Weeknotes: Back to life, back to reality (S03E01)
Back to life, back to reality.
If you had to describe this week in one word, what would it be?
I’ve had a lovely long hiatus. I finished work on the 21st of December and didn’t return until Monday 8th January. And apart from a handful of retweets and likes, I’ve even been silent on Twitter — which isn’t like me at all! Taking time to reflect on the year, spending precious time with my family, going for long runs in nature, eating all of the cheese and chocolate and recharging my batteries after a particularly frazzling December was exactly what I needed.
How I felt this week
Much like Sam Villis, I’ve been feeling a little discombobulated this week. Monday felt like a rough start to the week. Most of the office was joking that we have ‘January jet-lag’ as we’ve struggled with remembering what we all do and getting back to routine (although secretly, I’ve probably missed it).
There’s quite a bit of uncertainty at the moment. What continues to warm my heart is that everyone I meet is cracking on, anchoring themselves to what is good and always getting the job done. But I felt pretty unsure of myself on Monday, overwhelmed with the number of variables running through my head and trying to figure out what is the best way to steer the team through what’s been a pretty shaky few months.
Saying that, Monday was absolutely not a measure of how I feel. I went home that night, wondered if others find the SCS an isolating place to be, and had a little imposter syndrome pity party for one. When I woke up the next day I remembered something I’d read from Sophia Parker where she asked ‘Where are you behaving like a victim, and how can you change this?’ I’d allowed myself to create this narrative where I felt like a failure for not knowing it all, forgetting that I’m still doing a role thats relatively new for me, and that no one can anticipate what lies ahead. Every day is another chance to wipe the slate clean and to start again, so that’s exactly what I did. And the week ended on an absolute high, mainly due to the things that happened and the people I spent time with. I was really touched when on Friday someone called me a gracious and graceful leader — you know who you are, thank you.
Some things that happened this week*
[One] Jeff (Lead Service Designer in our User Centred Policy Design (UCPD) team), Nabeeha (Head of Research in MOJ Digital), the Service Design & Devolution team, Sarah and I met to discuss alignment between our four teams. We’ve been thinking about how we can all work together as a ‘lifecycle’ to scale up our efforts and maximise our impact. Jeff and I also started to brainstorm ideas for the upcoming MOJ Policy Profession Conference where we’ll be running a workshop together on creating open, user-centred policies and services.
[Two] The team and I spent time reviewing our goals from 2018 and setting our goals for January-March 2019. This process takes more time than that sentence does justification for!
[Three] Sarah and I met with another department who are keen to use Forward Leadership techniques with their team, particularly in setting a new vision and bringing everyone along on a journey. This one feels really exciting for us. We’ve also got a bunch of consultancy/training throughout Jan/Feb and have been designing session plans/outcomes for those.
[Four] I participated in a JusticeTech roundtable hosted by Sophie and Rachael from Just and was joined in the panel by Callum Murray, Lucinda Broadbent, Raquel Vazquez and Gavin Sheridan. I talked about how we move the culture from one that doesn’t consistently encourage innovation and openness, and that it can often be down to one person/small teams tireless efforts (as described by Kit in the ODI Summit) — so making that scalable and sustainable can be a challenge.
I also discussed our complex data landscape, how we are moving more towards user-centred approaches, focusing on outcomes and data by design, and understanding our data assets — as well as how we make these available as shared or open data. This stuff takes time, but I consider myself so lucky to be born at a time where I get to work on things like this — so we have to work at pace but take a considered approach and get things right. It was great to hear from the panel and audience just how treasured legislation.gov.uk is and the scale of ambition everyone continues to have for case law.
[Five] GovCamp, GovCamp, GovCamp! I spent time with our brilliant Estates team this week to go through the plans for GovCamp. This year I’m in charge of the venue, I’ve booked the pub for pre and post drinks, I’ve been helping James Arthur Cattell with arrangement for the creche [we spent some time co-working at MOJ on Friday which was a pure joy]. I’ve also agreed to do the introduction and run the pitching for the first time, which I’m super excited/nervous about as I’m taking the baton from my hero, Janet Hughes.
Last year’s GovCamp was brilliant — lots of people came up to me to say how great the event was, that it felt positive, open, energetic, inclusive, and I’m welcoming the challenge in playing my part to try and achieve the same this year. I’ve been reading through the feedback from 2018, but if you have any tips for my intro (or the day more generally) then let me know via comment in this blog, or by tweeting me at ayymanduh.
*NB: Lots more things happened this week — but not everything can be put in weeknotes. I’m thinking about better ways to reflect on my week when that’s the case. Anyone else experience this?
Highlight of the week
It had to be popping by my Nana’s on Friday night for a good old natter with with a delivery of fresh cakes for her. She’s turning 90 this year and whilst we were marvelling at what an achievement this is and making plans for how we celebrate this, we had a particularly tearful conversation that she worries about how many possessions she has, because one day we’ll have to sort through them. People who know me know how much I treasure her and what a wonderful relationship we have, and spending time with her always puts everything into perspective.
Side projects
- 100 people
Mary McKenna started #100people in 2017 as a social-experiment and way to help her see people after moving to Ireland from London. You can read more in her blog post. Inspired by Mary, I started my own #100people list in 2018 and managed to meet 40/100 people. It’s something I do for a number of reasons: 1) it forces me to be less shy and to approach people I’ve always wanted to meet, 2) i’m really passionate about investing time in my tribe and nurturing networks, 3) it helps me to grow by learning through others experiences, 4) it helps me to connect people to each other and 5) its a great way of bringing ideas from different people, sectors and industries into my work. I haven’t reached out to all 100 people yet(!) but I’ll be approaching people throughout the year for coffee/cake/cocktails.
This week I managed to meet 3/100: Callum Murray, Beverely Newing, Jacqui Taylor. ❤
- The data people
Inspired by Ella Saltmarshe’s ‘Introductors’ and Lauren Currie’s own interview series withd designers, I’m starting a new side project; a series of blog posts called “the data people”. It will be short interviews with folks working in our data community to share their brilliance. Please do get in touch if you’d like to share your story, and with ideas of who you’d like to see featured.
Things I liked
Things I read
- This blog post from Patrice John-Baptiste about mental health
- This blog post from Nour Sidawi about what OneTeamGov have learnt from running unconferences
- This blog post from Kenny Fries about inclusive art, disability and religion.
Until next time. ❤
