A weeknote, starting Monday 5 June 2023
It felt like this week flew by, probably because I was out and about a bit. It followed trips to the Peak District, North East Lincolnshire and York at the end of last week. Feel like I’ve been in endless motion – packing and repacking.
At lot of the sense of speed comes mainly from trying to recruit at pace. On Thursday two campaigns went live aiming to bring in five Senior User Researchers and four Senior Service Designers. We’re setting up discovery teams to work on an ongoing basis with different portfolios across the agency. We’re trying a few new tactics out with these campaigns to learn what helps us be an attractive employment proposition and how to engage with great people looking for their next role.
A couple of related posts about moving into public sector work, one close to home, one more distant (hello California!). Sometimes it’s helpful to see why people choose to work in a particular environment. A consistent theme is connection to purpose and the importance of the impact you can have working on government services.
- ‘The best step I could take’ – taking the leap from the private to public sector by Alex Lee
- Why I quit my job at Google to work in local government by Lauren Jong
I spent time in Leeds on Tuesday at a Traffic Commissioner public inquiry where I saw a different part of the experience that some vehicle operators have as part of running a business which uses commercial vehicles or buses. I was fortunate to spend some time with Traffic Commissioner afterwards to reflect on what I’d observed. We discussed some of the challenges for vehicle operators and some of the common issues he sees at public inquiries. Taking a broader view of the service we also explored a few thoughts about interventions that could help vehicle operators and support them in meeting their obligations. Following up with the Service Owner and Product Owner afterwards we agreed to develop an outline for some discovery work in this space.
This paper by Olga Elizarova and Paul Kahn about using behavioural insight tools and customer journey mapping is good stimulus for how we might approach that work as and when it gets prioritised.
On my drive to Leeds I took the opportunity to listen to Rachel Kobetz talking with Peter Merholz and Jesse James Garrett on their Finding Our Way podcast (Spotify link). She has written this post about the importance of collaboration, shared outcomes and alliances which covers some of the ground. Something that resonated in the podcast was talking about breaking silo mentality and the zero sum game it can create, and focusing on building relationships with the people and teams who can help multiply your efforts. That definitely something I encourage my team to do, and it’s made possible by building trust and relationships which get stronger over time. I also wrote it as a little shorthand equation for myself which may not make much sense to anyone else but sharing here in case it does –
(10x)>(=0) Working with people who can 10x your impact is greater than working in silos and a zero sum game
I appreciated this share from Tom Loosemore highlighting the impact of having a culture of openness.
I started reading Leading Public Design (which I mentioned in my last note) and that led me to this article about understanding context and the Cynefin framework: A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making by David Snowden and Mary Boone.
Things to explore list:
- Mural, Metaverse, and Your Future of Boundaryless Collaboration in 2023 By Erik Flowers
- Producing bilingual content through trio writing
- Liminal Leaders podcast by Martin Dowson and Brian Hoadley
And finally, why turning down a contract for $1.9b could be a smart move
2023
- 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)
