Week 44

The opposite this week - all work, not much personal life.

A very unusual circumstance for me: first week of operating the actual service with actual service users. So I decided to sit with the frontline staff in Newcastle, to be on hand to support them however they needed. I left Sunday afternoon, arrived early and stayed late most evenings to help address blockers the teams had encountered during that day so that they might progress the next, and didn’t return home until Friday evening. It was quite a shift.

Reflection: I didn’t make the progress I wanted to make on the other tasks on my plate. But I’m not finding that as frustrating as I ordinarily would because the experience has given me a unique and valuable insight into what the first week of a customer case is going to look like - which will help me work with others to improve the service design around that for service staff and users. I got to see first hand what didn’t work, what was missing, what we’d managed to nail first time, what I needed to clarify. And perhaps most importantly I’ve also come away with a new appreciation for how special those frontline staff truly are.

My body/mind woke me at before 5.30am every day this week - but this morning let me sleep until 8.35am (20 minutes ago) so I’m finally feeling rested. I’ll get some quality time with my eldest daughter today/tomorrow - my youngest is off to Guides camp.