Series 6 back to . . .
insert relevant noun here. School, basics, routine? It’s September — that time when schools go back, it gets darker of a morning, and it feels like the start of a new year*
Back to . . . basics
There’s a been a few point over the last few weeks where my to do list has threatened to overwhelm me, and the amount of things in ‘doing’ vs ‘done’ is out of balance. So I’ve gone back to basics with some of the things that I learnt when I was coaching with the awesome Sarah Gornall — consciously designing my week, setting three outcomes for the day, and mapping out all the things so that I can get them into perspective and work out what the next most important thing is, rather than feeling buffeted.
I focussed on team last week — getting my team managers together to discuss and share stories about how we’re doing against our MOKRs — and using that as an opportunity to join the dots between the different functions in Delivery. There’s a lot of overlap and opportunities for collaboration between the teams— from how we keep our records and data safe, starting with scanning and printing documents, to effective contract management across our projects and systems, and how we enable staff and residents to build digital skills.
I’m offering people the chance to come with me to a key strategic meeting each week, to observe, and then to feedback to me on what they thought about the meeting, and what I could have done better in that meeting. So far it’s proved really useful — both the feedback about the meeting itself, and the opportunity to have some feedback myself.
We met as a divisional management team this week to take some time to talk through an individual challenge each and get feedback and ideas from each other. This was really useful — to have some space to discuss things that we’re grappling, and get the benefit of colleagues experience. It’s the sort of thing that it’s easy to forget you can do, and hard to manage when everyone is remote working.
I read this this week from Giles Turnbull a useful reminder of the why as well as the what of #weeknotes:
What else happened this week?
It was London Tech week which included a panel on digital apprenticeships and London Office of Technology and Innovation. It was a great opportunity to pause and celebrate what we’ve achieved — and timely as we start to welcome our next 24 digital apprentices.
We ran a workshop with Digi2al and our front end padawans (as they have named themselves) — I didn’t get to go but could feel the positivity from afar. It’s really nice to see something start to take shape and grow.
Jahedur, Jasmeen, Felix and I ran a workshop with the leaseholder services team working with them to map out their current processes and their use of the Universal Housing system. We need to do this work as a part of our wider programme of work to decommission universal housing and build a series of interoperable services that enables us to build/buy, operate and improve a series of products instead, connected via our API platform and making better use of our data across teams. We also had housing steering group this week — the first of a pilot of four that we’re running differently as we work out how governance of the wider programme will work. It’s an opportunity to ask the why and what if of governance — rather than accepting custom and practice.
Back to . . . routine?
As we start the autumn I’m going to need to think about how I design my week for the colder, darker months. I’ve been into the office a couple of times — usually because there’s an opportunity for a conversation in person, but the reality is that we’re all going to be working remotely for the foreseeable. So I need to think about how I manage that without working in the garden, and to make sure I get fresh air and daylight.
Back to . . . school
I don’t have school age children now, but I have lots of colleagues who are welcoming back the chance for more routine and space to work. For me it’s about re registering with UCL**, sorting out my lecture and seminar schedule for this term and somehow ending up as the student rep for part time students.
What did I read for my masters this week?
This from Mariana Mazzucato:
‘Government is for setting big goals, defining the missions necessary for achieving them, encouraging and investing in innovation, and governing the process so that the public benefits’
I didn’t make it to the launch event for this report but am reading it bit by bit.
I joined another co-design session with Tom Steinberg this time talking about working in the open, a topic on which I have a lot of thoughts and opinions. As a result of that session I came across this initiative via Mauricio Mejia on open government sessions in France:
I’ve started listening to this podcast from Crown Commercial Service and the awesome Emilia Cedeno ***
*I wonder if we ever shake that feeling, even without school age children
**year 2 of my masters at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
*** who I also got to see in person this week
