Week 30
A big week this one.
Work
We delivered a really big workshop this week. Not literally - there were fewer than 10 people in it: the workshop was big because it represented a significant leap forwards for us in terms of insight into (a) the likely back-office teams, ways of working and processes for the new service; and (b) the most likely routes for addressing our biggest data uncertainties. It was a tricky one though. Reflection: It was tricky because we were starting from a low bar on niche domain-specific expertise, presenting first-guess journeys to a room full of opinionated experts. I kicked off by announcing to the room that we knew it was wrong and that they were all there to help us make it less wrong (we weren’t aiming for right). Despite it being uncomfortable (perhaps because it was?), it was an incredibly successful workshop.
The new client-side directors are trying to locate the edges of the wide-ranging technical, operational and data challenges facing them. At the same time, my team is focused quite narrowly on what we need to nail down for private beta. Effectively, we’re all looking at the elephant but seeing different things. So we held workshops focused on the elephant as a whole - which left everyone feeling aligned, confident of the edges, and comfortable with us working on just the trunk for now. Reflection: it was a workshop-heavy week, but would have felt even more intense if a proactive colleague hadn’t taken my extensive workshop design notes and made the workshop materials while I was away in Newcastle delivering a different session. I returned to find a really nice workshop finalised. This is the great thing about having capable, action-oriented people on the team who’ve been on the project long enough to cover for each other - it means no-one is indispensable, we all have a solid baseline understanding and so are to some degree interchangeable on tasks, and we can swarm on things to get them done quickly. I love it when teams feel this team-y.
We’ve some policy questions that are unresolved and will block private beta if we don’t get answers to them quickly. Instead of asking again a group of very harried and overworked policy folks, we just decided to write a first draft of the policy paper we’d have them submit. And, within days, made solid progress on getting those answers. Reflection: we know that making the thing gets feedback faster than talking around it. We’ve saved the policy folks time because 60% of the paper is right and ready. And we’ve saved them additional cognitive load - because reacting to something wrong is easier than creating from scratch something right; and because the structure of the straw-man creates mental footholds for them to engage with. Working this way with policy folks really helps keep up the pace of delivery - so we’re lucky we have policy-experienced people in our team to make it happen.
Home
The kids went to Cookery School Summer Camp - and every day brought home food for us to eat. All of it was edible, much of it was delicious. There was a girl in their class who’d attended the week before, and sadly for her the recipes were repeated each week -the camp it wasn’t really designed for someone to attend more than a week of it. Happily for my kids, they recognised this as the opportunity it is, and used her experience from the week before to make their own creations better. Reflections: such a reminder of how capable my kids are. They made all these things largely independently and came back uninjured despite using kitchen knives, using the oven, using a frying pan, and - never witnessed in my house - having willingly done the washing up. And they’re smart enough to know that recipes are rarely perfect, but you have to try it first to know what to improve. The best meals were the ones they tweaked, based on what their friend had learned the week before, for a better flavour profile.
I went to Brighton Pride and had a fantastic time. Someone said half a million people were there - but it didn’t feel crowded or rowdy or unsafe, only friendly and welcome. I can’t overemphasise how special that is - like many women I’m on hyper-alert when travelling alone in a new place, so to be able to rock up in a strange town as a queer woman dressed in rainbows and fairy wings, and not be afraid for my own safety is massive. Reflection: I love this for me. But it’s bittersweet with many black and brown-skinned people in the UK reminded this weekend by the anti-immigration/racist riots that they can’t take their safety for granted, not even in their own towns. And it’s bittersweet because the trans community is still under attack, a change of government hasn’t magicked away the transphobia whipped up by the recent culture wars, and people are dying. As Maya Angelou once said - “none of us can be free until everybody is free”; and none of us can truly be safe until everybody feels that way. Look out for each other peeps. #BlackLivesMatter #TransLivesMatter