A really exciting week as we get closer to the Discovery project kicking off. I’m still working through some challenges of working from home because COVID-19 and communicating. It’s been a bit of a reflective week because I’ve been at JRF for a year.
What did you experiment with?
Doing my first reflective blog post and sharing it. It felt good to get something out. Hence getting back on the weeknotes wagon, and trying out doing them publicly.
Setting up social stuff with colleagues :-)
What was hard?
Presenting my thoughts on how we think about insight as a service without having had pre-chats with all stakeholders, so not knowing if I was on the right lines.
Talking at cross purposes with a colleague about a small piece of work, and the fact that it took nearly a week to get to a place where I could see value in the conversation. Something I’m sure would have been much easier if we could have chatted face to face.
What did you enjoy?
Really enjoyed doing the show and tell to all staff about how we’re approaching discovery project and where my role was leading on the mapping.
I enjoyed having a chat with a colleague who I’d not met before as she was brought into a project about management information. Her suggesting about co-designing a pilot project is great (wish I’d thought of it), but hopefully it’ll mean I can show clearly the value of the design process. It was a bit tricky that when I shared this back with the team it seems I might not have the full background or the scope might not be quite right (despite the purpose of me email being to clarify scope). But I guess it’s better to work that out now, and we’ve got a meeting in to discuss.
Enjoyed the 2 social things I put in with colleagues, a quiz (which I wished I’d planned a bit better, but it was still fun to have a bit of non work time together) and introducing the dice game to someone, really nice to have a chat around it and share the game with a new family.
What did you learn?
I’m enjoying reading Nudge, it’s fairly slow going and not something I’d manage if we weren’t in lockdown. I’ve had it for a year and not read more than the intro now. I feel I’m learning lots of good stuff, but a lot of it is so new that I know it’s not sinking in well. It’ll need a re-read.
I shared my pre-discovery swap of thoughts with colleagues and their reaction was not what I was expecting, but was really useful. Someone who’s been around a long time said ‘we used to know a lot more of this before’. Someone else asked great questions about how we segment our audience that gave me a glimpse of a future I’d not imagined in how we can think about people who use our services, it was really inspiring.
Who did you talk to outside of your organisation?
Went to a great presentation as part of a festival #DeptofDreams. It was by Sarah Drummond and Rebecca Squirrel from Snook, called ‘We Need Longer Term Thinking Now More Than Ever’. It was a great workshop that used a story of cholera to open up thinking about service transformation and then 4 scenarios to consider impacts on us as people and our organisation.
Also had the meet the team with Snook for discovery which was cool, thinking about hopes and fears for the project.
What would you have liked to do more of?
I still need to work on making sure I am adding value by getting to do and deliver, I feel like I talk about good stuff, but can’t always turn it into reality.
What do you wish you could have changed?
Getting to a place of mutual understanding with a colleague quicker, I was pleased we got there in the end, but it was tough going for a few days. I was also pleased that I remembered we’re all stacked and to keep talking was the best way to get through.
What are you looking forward to next week?
Working with others to make some sense of the swap that I’m creating for sharing with Snook for kickoff with them.
What are you reading?
Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
Time taken: 30 mins on Friday afternoon
