Weeknotes: July (1)

The last week of June and first week of July rolled in to one have been jam packed, so I thought I’d do a ‘the good, the bad and the beautiful’ weeknote to be a bit different!

The good

• We’ve started working with our new digital partner Digital Wonderlab and it’s great! Seeing a clear plan for how we can deliver a new web platform, making sure it’s user-centred and helps us develop our understanding of a prototyping approach is really exciting. It feels like there’s a wealth of expertise in the DW team we can tap in to and rely on which gives me a huge sense of relief! Of course, we’re 2 weeks in and anything could happen over the course of the project, but thanks to an alignment session led by Dot Project I think we’re set up pretty well. I wasn’t sure what an alignment session would do (surely we’re aligned as we all know what’s being delivered?) but it was a really great experience. Stepping out of project delivery to think about spaces, roles and relationships. Recognising that we don’t really know each other yet, we have a dream or expectation of what the other party is like; how they will behave; what they will do. Honestly sharing our hopes and our fears. It’s not normally time you dedicate to starting projects. But I really see the value. The challenge is to consider how we take what we learned & started and live it through the project to ensure it’s success!
• We had a fantastic day session with our entire team learning user-centred tools and techniques, and how to collaborate more effectively with each other. In order to embed a user centred approach within the way we work we have split the team in to 4 ‘taskforces’ in which they can test and learn. Each taskforce is using user-centred, collaborative tools such as empathy maps; knowledge boards and user journeys to come up with prototypes to tackle key challenges we’re facing as an organisation. This month, each group took a key How Might We and looked at the insights we might need to ensure we really understand the problem and can start to develop ideas to tackle it. It was a full on day (see below!) but felt really productive and useful. I love the change in the conversations we have as a staff team now - recognising what we don’t know has been a big culture shift!
• Speaking of staff, this week has been full of brilliant conversations with colleagues working in all teams. Going through a period of change can be unsettling — the more we grow, the more we feel we don’t know! I’ve loved being able to discuss challenges & problems, and find insights which give us confidence in our next steps. I know my colleague Laura finds the same. We’ve definitely discovered having peers you can be honest with, and soundboard with, is key for transformation. I’m so glad we’re able to do that (thanks team!)
• It’s also been great speaking to those outside the organisation too! Thanks to a coffee connections hook-up by CAST, I’ve been having regular catch ups with Neil at Cockpit Arts about their digital transformation journey. It’s great to speak to someone on a similar yet different path — but we both have so much to say 45 minutes is never enough :)
• Finally, I’m learning how to use Trello. It’s a tool I’ve dabbled in before, but not really taken to. Now I’m engaging in someone else’s board it’s a lot clearer how it works and I’m enjoying a new tool!

The bad

• What I have learned is, don’t book 2 half hour meetings, then facilitate a 5 hour session on zoom and follow it with another meeting. You’d think after 15 months I’d know this, right?! Also, don’t follow that day with another day full of online meetings. Your head will hurt (well, mine did). Productive at the time, yes. Not so good for productivity the day after! I will (try to) remember this…..
• I also need to be much better at planning in when to review key documents. That moment when you’ve written a Quality Management Framework last month, then you check the project risk plan because you need to update it for a meeting, and find a key section of the QMF you said you’d include and forgot to. Oops. I’d far rather be delivering a project than completing the paperwork if I’m honest, but I do see the value in project management documentation. For one, it can stop you making mistakes! I need to be better at planning in more regular check in’s with my key documents (monthly not quarterly).

The beautiful

Just for fun, the (work) beauty I’ve seen this week has been twofold:

• Miro :) Oh how I love Miro. The colour coding. The theming. The flexibility. Although it is getting to the stage that I am losing track of how many I have! It’s such a helpful, and beautiful, collaborative tool and I’ve used it with colleagues so many times this past week. If you haven’t tried it, you must.
• Having not worked with a digital partner before, and not knowing what to expect, there was a lot of beauty in the clean, simple, weekly status report Digital Wonderlab provide. Even with just one weekly update, I can see the benefit of how it will help us keep the project on track. Which I love.

So, the good, the bad and the beautiful. Here’s to a good weekend and whatever the next week will bring!