Week 19
From mid-May my work life and home life are due to get much busier. Knowing it won’t last, I’ve been sure to enjoy the slightly quieter, slower pace available to me this week.
I’ve been thinking and working on some internal projects with some fantastic colleagues - one in the operating model space, one focused on case management, one on grants management, another on researchops, and then one on people strategy. I love the variety of work - and how much opportunity there is to collaborate on things that will make things easier now and as we grow. Reflection: the opportunities are there but not always seized because client work (a) always takes precedence and (b) is relatively unpredictable in its scale and flow. It reminds me how much of an ask of their staff it is when our clients expect transformation activity to happen “at the side of the desk”. It’s important, it’s strategic, it’s urgent BUT it’s the first thing to be paused when people feel overwhelmed. In my case, it means that some of these projects go more slowly than we’d like, and if we really struggle with momentum then we need to just put it down. I saw a couple of our leaders do that this month with internal projects, communicating clearly that they were being taken out of our work-in-progress for now. It’s vital role modelling - and something we advise clients to do all the time, so I love that we’re taking our own advice.
I’ve spent plenty of time getting to know people - new starters, as well as colleagues I haven’t yet had the chance to work with. I‘ve had my head down a lot recently, so it’s nice to have room in the diary to connect. Especially as we’ve had so many new people join us recently, and I hate not knowing at least everyone’s names/faces, even if we haven’t had coffee yet. Reflection: actually I’m not sure how true this is. I’m awful, surprisingly awful, at remembering names and faces. But I’m uncomfortable with not having been introduced/not introducing myself - I want people to feel known and seen.
I’m in the last proper week of an engagement (though there’s always a slightly extended “tail” in wrapping up fully) - so I’ve been finishing off the final deliverables. This project has occupied quite a lot of my brain space over recent months, not just in working hours, so it feels like a moment. And with a big intensive project starting next week, I need that brain space back. Reflection: if it feels like a moment then I should make it one - should do something with the team now, rather than at the end of May (when we’re having a retro, a few weeks after the scheduled end of the work). I don’t know if the way I run a retro at the end of an engagement is different enough from sprint retros to properly give that sense of acknowledgement and celebration and closure we crave. Is there something special and meaningful we could do or share or make together?
I worked with a friend to record a podcast focused on “new power” ways of working in public service. It was a lovely conversation. I’m looking forward to editing it down into something they can share. I would have done that this weekend but it looks so lovely outside that I can’t bear to sit in the shed doing audio post-production. Reflection: I was totally overprepared but that doesn’t matter: I was just nervous and the preparation was my way of working through it. Once we got going I quickly found my groove - it didn’t feel stilted at all, so I guess I’ll find out if it sounded stilted when I go through the audio file later. I have been meaning to podcast and/or videocast for a while now and I expect I still will. But there has been a minor backlash on LinkedIN, with people I generally respect speaking out against other people doing videocasts, podcasts and blogging, with variations on a theme of “they like the sound of their own voice too much”. I know it’s a them problem, not a me problem, but it introduced just enough doubt for me to hold fire.
I was gutted to miss CampDigital this year. I really wanted to catch-up with friends and former colleagues - and it’s always a great event. I wanted to see how Lou’s thinking on Bad Services is shaping up (that book must be nearly here); Julian always stretches my thinking; and I was hoping to see Coco speak, having seen her lightning talk last year. Oh well. Next time. My next conference is Service Design in Government in September - and I’ll be up in Edinburgh the whole week.
TV: We’ve been watching Race Across The World with the kids in the evenings - the 12yo slinks out of her bedroom and curls up next to me on the sofa for the hour, reminding me of how it used to be before she went to high school and decided that parents were to be avoided wherever possible. I’m wondering if she’ll join me for Dr. Who or Eurovision. I miss the Eurovision Livetweeting we used to do when Twitter was a thing - I wonder if it’ll pop up on Bluesky instead? I’m not on Threads (and will never be), left X and Facebook, and that type of content is too much of a stretch for LinkedIn.
The rest: sunny lunch out at a country pub on Friday; first BBQ of 2024; and completing some string art (a flamingo).