week note s02 ep11
what I’ve done
I’ve had a bit of a forced break from writing week notes due to booking some time off. Taking some time to catch up with jobs, relax and meeting up with friends and celebrating my birthday was all good fun and much needed after a stressful few months.
Since starting my new job in the Change Team, and over the last week or so I’ve been familiarising myself with the Housing Service and Team’s site already set up. I’ve met a few members of the team in readiness to kick off the Housing Strategy project.
This will be my first transformation project as a project manager and I’m really pleased to be working with a great colleague from the Digital team too and joining up the dots there, we’re on the same page which is a great start!
I was asked by the Business project/programme co-ordinator to do a data gap analysis on the draft research/strategy document put together by a consultancy which I completed yesterday. This will help to form the basis of the Housing Strategy and is a good starting point.
Another project I’m managing is the Consultation and Engagement piece which is looking at how we can do this better, to build trust with our users by developing and nurturing those relationships so that we are then more easily able to co-create services that meet user needs.
This made me think, could we co-create writing the 5-year housing strategy? I got a sudden buzz of excitement. During the Consultation and Engagement show and share I posted in the chat bar and almost straight away got a response from a colleague who works in policy and performance for social care. They’re in the position where they had to write their strategy first and will do the co-creation as the workstreams progress. It’s a living breathing document so depending on what evidence is found they will be able to adapt.
After a chat with him and another colleague from the Digital team realised that co-creating a strategy wouldn’t be easy but would be beneficial in so many ways, demonstrating Dorset Council’s values and behaviours; ensuring that we’re efficient and effective and have clear direction and purpose and that the governance is in place to ensure the skills and competencies are there so that we are accountable, sustainable and meeting the 5 transformation themes;
what I’ve learned
That I love a challenge and really want to use my knowledge of user centred design to achieve the best outcomes for the Council and people of Dorset.
The webteam in conjunction with the Policy and Performance team are creating a new accessible strategy and policy format — show and share to be sometime after June so watch this space!
I attended a 2nd coaching webinar and revisited the GROW model. We talked about how rarely the coach would start with the G “goal” it would much more likely be the Reality or Objective or even the Will.
Straightaway I could see how the GROW model is a problem solving tool much like the Double Diamond methodology. We talked about about how a coachee might come to you because they may not know what their options are, so it’s a case of finding out what’s causing the stuckness!
It’s not the coach’s place to solutionise (again identified here with my role as service designer), ideally they facilitate providing the space so that the coachee can work out what the answers might be for themselves. Although they may need a bit of help to get there. The required actions may appear too big so may need help to break them down in to ‘goalettes’ so that it’s no so overwhelming. It might be looking at the situation in a different light, rather than a problem, could it be an opportunity?
We were given some further reading on the grow model -love it or hate it?!; Effective Goal Setting in Coaching by Jan Brause and Beyond Goals; effective Strategies for Coaching and Mentoring by Susan David, David Clutterbuck and David Megginson
What I’m reading
I actually finished The Salt Path. What an incredible story of tragedy, anger, disbelief, sorrow and hope. This inspiring story of how a couple dealt with not one but two enormous blows, their resilience and love shining through — definitely recommend!
I’m now well in to the sequel ‘The Wild Silence’ and enjoying what I’ve read so far.
Haven’t kept my French up and lost my streak… I just wasn’t enjoying the app since not paying for it and have decided to give it a break.
Have a wonderful Easter break all and hope to see you the other side refreshed and may be perhaps even a little sunburnt if the weather’s good!
Please leave a clap if you’ve read, enjoyed and got this far!