This week I thought I’d try using 4 of the questions from Sartori Labs as the basis for my weeknotes, to see what happens.
What did I do today that I do every day?
This is a tough one – no two days are the same and there are lots of things I wish I did every day but I don’t. Most days I start by writing down the 3 things I want to focus on that day. I know that when I do that, I’m much more productive. But I still don’t do it every day. To answer the question though — asking questions when I don’t understand what’s being said.
What surprised me?
I surprised myself on Wednesday by feeling much more confident about presenting in public. Emilia had asked me to talk at the Crown Commercial Service buyers conference about Hackney’s use of Digital Marketplace and what we’ve learnt. I used it as an opportunity to also talk about the wider culture, behaviours and skills I think you need to be successful at procurement**. And thanks to Matthew’s help I’d made my content much more engaging.
https://media.giphy.com/media/AFdcYElkoNAUE/giphy.gif
What happened this week that gave me a glimpse of the future?
Our development team held a show and tell on the work they’ve been doing to put together our API hub. It was a great presentation and another really good example of how we’re working in the open.
On Friday the gov.pay team came in and talked to us about their product. We’ve been doing some collaborative discovery work about our user needs and pain points with our banking and finance systems teams in this area.
We know that a poor payment process affects how our users feel about a service, and that we’re not meeting all our user needs at the moment. There isn’t a magic answer to this – and we won’t get there in one go. The gov.pay team were great — really engaging and thoughtful.
What did I learn?
I like this question — it invites reflection. Every week I learn a lot. This week I started to read through this thread about managing your time – some great advice and tips:
and I really liked this reflective piece from Mathilde Collin:
https://link.medium.com/FmICOdZuzT
GovCamp 2019
As always at events like this there were more sessions than I could go to, so there’s also a long list of things I missed out on. I went to some excellent sessions though — weeknotes, wardley mapping, delivery vs project manager (go Philippa Newis for pitching this one), book club, and user story mapping. I got to meet a whole host of new people, including the very lovely Audree Fletcher who’s kindly offered to come to Hackney to run a ‘write your very best user stories’ workshop in February.
https://link.medium.com/FmICOdZuzT
I also liked this from Ben Holliday – there’s a real knack I think to asking the right questions at the right time, and in the right way.
And finally this from Catherine Howe – the challenge of how to work across disciplines. Thoughtful and useful.
https://link.medium.com/FmICOdZuzT
*there’s no link to my weeknotes for this photo, I just really liked the photo. And the art trail.
* *and this week I got to meet another procurement hero davidkershaw . Yes I have procurement heroes. This is from David at GovCamp :
Madebycatemclaur.in 
