Weeknotes (S03E05)
‘Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.’ — Anaïs Nin.
Hiiiiiie, how’s it going?
It’s been a good couple of weeks. Previously there were some things about work that I was getting worried about, as well as some personal matters to juggle which has seen me going into myself, but now I’m feeling pretty zen.
I kept feeling I wasn’t being fully authentic in my weeknotes because I was writing and deleting my most vulnerable feelings of being lost and confused, and figured more time would give clarity. I kept taking work matters too personally, thinking I was failing, but my week working in Argentina gave me the space to see things more clearly. I’ve accepted that I don’t think I’m in the right place (or perhaps it is the right place but without the right conditions?) to best utilise my strengths and ideas, and that’s okay. Perhaps its time for the next chapter.
This week I’ve been more open about how I’ve been feeling, and have been so touched by the kindness of our community of change-makers. When you’re in a role that sees you pushing against the tide, it’s the community that helps keep you afloat. I’d be lost without it, so thank you.
Five things that happened this week
[One] I attended a Data Stewards workshop, co-hosted by the Open Data Institute (ODI) and GovLab. I *think* (Peter Wells will correct me if I’m wrong) I may have been the only Government attendee? The half-day workshop covered the value, valuation and values of data collaboration, operational models, and governance models for data collaboration (such as data stewardship, legal agreements, ethical councils).
Part of what I’ve been doing the past year at MOJ is working across the Department and its agencies to adopt a common language for data. I’ve been steering us away from ‘ownership’ to ‘stewardship’, from ‘our data’ to ‘data we are trusted to hold’ and framing data access using the ODI’s data spectrum, to confirm where we really mean open data, or where we actually mean opening up shared access to data. That language, and building empathy between different professions is really important. As one attendee said, ‘We have to tackle the ‘human infrastructure’ as well as the technical infrastructure.’
Some notes/quotes I jotted down from the workshop were:
- We need to continually create awareness that data exists, and create the capacity that helps us generate data value
- ‘You can’t truly standardise data governance, there has to be bespoke agreements — there is no silver bullet’
- How do we stop data trusts if we realise that they are the wrong approach?
- Consent is still a tricky area — how do we verify who users are if data isn’t generated by them? What models of ‘retroactive consent’ work? There are also issues of the complexity of data when at the first glance appears to be one individual, but actually involves their family, etc.
- People think of data as stationary, but what happens after sharing data (ie analysis and the creation of insight) will lead to parties not necessarily having the same data at the end point. Yet we assume it always remains as described in agreements.
- What could a data stewardship profession look like?
- Start by sharing ‘your’ data with the person sitting next to you — understand from mini experiments the issues that start to arise.
- ‘If you want to talk data collaborations, good luck finding the right person i a large organisation!’
- Should the data steward ‘own’ the process for corporate ethical functions?
- ‘Don’t forget that people tell myths to fund their next (data) expedition. Not all is as it seems’
Further recommended reading: https://medium.com/data-stewards-network, https://theodi.org/article/defining-a-data-trust/
[Two] Went to my first(!) Liberating Structures meet-up to share my experiences of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). The meet-up was one of the best that I’ve been to in a long time — it was so refreshing to be in a room full of people that I’ve never met (with the exception of the wonderful Dawn Duhaney) and trying out brand new techniques. Peter, Richard McLean, Nikki and I were there to facilitate ‘Shift & Share’ sessions on our experiences, and after an intro to LS from David, Peter gave a talk on what OKRs are, who’s using them, and tips for getting the most out of them.
Key points from David:
- OKRs should be measurable, but not debatable
- OKRs provide a framework for hard conversations
- They can help you identify ‘measurables’ that you might not be measuring right now
- They expose something that needs to be understood
- Different perspectives develop new questions — we all have a different starting point.
‘OKRs are a vaccine against fuzzy thinking’ — Peter Kappus
Before delving into our Shift & Share sessions, Kathleen ran a session on ‘Wicked Questions’ which completely opened up my mind. Wicked Questions help you to think about a challenge, they appreciate that things are hard. They allow you to invest time in the discomfort of the parody, and can produce unexpected relationships. Kathleen gave us an example to work on, looking at common goals in large organisations. My attempt at a wicked question for this theme was ‘How is it that we can describe common goals in completely different ways’. Lots of fun — will be thinking about how to bring into my own OKR practice.
After a break it was time for our sessions and the four of us split into corners of the room. All participants were given a number between 1–4 and assigned to one ‘station’ for a 10 minute session of speakers sharing their stories (6mins or so) and open questions from that group. After 10 minutes, the groups would move onto the next station, and so on.
The experience was lots of fun — although as a speaker I found myself slightly in my own head, worrying that I was talking at people (I prefer people to raise questions in the moment, rather than wait for me to stop speaking!), analysing people’s faces to see if I was telling an interesting story, trying to remember what I’d already said in that session, and making sure I wasn’t repeating content! I would have loved more time for questions with the groups, and found it fascinating that each group asked me different questions. I used those questions to form content for the next group, and so on. And I wish I’d been able to hear the stories of the other speakers.
Afterwards, the lovely Nicky and I (we’ve been trying to meet up for a year after I watched her TEDX talk) managed to grab a quiet corner and talk about data science, ethics, culture change and our experiences working at GDS & MOJ.
[Three] Attended Innovation 2019, although I could only stay for the morning sessions as I had a bunch of meetings/workshops in the afternoon. I tweeted/re-tweeted quite a bit already, so I’m lazily going to include those in this blog post rather than re-writing them.
[Four] Met with one of the teams from our People Directorate. They’re keen to understand different design-thinking techniques and up-skill in using personas and customer journey maps. We asked them to explain the kinds of problems that their team are trying to solve (people survey/staff retention/etc) and have designed a 2-hour interactive introductory session which I’ll be delivering on Friday with Natasha from my team. Super exciting! Work like this is so important, energising and builds towards the culture change we need.
[Five] GovCamp final retrospective and celebration! We’d already ran a retrospective a week after the event where we focused on things that we liked, things we learned, and things we lacked. We focused this session on the things that we longed for, and some of the points we discussed were:
- Venue location: all of us organisers are passionate about making GovCamp even more inclusive. We’re so proud of how the creche and bursaries were received this year, and have lots of ideas how to improve these in 2020. But we’re also toying with the idea of GovCamp ‘twinning’ in 2020, holding an event in London and and an other location. We’ve tweeted a simple poll so do add your vote/ideas.
- First time attendees: the split at 2019 was approx (I am literally guesstimating from looking at hands up when I was MCing, rather than checking the data as I should) 50/50 for previously attended/new to GovCamp. That’s pretty good, and the lottery has helped us to get a better balance. But we’re always thinking about this — how do we bring people in who might be at the start of their journey? Who have no idea that GovCamp/TeaCamp/OneTeamGov/all the camps exist, and feel isolated? Do we advertise around public sector departments? Do we tap into more networks, and which ones? Do we work with final year students at Universities? Do we try to increase the numbers so everyone can bring someone new to the party?
- NOT SANDWICHES: We’re stuck to them as they are easy, but we’re bored of them. Mustafa, our Director of Catering 2020 will be doing some research but if you have ideas — and equally, ideas for a new tea/coffee company (our one increased costs by 50% in 2019) then we’d love to hear them.
- Session notes: We’ve been thinking more about what to do with them. Over the years we’ve built up a wealth of knowledge, and it would be fascinating to do some analysis on the themes covered, and how conversations have developed over the years. Any ideas/help welcome!
There were many more things discussed, but mindful these weeknotes have been pretty lengthly this week.. so instead please enjoy this photo of your GovCamp organisers celebrating. Have to say that my favourite karaoke tune this year (other than Janet’s traditional Ice Ice Baby, and Vee and mine’s Dolly Parton renditions) was when we decided to randomly (but totally enthusiastically) sung National Express.
Other things this week
- Had breakfast with Ellie at Timmy Green’s. They sell unicorn waffles(!) and some how I resisted. Ellie is moving out of London so it was great to spend some time together in her final week, mainly talking about work stuff and how brilliant we think each other is.
- Caught up with Natalie after weeks and weeks of not seeing each other’s faces. Again, another work related conversation, but mainly where we declared our love for each other and how happy we are to have met each other.
- Met with another member of the SCS who’s also an acting Deputy Director. Spoke openly about how isolated we’ve felt, and that we wished there were networks in place to support each other — have agreed to be each other’s peer mentors.
- Lots of team planning
- A number of really awesome data related meetings
Things I liked this week
Things I read this week
Things I cackled at like an old witch.
Until next time. ❤
