Weeknotes 9 of 2023

What went well

• I was fortunate to attend a number of super interesting learning sessions put on by various groups in the BC gov this week: A talk on Disaggregated demographic data collection in BC (The grandmother perspective), a livestream of the BC Demographic Survey, and a session on Autism and neurodiversity in the workforce which felt really relevant and validating to me personally.
• I put together our June design community call: Designing for Neurodiversity, and Avoiding the Neuromyths.
• Myself and a few others launched a design crit initiative with the goal of connecting designers across government in small groups. It’s a small experiment that I have big hopes for.
• Our team visited a pub for some leaving drinks. This used to be a regular thing for me but thinking about it now, it’s been actual years since I’ve done that. It was fun.
• I helped out with some HR paperwork that I’m hoping are a small step toward more design leadership in the ministry I work in.
• I ran a few career advice calls with junior designers, which are always super interesting and inspiring.

What didn’t go well

• In my current product team work, I’ve been trying to figure out how much of our development resources are external (contractors or vendors.) It seemed easiest to follow the money and try to glean this information from our procurement paperwork and contracts so I’ve been interviewing people who work in this field across government. This has been quite difficult for two reasons: First, we speak different langauges. Trying to understand the financial jargon and acronyms and processes that are part of their everyday context has been challenging. Secondly, with the exception of one person, nobody has been able to provide the information I’m looking for. They’re able to speak in general terms (eg, we have a contract for $x million with y vendor) but they’re not able to link specifically to development work or the services they are associated. So I’m not getting very far. But service design is about the process and there are lots of insights from this tactic alone — it’s showing us that we are not doing a good job of tracking capacity and people. Is that a problem?
• I feel like this is a very common theme now but I’m feeling disconnected from the wider team I work for. I’ve heard there’s currently a lot going on to plan our organizational structure/strategy at the leader level but this work isn’t being shared or updated on in any kind of open or transparent way as far as I can see, and I’ve not been invited to have any input on it or even learn about it. On top of that, leaders have been too busy to attend meetings and all of the check-ins where I would usually get updates or ask questions have been cancelled. I spoke up about this once but also struggle with the feeling like I am being ‘annoying’ or ‘too much’ by asking for people’s time. As well as a general feeling of, “is everyone hanging out without me?” (thanks Mindy Kaling for that phrase that always lives in my head now)
• I’ve been struggling with some big questions about design community leadership which I wrote about here.
• The gd interest rate went up again 😬 🤦‍♀️

Inspired by:

• I abolutely loved and agreed with this blog post from Matt Edgar which scores the impact of 10 years of UK digital public service transformation.
• GDS recently published their strategy for gov.uk for the next few years and it was an interesting read. So interesting that I couldn’t resist sharing my own thoughts.
• This slide deck from Craig Abbott (Beyond Accessibility Regulations) is so helpful and clear. Discovered via Vicky Teinacki.
• Kara Kane shared her slide deck from UX Scotland on why communities of practice matter.
• Interesting read: How to Get Executive Buy-in for Community Initiatives by Sam Adekunle via James Arthur Cattell
• Matt Jukes shared his own take on the GDS Gov.uk growth strategy.
• Thanks to a former colleague Jeff Maher, I discovered this super helpful talk from Code for America on organization strategy.

Reading, watching, listening highlights

• I finished You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. It’s a poetic memoir about divorce and parenting and living and also about the act of telling one’s story. I really enjoyed it especially because the chapters were so short but said so much, each one was a perfect little poem.
• I’m watching Bad Sisters, which is hilarious and infuriating. Sharon Horgan is a true gem.
• Two podcasts really stuck out to me recently: Jane Doe from This American Life, about a woman’s experience fighting for justice after being sexually assaulted by a politician, and Wide Open Spaces from Terrible, Thanks for Asking, about being incarcerated as a moth.