Last Wednesday, my chum Nick Hill and I ran a rather silly virtual event – the ‘digital dream yurt’. It’s an informal get together where people involve in digital and change in public service can get together on a Zoom call and share ideas and experiences around a particular topic with the inside of a yurt as their virtual background.
Annie Heath shared this screenshot of the yurt on Twitter
It’s a mixture of silliness as well as useful content, and the irreverence adds something I think that is often missing from more – dare I say it? – professionally run webinars. In a way, it harks back to the early days of govcamps and unconferences – random people getting together to find common ground, and to provide fresh perspectives, and to disappear down the occasional rabbit hole.
On this one, we focused on managing the often large portfolios of work that digital teams have on their plates. Richard Clarke, from my team in Croydon, was on the call and produced this amazing sketch of the discussions.
The wonderful sketchnote produced by the lovely Rich Clarke
Of course, everyone knows that in the real world, options are limited by time, money and statutory responsibilities. Less obviously, the solutions we choose to implement may be constrained by our perception of what level of change is, in principle, possible.
As a product community we share many of the same stakeholders and user groups, at both a national and local level. This means that teams often fall under multiple governance mechanisms, presenting new risks; the inefficiencies linked to double or triple reporting, and the risk that different boards disagree on each other’s decisions.
It’s the role of our delivery leads to help the team find the right working pattern for the project. To balance the need for flexibility against the need for consistency, we’ve crafted a handful of guides to use for the various meetings (or ‘ceremonies’) and updates that we use on a project.
…over the years our industry has got much, much better at delivering digital services. I’ve been privileged to work with high-performing teams that have both the trust and the tooling to do their best work…Sadly the good practice isn’t evenly distributed, and I sometimes find myself feeling the same frustration rising as it did that day almost 20 years ago…In this post, I’m trying to draw together the threads of good practice as I see them.
You can find everything I have ever bookmarked ever on Pinboard. I also tweet out these bookmarks as I create them.
As mentioned in this post, I have started to find some time to read a bit more, and to bookmark useful stuff. Here’s what I have found in recent days (if I am honest, less than I would have expected – although maybe the time of year is to blame for that).
I’ve seen enough of this now to know the cycle. You all know the cycle. Government business is being done badly. Everyone’s fed up. Influential voices outside the incumbent delivery team grow and grow. Eventually they get a go at it. Rinse. And repeat.
Nearly ten years ago, Google shipped an unassuming, totally unbranded laptop to a large group of journalists and tech enthusiasts as part of a 60,000 unit pilot program. That laptop was the CR-48, and it was designed to showcase a project Google had been working on internally for well over a year. It was called Chrome OS.
Where we’re working to fix the plumbing, we should be doing so specifically to enhance capabilities that improve boroughs’ ability to tackle real-world problems. We can only determine if we’re doing that well by proactively working with colleagues to deliver some real-world outcomes.
So much of our lives are subject to the unconscious biases and technological evangelism’s of the people who create the virtual worlds and services we spend so much of our time in and our current fascination with ethics is a desire to create a controlling framework around the tools and systems which are now controlling our lives.
You can find everything I have ever bookmarked ever on Pinboard. I also tweet out these bookmarks as I create them.
A short reflection on the year, and some thoughts on what I need to be doing better in this new year (and decade!).
The last year has been pretty good, I think. It’s certainly gone by quickly. Work has been good – intense, but good. Much bigger organisation than I have been used to than before, much bigger team… with all the benefits but also challenges which that brings.
I’ve been super-lucky with the people I work with – Neil is a great boss and we get along famously, which makes life a lot easier than it would be if that were not the case. The people who were here when I arrived have all been incredibly welcoming and supportive, as well as positive about the changes we have made. On top of that, the folk who we have recruited during the year have all had an amazing impact, each person bring their own unique improvements to what we do and how we do it.
I moved into a new flat, which was great. Much closer to the people I needed to be closer to, as well as a five minute walk to the station, which is very handy! It’s a nice space too, and I feel very comfy and at home there, which was not the case for my previous place.
I’ve managed to find the time for more reading – literature rather than blogs etc – which has been a good thing. A mixture of actual real life paper books, plus stuff on a Kindle (had to buy a new one as I managed to lose my previous one!), plus audio-books – mostly during my fortnightly long drives to and from Lincolnshire.
This kind of reading does wonders for my well-being I think – providing that occasional escape from reality that’s so needed from time to time, as well as giving me the chance to think about things that don’t normally crop up. I do feel slightly annoyed with myself that I haven’t written down anywhere all the books I started and finished – it would have been good to have a proper list to see exactly what I got through in the year.
Looking forward, there’s some key things for me to get done in 2020.
In work, I need to get some roles filled on my team to enable me to take a step back and focus on the areas where I can really add some value. Right now I’m covering too much and am dragged into areas where I shouldn’t be so involved – not least because it’s stuff I’m not actually always very good at. Getting my management lead roles filled will help so much with this.
I also need to improve the way I communicate at work, and this will take a bit of creative thinking. I am generally at my best, I think (colleagues probably will disagree!) when I am wandering around the office, chatting to folk, but this is hard to scale and has resulted in a situation where the knowledge held by the team differs wildly in terms of who I have spoken to more than others. At the same time, people don’t like lots of emails, nor an over-reliance on tools like Teams for comms, so I suspect a balance is needed between individual chats, larger all hands style get-togethers, and the odd bit of writing delivered by whatever medium suits it best. It would be good to be able to innovate a bit and be creative with different formats for the latter.
I’d like to better monitor and track exactly what I am doing and achieving at work – not least because as one moves up the org chart into more managerial positions, it’s sometimes hard to really define the impact you are having. Terence Eden’s suggestion seems a neat one to be able to monitor this stuff without it turning into too much of a chore.
Another work-related thing is that I want to do better with my reading and writing about work-related topics. I chuntered on about this back in March, and then didn’t do anything about it until November, which outlines what a challenge I’ve found it. I must acknowledge a truth pointed out to me by Paul Brewer before Christmas, that I tend to be a lot more busy in sharing content when I’m looking for a job – that’s where the motivation comes from. He’s definitely right, and it is perhaps a good sign of how settled I am in Croydon that I don’t feel the need to be promoting myself, or what I think, quite so much.
However I am definitely feeling it as a negative thing, that I am not reading or writing enough. This presents itself in a number of ways – I find it harder to know what I think about things, having not spent the time understanding various viewpoints and writing about them to process how I think about them and what the right things to do are. It also means I become a bit insular, and not developing my own thinking in response to what is happening elsewhere enough.
So, the things I would like to start doing to fix this are:
dipping into Feedly every day to get some reading done
bookmarking good stuff in Pinboard, and regurgitating them out into Twitter via some automagicery
maybe, maybe find the time to restart Digital Digest, using the bookmarks as a starting point
Finally, I need to connect more often with some of the amazing people in my network that I just don’t get to speak to enough. Maybe this could take the form of having at least one chat with someone every month – even if it’s just a phone or video call – for that regular opportunity to share stories and experiences with great people who I just don’t see often enough.
Health wise, I really need to get my diet sorted. The days of my being able to eat what I like and it have no impact on my waistline are very much over! I’ve started today as I mean to go on, fruit for breakfast, soup (no bread!) for lunch and am resisting the biscuits and other snacks as best I can. I also need to better control my diabetes – again whether it’s because of age, I don’t know – but the last year has seen a more than usual number of ‘wobbles’, which is worrying.
Alongside this, I need to improve my fitness, which really is woeful. I suspect I have done no serious exercise since I stopped playing football when I was 16! Honestly, it’s embarrassing. I need to acknowledge my very low starting point here though and not embark on anything too strenuous to begin with! Any suggestions welcome, but colleagues have already recommended that I should start walking the 7 flights of stairs to our floor in the office rather than take the lift, which sounds reasonable (by which I mean exhausting).
Finally, to keep getting through the (e/audio)books, maintaining a decent balance between challenging and entertaining reading, and maybe (again, maybe) start to scribble down a few creative words of my own. I’m not sure what that actually means in practice, but I have always felt almost a yearning to write creatively, but have never dared to start due to the fear of disappointing myself.
To track 2020, I’ve decided to do something I’ve never done before, but I have bought a paper diary with one page for every day, which I am going to use to write down what I’ve done, read, eaten and anything else noteworthy, in an attempt to carve out some space for reflection and build up a bit of a log for how I am doing on a daily basis.
I’ve not posted one of these for three weeks, which perhaps is something I should apologise for – although I am hardly inundated with demands for one. The bonus is that in covering three weeks in one note, I actually have some things to say.
Also, I have fiddled slightly with the running order, see if you can spot it.
Gone well
Last week I took a week off work, and did pretty much nothing. I had an eye test (more on that later), a haircut, met some friends (nice to be reminded that I do actually have some), and read quite a few books (more on that later). I felt rested, and realised that in fact I do quite like not working sometimes.
At work, the alpha of the new website went live a couple of weeks ago with the content from adult social care – a marvellous thing to happen. My role is very much of the periphery and yet it was nice to see folk so happy.
I also took a day off to go up to Glasgow and deliver a little talk about what we have been up to in Croydon. Got some good feedback which was nice because external validation.
Room for improvement
My eye test revealed to me what I already knew, which is that I can add hyperopia to my long-standing myopia. It’s so bad I was advised I had to get varifocals because swapping between two pairs of specs would drive me mad, it would have to be done so regularly. Another sign of getting old.
I have a fairly bad case of presenteeism in my job, in that I feel the need to be in the office all time – because, you know, I’m so important. Taking time out recently has reminded me that actually everyone is just fine without me around. It’s fine – and in fact, it’s probably better! This jars somewhat with my messiah complex but I guess I just need to deal with that.
Reflections
The time I spent putting slides together for the Glasgow event gave me plenty of time to think about and reflect on the work we have done during this nearly whole year. The realisation for me was that by far the most impactful stuff we have done is in the space of organisation design – getting CDS into the shape it needs to be, with the right skills and attitudes in place to enable us to kick on and do some great work in the future. Yes, there have been successes in the delivery space along the way, but building the team, and bringing the rest of the organisation along with us, has been the major achievement. I suspect that not enough thought is given to this work when other places are planning some kind of big change programme, whether ‘digital’ or otherwise. Also there’s no cookie-cutter approach to this, time needs to be spent understanding the people, the history and the rhythms of an organisation to know what the right thing to do is.
Cultural input
Quite a bit to cover because three weeks.
TV – finished second series of The End of the F**king World and it was marvellous. Better, I think, than the first, it was funny, sincere and heartwarming – but only just, so not mawkish. Thoroughly recommended.
Books – Lanny by Max Porter is an absolute marvel of a little book. I loved his first one too and this is just as good, occupying a space somewhere between a story and a poem, full of magic and warmth and ideas.
Also, somewhat to my embarrassment, I’ve discovered a penchant for historical detective fiction all of a sudden. I blitzed my way through the first two of C.J. Sansome’s Shardlake series of books, which ludicrously cover the adventures of a hunchback Tudor-era lawyer. I know, I know. Anyway, my life won’t be changed by it obviously, but the pages kept turning and I was gripped – until I finished and then I felt a bit ashamed.
Finally in books, I’ve started Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station, which is a slight thing but delightful so far.
Listening – more of Underland on long car journeys, but also Audible’s podcast about Rupert Murdoch, The Sun King which was ok enough, but did leave me wanting to know quite a bit more.
In music I came across Arthur Russell for the first time, whose work really rewards repeat listening – extremely diverse and loads of fantastic little surprises that pop up when you’re least expecting it. Also I went to see Sam Fender play live – he’s a millennial geordie Bruce Springsteen (which I consider to be a good thing).
Phew, that’s a lot of words. Well done if you made it this far. Something to amuse you, as a reward:
