Weeknotes No.45
The weather is sparkling, everyone’s mood is 100% brilliant and the BBQs are fully in motion. Work is busy, deep in thought, deep in workshop planning and deep in reading documentation
Anyways, let’s get onto what the week was like, sharpies and Post it’s at the ready.
What did I enjoy:
The sun is out, I’m averaging a bbq a day and spending evenings either in the garden or out and about locally surrounded by cows, sheep, green hills and just niceness
Did I mention I love Alpha, it really gives me a chance to build relationships and shape the team in their understanding AND value of UCD-led workshops, but more importantly, it allows me to throw outputs out there that people can use, rip apart and improve and get under-the-skin of the project - I am just a facilitator.
Working with the team has just been a joy, a really enjoyable experience. We’ve cheered each other on, asked questions, joined up working and given feedback to one another and it’s just worked.
I may have mentioned this before, but the community here at Defra is much different to other places, its a little smaller than what I’ve worked in, but a lot more togetherness and understanding of challenges AND there isn’t a lot of sugar coating issues/problems that we all know exist in the public sector (it’s the same everywhere!), and I just feel sharing wins and struggles and failures is the way forward and whilst doing that, cheering people on as they express this is amazing - a healthy COP (Community of Practice) experience and one that I always attend.
What challenged me:
Knowing where to start, this is always tricky. Often it’s easiest to just start doing a handful of things to just get the ball rolling, and this project has been no different.
I’ve run off in directions and realised, hold up - this is silo working and I’m not doing the best I can do with that
What am I looking forward to next week?
Kickstarting the workshops, owning the problem and facilitating the team to be the best with outputs.
That is it - a ton of workshopping and leading design.