Lizards. The war

I am now in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, I brought my wife here with her parents' family. There are seven of us here and this is our fourth place to stay. Here it's calm and comfortable. There're many people around, there're no problems with food. There is one more positive thing: my wife Kateryna's brother is a chef. All this time he cooked whatever you can imagine. It surely lifted everyone's spirits.

My mother and sister with her child left Ukraine for some time. My father, although not liable, works in the space industry, and all of them are now involved in fieldwork. So he should be in Kyiv several times a week.

Soon we'll leave our girls here and go further: first to Vinnytsia, to a small village without any signs of urban comfort. But these conditions don't frighten me, I've repeatedly gone to the mountains with a tent at low temperatures. Then, when the situation is stabilized, I'll move to Kyiv.

Of course, because of this, a certain anxiety is felt in the family.

"But in general, I consider this situation as normal: we gathered all together, thought of everything thoroughly, made up a plan B, plan C for various cases, and now we react and adjust our actions accordingly."

February 24th started with a very early morning call from my sister. I unconsciously rejected the call and fell asleep again. Soon I received a message in a telegram, «Ihor, wake up, the war has started.» We understood what happened from the news.

"The first emotions are confusion and shock. However, already within 30 minutes we mentally pulled ourselves together. I already had an action plan noted on a piece of paper a week before, similar to the one we worked out for the Company two weeks before the war began. So we started implementing it point by point: what to do in different cases, where to hide, what to take with us."

We contacted the relatives and determined their situations. Then I contacted Lizard, and Kateryna called her company.

We updated this morning's situation and then started working.

There are more «panicking» people, and it was easier with them: it's easier to get them out of this «pit». Also, there were morally stronger, more mature, with a clear self-centered – and this is normal – position. And it was also necessary to establish contact with them through negotiations: check up on their psychological state, find out what can be done to help, and encourage them to work in the mode that is possible – part-time, full-time...

No one canceled our work responsibilities, so we all worked.

"I do respect everyone on our team. I work for people. If they are not ok, the Company won't be ok. That is why, on the very first day, we confirmed the safety of the Lizards as our main priority."

Later, it turned out that while pulling people out of the mental abyss, all this week or one and a half passed. It was still one endless day for me.

For example, one of our project managers in Mykolaiv (ed.: Maksym) started volunteering at the Red Cross of Ukraine. So I had to take over his responsibilities. In the same way, nearly as a temporary administration in banks, I entered all our project groups and operationally led each of our daily meetings. At the same time, having already moved near Kyiv to my relatives, I dug and arranged shelter facilities.

"On Monday, March 7, we were all working.

And a few days later, Arestovych (ed.: Oleksiy Arestovych, military expert, the then President Administration Chairman adviser) says that everyone who’s more or less safe should work, relaunch the country's economy by earning money, making purchases, etc. And I realized that the decisions we made were correct."

Since then, we have already implemented a tougher policy of collaboration, the main purpose of which was to «pull ourselves together and work».

We know that in IT there’re a lot of «subtle» people, somewhat spoiled. And it was necessary to make sure that this «corrosion» didn't spread through the teams. And yes, we succeeded: partially, where I could, I covered the business processes myself.

"Some specialists began to show even better results than before the big war, working part-time. And I didn't even see a drawdown in work, and this is taking into account the fact that many working days «fall out» for many people!"

When you, the developer, have a lot of money in your pocket, you can afford a lot of things, you are safe. When missiles fly above your head, people shoot around, people have machine guns with them, many of us get scared. And that's normal. So, someone has to give them a plan and lead them along. That's exactly what happened.

At the time, I think I was making the best possible decisions. And they have already shown their effectiveness.

Now Customers, surviving in their businesses, reprioritize very quickly, and we need to make assessments from scratch very quickly. It's quite difficult: Lizard Soft is not used to such promptness. We have always asked our Clients to voice their decisions to us. But now the situation is the opposite.

That's why I'm currently acting as a «witch bad guy», clearly stating: within the framework of the Company's four areas of activity – the sale of O365 licenses, consulting, product business with the international division, and outsourcing division – three are currently on pause. Licensing business that generated our cashflow; consulting, because now companies are surviving, not developing, so it's not relevant for now; international division works, earns money, but getting money from abroad is difficult nowadays. So that now available reserves can be consumed very quickly.

"So now each team must become business-creating units and learn to earn money on their own, pay themselves money on their own supporting the Company."