I’m diving right in this week – in what is possibly the last style of weeknotes I’m trying out. It’s the most daunting – having a structure helps me organise my thoughts. @jukesie makes it look easy . . . and so I’m willing to try this out at least once to see what happens.
I’ve been thinking and reading about standards this week on and off so if there’s a theme this week, then that’s it. I thought this article from the NY Times was interesting — about who gets to set standards in the first place.
This week the spacebank team ran a service assessment on their discovery phase project. They’d asked me for some advice on how to do this well — and we had an initial discussion about how to use the right standards to assess their work. And then the team went off and self organized. At the assessment they’d used both the checklist in our Hackney Agile Lifecycle and relevant points from the local digital service standard to tell their story, and focus in on the key outcomes and ways of working. They did a fantastic job — open, honest and focussed. There was a really strong thread of learning — 4 of the team are apprentices so they’ve been working on things for the first time, and using their existing skills to benefit the team. It was brilliant to have Ste from Citizen’s Advice there as well as an external assessor, giving the team feedback and asking questions that explored what they’d done.
I also read this from Nabeeha Ahmed on her experience of discovery phases at the Ministry of Justice – thoughtful, useful reflections.
On Wednesday I worked with Steve to create a first draft of a how to HackIT guide on writing really good requirements when you’re buying something. We know from our user research that this is something that our contract managers don’t always feel that confident about, and we also know that it’s not an easy thing to get right. Working side by side we were able to write something, that’s good enough to be tried by a colleague — and that we can use to learn from, iterate and improve. A good example of doing something quickly to a standard that’s good enough for now, but where we’ve got clear plans to improve based on user feedback.
On Monday I went to our quarterly security meeting where the team talk about the work they’ve done. I’ve invited myself along to these — because I know it’s an area where I have the least amount of expertise and knowledge (although I am learning quickly). I was really impressed with our use of (and the design of) the webcheck and mail check services from National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)— to provide us with both assurance and automated monitoring. The NCSC has some fantastic advice and standards to follow — and it’s great that we’re making use of this to guide our work.
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This week was made super busy by the addition of an agile training course that Matthew and I ran for 7 colleagues on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Overall it went really well and the participants got a lot out of it. However one of the sections that I delivered — on assumptions and hypotheses — didn’t go as well as it should have done. I need to revisit the content, and how I’m introducing the ideas, before we run this course again.
Our personal standards are a key part of how we all operate — and they’re unique to us as individuals. And they can be incredibly useful — helping us to do our best even when we’re maybe not feeling it that day. But they can also be unhelpful — this week I managed to get into a terrible negative mental loop during a yoga class, simply by being late* and unprepared**.
This, by Alice Goldfuss, was a great reminder of how easy it is to get into that mindset, and really good advice about what to do about it.
On a more positive note I followed Small Action’s today suggestion about reducing plastic waste which made me feel cheerful that I’d done something practical.
I’ve been reading Radical Candor by Kim Scott — and one paragraph really jumped out at me.
Decision making: kick-ass bosses often do not decide themselves, but rather create a clear decision-making process that empowers people closest to the facts to make as many decisions as possible. Not only does that result in better decisions, it results in better morale.
and lastly this from Emily Fairfax was brilliant — I love the idea of an elevator video:
*I really hate being late. and the consequence was a mat right at the front by the mirrors.
**no hairband. Just supremely annoying.
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