A weeknote, starting Monday 12 June 2023
Recruitment continues at pace and the delay in getting this note out was partly down to the lack of brain I had left by the end of the week. Turns out a 5am start on a Monday morning and a train journey is my space this week to catch up.
What strategy questions are you asking? by Roger Martin is interesting to me as we take initial steps with setting up our discovery teams. I see being able to help teams ask questions they weren’t even thinking about as a capability that we’ll develop over time.
I’ve a feeling that the social norms framework that Robert Meza shares here is a tool that will help surface some different questions.
Kind of related to that, I like this call for ‘decision provenance’ from Pavel Samsonov. Being clear on why decisions are being made and how they will be measured is so important and currently part of our thinking as we go further with our North Star framework in one of our services. One dashboard is set up and being iteratively developed, another is in the works.
Martha Edwards raises some interesting points about relevant metrics for government services. Growth can be a vanity metric, and as she says for government services an increase in users could be demonstrating failure demand somewhere. For our Get MOT reminders service we recognise growth in subscribers because we can see through data that people who get reminders are more likely to get their vehicle tested on time – it’s a leading indicator of value vs the lagging measure of number of tests done on time.
Mapping is important when working with teams to explore strategic questions and how and where to measure impact. As a service designer you’d expect that from me. In The Map Trap Alessandra Canella reminds us that the maps we create are enablers for the conversations we need to have, not the end goal.
One benefit of leaving writing my weeknotes a bit later than normal is that I’ve had chance to see other people publishing theirs ahead of me.
Great to see Helen Joy joining Nikola Coleman and I as we experiment with the format. They both reflect on what has been quite the week for us as we attempt to expand our team and break new ground in engaging much further upstream in the change process.
Read Helen’s reflections here, and Nik’s here.
Vicky Teinaki talks about her experience being a service standards assessor, and also shares a great quote from Jonny Ive on the importance of writing as a designer.
Very interesting to see Matt Edgar sharing his perspective on the big changes currently happening in the NHS world, including changes to programme funding models and has piqued my curiosity a little, wondering if there’s a move to funding teams, not projects. Definitely recognise the challenge of seasonality in funding with different points in the year being marked by pressure to save or spend.
A quick reflection on weeknoting
I’ve now been writing weeknotes fairly consistently for a few months and a few things have happened for me:
- It’s given me a new way to process some of the things I’m thinking about. The act of recording things means I’ve at least got a few thoughts together and have something to refer to in future. I’m starting to see certain topics recurring. Helpful for personal reviews with my manager and also to see what was top of mind and challenging at different points in time.
- Other people that I really want to hear from have started weeknoting
- I’ve made a few new connections with people as a result of crediting them in my notes. As far as possible I share and credit the sources of insight I find.
Things to come back to:
- Setting goals when you work in a delivery team in government by Chris Taylor
- Creating impact with Research Ops – leveraging the power of communities by Emma Boulton
- On becoming a service owner
- Need to gather my thoughts after listening to Daniela Jorge talking on the Finding Our Way podcast
2023
- June: 5 Jun
- May: 1 May | 8 May | 15 May | 22 May | 29 May
- April: 3 Apr | 17 Apr | 24 Apr
- March: 6 Mar | 13 Mar | 20 Mar | 27 Mar
- February: 13 Feb | 27 Feb
Exploring Service Design — Collections of books to inspire thinking and action in how services are designed and run (affiliate link)
