Dan’s Weeknotes s03e06
Heroes
Jesus tonight my calendar this week was grim and I spent a chunk of Monday trying to sort it out. I had many meetings this week, and precious little time to decompress or actually do things. My time spent in meetings seems to be increasing¹ and I am a bit concerned.
I fine the ‘5 things that happened’ #weeknotes format good because it means there’s no pressure to cover everything that happened in the week. There are always things I don’t write about, and there are things I won’t write about (personnel stuff and private work business). Then the amount of things I can’t write about ebbs and flows.
At the moment, the volume of can’t write about it is really high. Lots of #weeknotes folks wrestle with this. Sometimes it leads to them stopping writing. You can feel dishonest. I’ve certainly been through it a few times (see season 2 episode 11 for example). I said in season 2 episode 17³ that I thought the back end of 2018 was going to bring some new challenges and hey what a surprise I was right. Secret challenges.
So while I wondered about dishonesty this week it was great to see Ian’s masterful ‘dealing with failure’ #weeknotes episode blowing up on my Twitter feed, and then to read Sam’s similarly open and powerful last episode too. I think we’ve got folks steadily pushing at public service digital boundaries every week with this thing.
Writing as honestly as I can about work on the internet is important to me for a variety of reasons. However, this week it really hit home that it doesn’t help raise understanding within my organisation of what I’m doing. At all. And in a big organisation, other people are probably talking about what you’re doing and maybe they’re not getting it quite right for whatever reason they might have for not getting it quite right. I need to get back to the hustle of one to one talks with, um, ‘internal stakeholders’. Like back in the day⁴. Which means… more meetings.
Blah blah blah did I do some work for the benefit of democracy and saving taxpayers’ money whilst trying to be a good person? Yes.
Sketch the week
5 things that happened
Note: more than 5 things happened
One. As part of my commitment to collecting extra jobs (see season 2 episode 10) I am part of a new Service Design Team, as part of the work that Rebecca (one of our Directors) is doing to fundamentally change the way we do our work. There are 8 of us, and we are all Heads of various professions in our department. We had our first two meetings this week, working out what we’re going to do. I thought they went well — the energy was good, and there’s a variety of perspectives, experience, and professionalisms in the room. I felt that Rebecca really emphasised our autonomy, and it’s going to be interesting to see how it develops. It looks like the first challenge is going to be helping to improve the ordering and provision of IT kit, over the next six weeks.
I put a call out on Twitter to ask if anybody would be willing to come and talk with us. It worked really well. Being a C-list public service digital celebrity is really useful sometimes, and for all its faults Twitter really works for me for this kind of thing. The challenge for me is to follow up on the goodwill and organise these visits.
I also had coffee with FutureGov’s Ben. FutureGov are helping with this wider fundamental change work, and I expect they’ll help out with the Service Design Team as part of that. It was time well spent, Ben was really down to earth and I felt listened to. Also I got a FutureGov sticker.
This work is going to be a big theme over the coming weeks.
Two. I heard on Monday that the Information Authority (which is the relevant board for supporting and overseeing the data strategy) had decided that the data strategy and information management strategy should be one thing. I spent much of the week working to understand what this actually means. Although it might seem unusual⁶ without context, it’s actually a really good opportunity. That was the conclusion I’d drawn by the end of the week, particularly from working with Liv (who is secretary to the Information Authority and responsible for the information management strategy) and Paul (delivery manager). We also talked through the implications at the weekly open session on the data strategy⁵, and I got helpful advice from Emma (my Director) and David (Deputy Director of my department).
I had a good chat about the data strategy with Ben too, who is a real ‘critical friend’. Very supportive, but challenging. This strategy is really important for our institutions. It’s not hypothetical either — in particular our work on highly specialised data about how Parliament works is very real, and we’ve got two and a half years of hands-on, practical work and learning behind us. Ben encouraged me to be more forthright about it. Maybe like you’d hear me talk about it at an event, or if we met in person. Referring back to this week’s intro, the level of understanding internally isn’t high or widespread enough yet. Maybe people think we’re just making complicated flow charts.
I feel like this work is gathering pace since I went to the Information Authority (see episode 3) and since Paul joined the team.
Three. I had a meeting with Helen, Alison (information architect), and Paul about presenting the data strategy to the Information Management Forum which Helen coordinates. It sounds like a large group of people from all over the places and it’s a good opportunity to test the strategy out. The best thing is that I can’t attend, and having confidence that the team (Alison, Paul, and Matthieu the developer in this case) can cover it. That is way better than me doing it by myself. Is this a servant leadership thing? I definitely remember something about trying to make yourself redundant.
Four. I ran the third of the new monthly team meetings. Robert (search lead) said that it was ‘less bad’ than the last one, and that the last one was less bad than the first. So, progress. Definitely no more going around the table asking for updates. I’d like more conversations between the group where I’m listening rather than leading.
Five. I had a brilliant session with Rebecca (Head of Content) on Monday where we did a critique of the vision for the new website. We did this because we both want to achieve a greater consensus throughout the various teams involved. This is a complex piece of work that requires collaboration, cooperation, and compromise. People have come and gone since we started. Given Tracey Jessup (Department Director)’s stated priorities (see episode 3) we thought it would be good to revisit in advance of similar work with bigger groups. I liked the energy, the fact that we agreed on something to take to the next stages, and that it felt balanced in terms of our contributions. Also I liked that Rebecca was the expert in terms of the approach to the exercise. Respecting your colleagues’ professional skills and experience is good stuff.
What was difficult?
There’s a large amount of feeling daunted and uncertain at the moment. This is not a criticism, it’s inevitable when things are changing. Soaking up those same feelings from others you have a responsibility for and care about isn’t easy either.
What was I grateful for?
- My team and the work folks closest to me are really good and I trust them
#CultureDan
Listening: The new Cat Power record and the new Tim Hecker record.
Reading: I finished Tim Harford’s ’50 Things That Made the Modern Economy’. It was great, full of things I never knew or thought about.
Also: Working through season 1 of ‘Jessica Jones’. I’m enjoying it.
¹ I capture data about my meetings each week on a glorious multicoloured chart and record it all on an open spreadsheet like a normal person. I am the Head of Data and Search at the UK Parliament so I will be analysing this² data with my colleague Liz (data analyst) and I will be able to prove with maths whether I am having more meetings recently (see episode 5)
² Or these, if you prefer
⁴ 2007 to 2012. Golden Age Dan. The ‘wearing a suit’ years
⁵ I had too many back to back meetings that day to make a video after the session
⁶ I am not being critical here. There is a clear overlap in the work that would result from either strategy, but data and information are⁷ not the same, so there is a risk that both could be diminished. Regardless, I learned that this is all understood, and everything is going to be fine
⁷ Or is, if you prefer
