3 weeks of #weeknotes and 3 weeks without smoking! 🎉
I thought I’d try a different format this week and give a daily digest of my week. I’m not sure it’s something I’m likely to repeat often. I’ve left out hefty amounts of what actually happens with clients and projects as that feels a little odd to share without permission. It’s still a very long read (but then it’s felt like a very long week 😃). I’ve drawn out my key reflections in bold if the detail doesn’t float your boat…
My day off. **Sunshine and a 6 mile stroll with the dog. Glorious! **
Early train from Dorset - No wifi and spotty tethering … just about managed to catch up on slack, emails and started writing up some notes from the previous week and model some project costs (exciting huh!).
I’d been invited to an internal training session covering how we’re improving onboarding and recruitment at FG. The afternoon teased out some really interesting conversations about how we form a more consistent approach to people management and development. This is an area where I feel I want to contribute more I just need to figure out how - or if I should? - I can’t and shouldn’t do all the things!?
I finished this rare extra day in the office talking Matt through some work Sally and I had done the previous week to plan our approach for a future opportunity we really really really want to be involved with.
I started my evening catching up on the final ODI course tutorial I missed earlier in the day. I’m very sad this is nearly over 😭.
I then spent some time testing a little experiment I’d kicked off last week. As the team grows and communities of practice evolve I think we’re starting to find the edges and limitations of some of the tools we’ve previously used to hold and share knowledge. The tech and data CoP I lead seemed like a safe space to try something different in the form of a wiki.
I’d shared my thinking on this with Jaye and Dom F the previous week and Jaye had taken my sketchy (but neatly prioritised) user requirements and busted out a robust, user-friendly and workable solution in insanely quick time 💪😍. After testing I worked through some simple ways we could structure the content on paper before bed. I might have tried to listen to an audiobook? Not remembering means I nodded off! Room for improvement.
A mixed day split over a couple of exotic London locations. The morning was mostly catching up with some projects in flight, giving advice, and input where I could. I think most notably was a really productive session with Julian and Richard to plan a workshop for a new project.
In the afternoon I headed back to the office to join Matt on a call with a prospective new client. The rest of the day was spent inputting into some sales responses and also beginning to add content into the new wiki.
Towards the end of the day a colleague asked if I had any time for a chat about work-life balance and travel. The crazy juggling of travel, challenging work (in teams), relationships, family, health, geography, hobbies etc is something that affects us all at some point or another. It’s not a job everyone could or would want to do. I know I struggle with this. I find just talking it through with someone can often help frame my messy (and often emotionally charged) thinking. Sometimes it’s just nice to know you’re not alone. I didn’t have many solutions but was happy to lend an ear and share some of what I’ve learnt through trial and error. I think it ended up being slightly cathartic for us both.
At some point during the day it had dawned on me that if I could create a reasonable amount of wiki content to start the ball rolling it would be in a good place to share at the whole team meet the next day. This was compelling because I knew I was going to be out of the office for the next two weeks. On my return I know I’m pretty stretched across projects so I wanted to maximise my time this week whilst I had the ability to flex.
Collecting feedback and analytics sooner, rather than later, to help evaluate whether the experiment was worth further effort/headspace is always appealing.
So … I got back to my Peckham pad at 8pm opened up the laptop and beavered away until the early hours. **There was a small lull in activity to have a rather hilarious conversation with my wife about pretty much nothing! I take joy in these moments. **
I headed out early for a Delivery Manager breakfast. I’m no longer in the role but really value the community that’s formed around the practice. Only Will and Rich C could attend this week but as usual they had loads of interesting things to share. They are both very positive people and with me being a little tired the time with them helped set me up well for the day ahead (as did the bacon buttie!).
A couple of quick phone meetings (always be planning & communicating) and I headed out to client site to check in on a few project related gubbins and attend a meeting (it resulted in action - which makes me happy). I then swiftly turned back around and headed to the office to progress some project tasks, and input into a CoP session. As always on team days I learnt a few things, had my thinking challenged and felt the value of just being in a space with super smart people. My trello board(s) swells with new actions.
Our monthly all-hands team meeting was great. There is lots to celebrate at FutureGov and it was great to hear some of the work going on elsewhere. I was really pleased to spend 5 mins unveiling our little wiki experiment and this gave rise to a few interesting follow-up chats about other uses for both content and tool which is exactly what I had hoped for (sewing seeds?).
Alex and Kris had organised a social event for the team. After racking up a fair few hours over the previous 2 days I was pleased to have an excuse to down tools and enjoy a beer (or err 6?) in great company. There was a quiz - my team didn’t win. Shamefully I got a Star Wars question wrong. This made me sad!
Another reasonably early start to pack up by bag and head to the office to grab supplies for a project kick-off. My Macbook Air decided to attempt an update, failed miserably and went into an annoying boot loop. After demonstrating all of the normal behaviours of swearing and gently beating my fists on the keyboard like a tired and confused ape, the internet came to the rescue with ’how to boot a mac into safe mode’. I was then able to sort out the rogue update and get on with my day. Still a frustrating waste of an hour.
Shortly after resolving the laptop thing Robyn (my daughter) Whatsapp’d me. She is 16 so this in itself is unusual. She’d found Jon Bellion (who’s music we both love) was going to be playing in London in October and she’d snapped us up some tickets for my 40th Birthday. My mood instantly improved. Not only at the thought of going to the gig but equally how proud I am that Robyn has turned out to be both thoughtful, generous and have ok musical tastes! She is still the best project I’ve ever worked on, even if it has run seriously over budget 🤪.
I celebrated on a bus ride across London by listening to Jon Bellion. The ‘new project kick-off tummy butterflies’ launched into excited fluttery overdrive and this stayed with me for most of the day. The project has a great team and the folks joining us client-side were engaged, energised, organised and raring to go. Honestly, it’s quite rare to find the combination of all these things on day one. Change can be hard and often people are already fatigued before we walk through the door; I feel we have a responsibility to give people a boost. It wasn’t needed here. The energy levels remained high all day. I left a little early to get a train home but by the time I left we had built a shared understanding of our purpose and objectives, got rituals in place, openly shared our hopes and fears, mapped key stakeholders, started a comms plan and worked up in more detail what done might look like. I also got to witness Britt and Richard experience their first Tunnocks teacake. It’s going to be a great project!
I managed to miss the train I had hoped to be on by about 15 seconds which although annoying meant I could grab a drink and a snack. The train yet again had no working wifi (thanks SWR🖕) so more sketchy tethering meant I only just about cleared slack, inbox and timesheets. I’ll have a few loose ends to tidy up this evening including finishing the ODI course but Chloe is working a night shift so it’s all ok 👌.
A good week, lot’s of variety. Next week sadly won’t be anywhere near as diverse. I’ll be locked in a training room for 4 days understanding data privacy law 😬🤓.
Tune of the week: Jon Bellion - The Internet (obvs)
Gram of my week: That weekend sun!! A shot taken at Portland Bill 😍
This post was written by Stuart Mackenzie
Stuart works at TPXimpact (previously known as FutureGov) changing and improving our public services. He's also known for being a father, husband, runner, photography nerd, podcaster and excotic disco dancer!
