Dunelm Technology Awards
What a year and what better way to wrap it up than to hold the prestigious Dunelm Technology Awards. A great opportunity to recognise some of the great talent we have across the Technology and Product organisation.
Hosted by the “new Ant and Dec”, our CITO, John Gahagan and our People Business Partner, Leanne Orton, we were treated to an extravaganza of dramatic drum rolls, seamless transitions and an avalanche of Teams reaction emojis.
All the winners received a custom one-of-a-kind physical trophy to add to their mantelpiece, super-kudos from the wider team and a digital badge added to a blockchain to celebrate the awesomeness online.
Without further ado, I give you the finalists, the winners and the nominations!
Actually, there’s a little bit more ado — congratulations to everyone nominated, there were some fantastic entries and the independent panel (outside of tech) found it hard to decide on winners. Also, thanks to everyone who submitted an entry, it’s great to see so much thanks being shown
Now on with the show… (kinda)
VALUE AWARDS
The ‘Act Like Owners’ Award
Awarded for: Taking Responsibility, challenging, Making it happen and being resourceful
Finalists: James Boddy, Neil McMurtrie, Milesh Patel
Winner: James Boddy
Badge: https://www.credential.net/6855b79b-233d-45e6-b818-3f30add96c07
Nomination: I’m nominating James for this award because he embodies the “Act Like Owners” mentality with everything he does. He regularly steps up to deal with issues whether that is something that has been assigned to him or something that is perhaps being neglected or dismissed by others and just needs someone to take the initiative and move it forward. Two recent examples of this are…
…Some of the progress made and successful outcomes would not have been possible without his support and attitude and this was echoed by his colleagues and the project leads. These are just two of many examples I have of James acting like an owner and doing his best to help keep us pushing forward. He is an asset to his team, department and the business as a whole.
The ‘Stronger Together’ Award.
Awarded for: Connecting, team working, communicating and including
Finalists: Amy Lane & Kiran Mistry, Costantino Petrosellini, Steven Brumby
Winner: Kiran Mistry & Amy Lane
Badge: https://www.credential.net/163e5ac6-ff1c-4348-a1b3-af0b635e973b#gs.26wubj
Nomination: Amy and Kiran could be put in a few categories in these nominations, but I’ve chosen the stronger together category because of their coaching abilities and skills, and driving the coaching dojos with me in Delivery. It’s aim is to help foster more inclusivity in teams, by teaching effective communication, good coaching practices in order to make more empowered teams who can solve their own problems and contribute to our successes. They’ve both recently completed their professional coaching qualifications as well, which is testament to how they can learn and study alongside their day jobs. It’s a pleasure to work with these 2 on the dojos and long may it continue
The ‘Keep Listening and Learning’ Award.
Awarded for: Being curious, adapting, growth mindset and self awareness
Finalists: Josh Burns, Ameri Callaghan, Rosie Claypole
Winner: Josh Burns
Badge: https://www.credential.net/3309da66-233a-4747-bf03-386c86cf26db
Nomination: Josh has had a huge amount on his plate in recent months. Not least of which has been working tirelessly to set the precedent for testing in the Micro-frontends. He investigated many tools before proposing a solution, and kept everyone in the Replatform team plus many other interested parties up to date as he progressed with his work. His curiosity has without a doubt improved the stability, the security, and our confidence in our new platform.
The ‘Long Term Thinking’ Award.
Awarded for: customer first, thinking big, making decisions and innovating
Finalists: James Wilkinson, Matt Bryer
Winner: Matt Bryer
Badge: https://www.credential.net/e11f5f96-8909-427d-94eb-68af715cb74f#gs.26wrwt
Nomination: Matt is always putting customers at the hear of every decision, while also elegantly balancing customer and business needs. He’s going the extra mile to connect the dots, bring all the relevant people and teams into the conversation as early as possible and make sure that we have a robust, long term vision — well articulated and translated into clear action. His focus on innovation is fuelled by his relentless curiosity and thorough data analysis skills.
I would like to nominate the Matt. He has pushed the boundaries and has bought the customers voice to the forefront of the conversation when we are developing new services and features on dunelm.com. He is always looking at the bigger long term picture, innovating with new techniques, learnings and thinking bigger than his space or his team.
TECH AWARDS — TEAM
Lean Team Award
Awarded for: Exemplary use of lean methodologies and practices that has brought out great results
Winner: Delivery Chapter
Badge: https://www.credential.net/c2dbc4b0-d926-4720-bda2-2c5f2b61a6bb
Nomination: I would love to nominate our outstanding Delivery Chapter for the Lean Team Award. Despite often being the unsung heroes, this team consistently optimises processes for team well-being and performance.
Our Delivery Chapter excels in helping to coordinating major incidents and pushing deliveries across the finish line. Through continuous learning, they stay at the forefront of agile and lean methodologies, implementing value stream mapping, Kanban, and Scrum for streamlined operations. Their commitment to continuous improvement is evident in regular retrospectives and experimentation. This team embraces Lean philosophy, addressing Muda, Mura, and Muri to eliminate waste, reduce variability, and eliminate overburden. Notably, the Delivery Chapter engages in difficult conversations about lead times, landing zones, and people-related issues, showcasing their dedication to overcoming challenges and ensuring excellence.
In summary, our Delivery Chapter embodies Lean principles, making them deserving candidates for the Lean Methodologies and Practices Award. Their relentless pursuit of efficiency and excellence sets them apart in the technology landscape.
Dream Team Award
Awarded for: The Dream Team is connected, aligned, collaborative, cohesive, and communicates well. A team that always helps when needed and excels in their day to day work.
Winner: Team Rocket
Badge: https://www.credential.net/c26263c3-70d6-4171-afdf-0e1377235aeb
Nomination: Over the past year, Team Rocket has demonstrated qualities of an outstanding engineering team, making them deserving of this award. When I joined the team, it was a place where everyone was muted in meetings with their cameras off. There was no culture and little structure. Our codebase was riddled with technical debt and there was little alignment on technical decisions. Since then, together we have transformed into an extremely social and innovating team, pushing forward our own personal boundaries whilst building out a solid greenfield project.
In conclusion, and in my opinion, Team Rocket’s commitment to excellence, combined with their ability to work effectively as a unit, sets them apart as a dream team in the field of engineering. And I’m proud of my team.
TECH AWARDS — INDIVIDUAL
Culture Warrior Award
Awarded for: They’re always championing to create a better and more inclusive culture, and while their actions may seem intense to some, they’re well-appreciated in the end
Finalists: Debbie Thompson, Linda Chan, Rachel Duncan
Winner: Debbie Thompson
Badge: https://www.credential.net/5112245d-b544-4487-9714-5c5c6b05d357
Nomination: Debbie has been brilliant at leading the psychological safety working group and is doing her best to rally us all in order for us to drive a better and more inclusive culture at Dunelm that makes everyone feel comfortable and able to be their selves at work. Without Debbie, I think the momentum would have been lost. She’s also presented our work well at various senior leadership meetings in order to make sure the agenda is landing to the most important people who can help drive change.
Jedi Award
Awarded for: Mentors who have made a significant difference through their guidance and helped us unlock our true potential or find our true calling
Finalists: Alex Wong, Debbie Thompson, Tom Hames
Winner: Alex Wong
Badge: https://www.credential.net/6a3cce3f-793f-4115-91e5-351b37a63348
Nomination: It is hard to quantify the success of a mentor — I can’t provide a measurable unit of my improved confidence and technical skills, but I can provide examples of the impact Alex’s mentorship has had on me. I used to be terrified of having technical discussions with others for fear that I’d look stupid, but after Alex and I refined tickets together and he helped me theorise tech strategies, I have lead refinement sessions and presented my tech strats for multiple tickets. I can complete tickets without requiring anywhere near as much support as before, and the complexity of these tickets is increasing too. I feel happier and more confident thanks to his many pep-talks and refusal to lose faith in me. There are a plethora of attributes that he has that make him a great mentor: his seemingly never-ending patience, his kindness and approachability, his technical skill, his ability to adapt his approach when teaching, his time management skills, and his enthusiasm. I have felt my progress increase exponentially, and I am certain that my successes can be hugely attributed to the time, effort, and vast reserves of kindness that he brings to his role as a mentor. His ability to juggle being Tech Lead for such a difficult project, supporting our team, and mentoring me should be recognised and celebrated.
Innovator Award
Awarded for: They consistently go above and beyond to pioneer new ideas and drive innovative solutions
Finalists: Neil McMurtrie, Alastair Herd, Ginsu Thomas
Winner: Alastair Herd
Badge: https://www.credential.net/e34067bc-3758-4a3d-9607-5fe0d2a9f8f7
Nomination: Al’s huge effort to get the new UI component library off the ground. Creating the new system from scratch everything from package releases, storybook UI to the components themselves. He championed a lot of this work in extra curricular hours to make this happen. Since it’s inception he’s provided support to a wide range of teams across the business. It will be a foundational piece of tech for Dunelm moving forward and deserves all the plaudits.
Guided by his vision of what frontend development could be at Dunelm, Alastair always goes above and beyond to push us toward something better! He also shares his knowledge wide across chapters. Giving up is simply not in his nature…
The Mouse That Roared Award
Awarded for: Acknowledges the quiet achiever who, like a timid mouse, has fearlessly roared by stepping out of their comfort zone and making a significant impact.
Finalists: Alex Kovacs, Lee Clements, Ebubekir Kocaman, Harj Kaur
Winner: Alex Kovacs
Badge: https://www.credential.net/6a00c296-b74c-4854-a556-46e2d89ad38d
Nomination: When I first read the title and description of this award I immediately thought about Alex — she’s always curious to learn more about her area, but also others and is always offering to help when needed, be it by coaching or actually rolling up her sleeves and doing the work. She volunteered to help with the Design System work and has smashed it. She also got involved in the Stores discovery work and has given it her own twist, helping support other initiatives as well. Her minutious documentation and pro-active data interrogations are essential during the discovery process and I’m always delighted to work with Alex on new initiatives.
Alex goes about her work in a quiet and unassuming way but brings a great deal of value in everything she does. On top of her every day work with her area she has continued to play a pivotal role in bringing the Design System documentation tool to life. Without prior knowledge in this space she has dived in at the deep end in order to understand the tool and its capabilities, establishing an information architecture for the platform as well as carrying out user testing to support the route taken. She does so without any fuss or issues and is proactive to get the job done. Whilst the piece of work is still ongoing, it will bring true value to the business and her input to make this happen shouldn’t be underestimated.
Finally, a massive thanks to the Event Team that brought it all together, we all get a badge too:
Linda Chan — https://www.credential.net/32574ba7-0ee0-4483-bc7c-5ae564db6edd
Leanne Orton — https://www.credential.net/0be576ec-8623-4842-b9db-73bc80e69306#gs.1rm10v
Drew Tavernier — https://www.credential.net/33fce3bb-a057-4762-bed2-5f1b362b2ac6#gs.1rm1ie
Paul Kerrison — https://www.credential.net/7f563cda-fe61-4b03-8ed8-a154665b1faf
And that’s all for this year, hope you’ve all enjoyed the weekly blog for the last (almost) 2 years now!
Enjoy the break if you’re having one, see you on the other side
Thanks to the team for a cracking year!
