Week 17
A lot on at work this week:
a client session replaying our research insights and opportunities, followed quickly by a session mapping out the many ways they could sabotage their efforts to seize those opportunities. Reflection: the sabotage workshop I developed in 2017 while I was in Barnardo’s - it didn’t get much traction back then because I don’t think I was in the right rooms. But, for the rooms my colleagues and I are in now, it’s just the ticket. It makes me wonder what other things I developed earlier in my career, for other contexts, might be more impactful now. Maybe it’s time to start panning for gold in my google drive… Find out more here: https://www.audreefletcher.co.uk/blog/2023/8/7/self-sabotage-name-it-to-tame-it);
a UK and Europe team awayday that left me feeling hugely energised. Partly, I think, because we held a deep-dive into learning and development and, well, learning is why I come to work each day. A team session on new time-tracking software is unlikely to leave me so buzzed. Reflection: I can see that L&D requires some careful balancing in a small-but-scaling org like ours. Balancing individual learning ambitions with the ways in which the business needs us to grow as a workforce; meeting the needs of some for direction, clarity and structure, without frustrating the many who want to retain the high autonomy, fluidity and informality they have now in how they learn and grow. I’m going to enjoy watching how the L&D proposition evolves over the coming year or two - our People Director is amazing so I’m exceedingly optimistic.
a client workshop generating strategic options and potential experiments aligned with them. As ever the success of such sessions lies in (a) advance preparation, and (b) your ability to pivot quickly when needed. No pivot needed this time though, as they were engaged from the start. I set out the objectives, the framework, the questions - and then handed them post-its and sharpies. Reflection: I love that we’ve got them to the point where they’re comfortable enough with this as a way of working that they can just crack on - and progress their collective thinking so efficiently. That comfort, though, is still mostly limited to the core of the Team Onion - and to go far, you need to go together. I can’t help but wonder what could we have achieved if we’d managed to spread more widely some of those mental models and ways of working in the time we’ve had? (This creeping ambition is why I like to pair with folks who’re ruthless with scope…) https://teamonion.works
a design community of practice session discussing design sprints and the experience we have across the teams of quantifying UCD impact. At the end I found myself about to apologise for having been “a bit much” in the session - let’s say instead I was impassioned - but I caught myself before apologising. Reflections: I have strong opinions on (Knapp-style) design sprints because I’ve seen lots of really poor practice. Like, ethically questionable stuff, performative and tokenistic inclusion, centering of the designer/process, exploitation of participants and occasionally harm. Want to cause me to grind my teeth and mutter under my breath? Show me folks trying to apply “crazy eights” to a deeply entrenched and complex social issue. Want more thinking on this? Try KA McKercher: https://www.beyondstickynotes.com) That said I’m more chill about this when the design sprints as part of a wider process and focused on simpler things, especially if adequate research is done ahead of the sprint, the participant list is carefully drawn up, participants expectations are well managed, and ideas are tested and iterated based on real user feedback.
a team session. An engagement I was on 3 days a week last year has been so successful that the client has asked us to grow tentacles and focus on multiple programmes. I’m now only on it 1 day a month - they keep me around for my niche funding and governance nerdery. Having new people join the team was an opportunity to tell the story so far - and wow, how far we have come since we started. Reflection: the challenges we expected when we began were even harder than we’d anticipated and yet we have achieved a great deal of what we were hoping for in the the time we’ve had and in some ways have exceeded our own change ambitions. It didn’t feel like that was the case at the time. That’s the reality of two steps forward one step back - so you owe it to yourself and the team to stop now and then and see how far you’ve come, it’s so heartening. This stuff is obvious, right? Doesn’t mean we don’t all need reminding to do it. There were also elements of the engagement last year that hurt my head and my heart - but my memory of that has dimmed significantly and so my narrative retelling of the journey is more positive than it would have been back then. It feels like maturity - it’s probably just distance and perspective.
Personal
PD network mixer. I’m not putting this point in the work category because actually it didn’t feel at all like work - instead it was like being at the pub with lots of friends and a bunch of new but fascinating and talented acquaintances. And a handful of people who know me much better than I know them because they read my weeknotes. Reflection: I’m finding myself in some unexpected and sometimes weird (but not uncomfortable) conversations because of this “personal information asymmetry”. I’m going to continue sharing - for me, and for those of you who’ve said they enjoy reading (thanks for the feedback btw, it means a lot). But if you meet me in real life for the first time and ask me if my daughter is feeling better now, do expect me to be at least a little thrown to begin with.
Eye tests. I have a test this evening. I know my eyesight is getting worse. I mean, it’s still good. But it’s not what it once was. Reflection: my feelings are mixed. I’m not looking forward to my eyesight being poor enough to need glasses. But at the same time, I like how glasses look. I even toyed with the idea - earlier in my career - of getting some unlensed glasses, in an effort to be taken more seriously as a young-looking woman in the workplace (I was approaching 30 when the iPhone was launched so I’m not gonna call myself young).
I fumbled an act of allyship recently. I only found out this week. Reflection: I felt (still feel) awkward and awful and deeply embarrassed that my actions intended to help ultimately made things worse. I’ll learn from it, have apologised, will continue to look for ways I can repair/make up for harm done. But I’m not going to stop stepping up and speaking out - I don’t want my allyship to be the type that cowers and hides at the first sign of cringe.