leading with Red and Blue colors
• My Strengths Finders Themes are Achiever, Analytical, Learner, Individualization, and Activator
• My Enneagram is Type 8 The Challenger - The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational