Weeknotes S03E12

Ryan Dunn
Web of Weeknotes
Published in
5 min readNov 28, 2020

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A bumpy week with a few disappointments. Really tough at times but ended well. I’m confident.

The need for thinking. The need for time to think.

A huge proportion of my job is thinking.

photo by explorenation

My job is to map things out, structure them, look for the dependencies and interconnections. Strategize then iterate the strategy as we go. I have shared some of this thinking in these weeknotes. The scope of our work is large and complex. It needs to fit together to meet the needs of multiple data-user types. In order to do that we need to understand the types of user, types of need and translate that into what needs doing. Break that down into consistent processes, procedures, align to policies and standards. Both from a people and technology point of view across data products, data practice and data platform.

Additional context is that much-needed changes are starting to happen around us. Changes in policy and culture for data and digital to work well together. Things we have to influence or help define. This week saw good conversations across different areas in terms of security principles. I’m grateful we have Sam on board!

Tough work in a world that's changing around us. This means I need to think a lot. But it’s been really tricky to find time to think this week. There have been lots of interruptions, distractions and things that have got in the way of focused thinking. This has really impacted my mood and momentum.

The outcome of my thinking is what we need to do. This is what I bring to the party. What we are doing is very important. How we are approaching it is new and slightly different to elsewhere. Others are interested in how we are going about it and we want to share.

Ed and I caught up with Lisa from GDS this week about a blog post Ed is writing. This zooms in on how we are approaching measurement. Pretty much everything we are putting in place rightly centres around measurement. I took the opportunity to cover how that fits into our wider work. As Ed said “he always does this”. I do. I’m proud of what we do. I think its good to share and get feedback. It was great to hear Lisa say — this is bringing data and service design together, like DataJam!

Much of my thinking and what we’re putting in place in Health is designed to be shareable and applicable more widely. This has always been the plan. I mentioned last week in S03E11 that Aaron asked me if I had time to support work in a new team. I’ve had some good conversations about that this week. Vicky and Ben gave me a lot of really helpful background. My input will involve working with Andrew and Gemma on data which I’m looking forward to. This work will definitely build on and use a lot of what I’m doing in Health Digital to influence more widely across DWP Digital. This also featured in my catch up with Paul, the CDO. We’re doing the right thing.

Weariness and politics

Many of the good uplifting conversations took place on Friday. I ended the week with good catch ups with Colin about data standards and then with Alyson about data strategy amonst other things. The week finished well. But it wasn’t all like that.

The data team have been embedded and functioning properly in Health Digital since the summer. We’ve made a lot of progress. Its been tough going and much of what we’ve developed so far is invisible and/or hasn’t been used in anger yet. This makes it difficult for people to see the value at the minute. Which can be disheartening.

We are trying to put foundations in place. This isn’t always sexy. And when you’re doing the unsexy bits of the unusual thing it can feel really tough. This week has felt tough. Much of it is about delayed gratification. We had a retrospective which — as it should — brought a lot of that out. Its good that we have the level of trust in the team that people can be fully open and vulnerable. I am really conscious that working from home means that when tough meetings end, people are left with their own thoughts. There are no opportunities for conciliatory coffee chats or joint gripes. I’m sick of it now.

Relentlessly focusing on user needs does not just mean relentlessly delivering the work that is closest to the users. Delivering the right outcome needs the right foundations and principles. This will allow us to understand how things change and to be flexible and adaptable to those changes. Doing the right thing is hard.

Some of our work has felt unecessarily like a battle. Aspects have been ongoing and has taken its toll. That context is important. This week I highlighted an area for improvement in ways of working to improve visibility with a team we’re working closely with. This got interpreted by some as a criticism of the work and the people doing the work. It wasn’t. I clarified that both publicly and separately. I felt terrible about that and dwelled on it. I hate people getting caught in the crossfire.

Mindset, self doubt and pressure

My job is strategic leadership. Thinking a few years ahead and seeing what we need to do now/soon to get there. Changes taking place in the central data part of the department mean that I’m doing this in the absence of some important things. The result is a lot is expected of me. From our team and from myself. Sometimes it weighs very heavily. This week has been a tough one. At times I let other people take all of my energy.

From a data perspective I am making decisions and doing things for the good of the department. For the good of the people who need the services. For the good of people designing the services. For the good of people working in our data team. All of this brings pressure, self doubt, politics, imposter syndrome.

Andrew who is head of practice for data has been brilliant. He is incredibly experienced and I really respect him. This week we had a catch-up and he helped contextualise the work I’m doing and importantly recognised how difficult it is. Both ordinarily but especially in context. He described it as 21st-century strategic leadership of data. Defining the modern ways of working, culture and practices that are needed. Its felt a bit lonely lately so getting that reassurance was just what I needed — what you are doing is right, how you are doing it is right, why you are doing it is right. Things will go wrong. But keep going.

Overall I don’t think I’ve had a personally “good week” but I ended it even more confident of the approach we’re taking.

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Data Science Hub Lead @DWPDigital. These are my personal thoughts.