Accountability: Fitness - Corporate

Hello!

Today's accountability focuses on my continued fitness goal, this time breaking down an initiative many people in my organisation have decided to undertake.

GCC provides employers with a simple and engaging way to create a true culture of health right across the business.

For a period of 100 days starting on 27 May 2015*, hundreds of thousands of employees around the world will compete in teams of seven as the GCC takes them on a journey that will increase their physical activity levels and improve their diet and the quality of their sleep.
https://www.gettheworldmoving.com/program-overview

The Global Corporate Challenge asks competitors to wear a pedometer every day and then directly enter their steps in to the online profile. Grouped into teams their progress takes them across a world map with the goal of 'walking the whole world' in your team.

There are some problems with the programme. The app is barely functional, the pedometers are clunky ugly chunks of plastic that don't have a set sensitivity level, and potentially the most dubious thing about the programme is that individuals have to enter their own steps into their profile every day. Not that I don't trust my team mates, but without a firm way of tracing steps with a secure method of uploading the step data without it being tampered with, the entire process needs to be viewed as slightly suspect.

 

Meh.

Thankfully the GCC has a FitBit integration so I needn't have to rely on the GCC pedometers. Logging into the GCC profile I have to confirm the steps I've done so far and then it updates my progress. I can compare my average to that of my team mates, many of whom also own FitBits but also it gives a greater accountability to my fitness and steps taken.

Overall I find the GCC a great concept with a somewhat flawed execution. We are currently in the early stages of the challenge with more yet to discover. So far I feel slightly motivated to beat the average daily step count from the 2014 challenge; 13,618, but I feel the greater motivation will continue to come from personal competitions set up through the FitBit.

Thanks for reading!
AT

Accountability: Charity

Hello!

In this accountability post I'm going to give an update on one of the later stories added to the sprint.

This story is likely to be an ongoing task with time demands fluctuating throughout the year, however by adding it to this current sprint I can quantify the time and effort put into it.

• As an agile Timelord I want to take a role within the Charity Committee so that I can help the community whilst also developing my skills
• The charity committee is starting this week with preliminary talks, I wish to take a leading role in this process and dedicate time to planning charitable causes each week

So, what happened?

The charity committee met for the first time this week. To help facilitate the meeting I created a shared Google drive with shared documents to set agendas and collate information on charities we wish to raise money for. The team is diverse in its skills, there are designers, marketers and those who have fantastic fundraising experience. I may be slightly out of my depth within this team however this can only be a good thing.

The structure will be set in the coming weeks to define all processes the committee will go through when organising events and how money will be raised alongside carving out time to give back to the local community through volunteer work.


The charity committee will be an excellent way my co-workers and I can work together to raise money whilst also building my organisation and people skills.

Hope to have more updates for you soon!
AT