week notes s02 ep03
TL;DR •fostering programme • virtual synthesis • Teams accounts for carers • Pilates • digital and change approach to change • understanding everyone works differently and that’s fine • empathy • kindness • actual visit to County Hall • seeing colleagues again.
I’ve initiated and held more user research interviews on the fostering project, where lots of juicy problems have been shared. Many of these the service are aware of but they may not realise the impact or even don’t yet understand the issues fully!
The writing up of these takes time, either typed almost verbatim or using Teams’ transcript which can sometimes runs to 20 odd pages before I edit and cut it down to just the content I need, emitting the ‘hmms and ah’s’ etc. Still ends up being pages and pages of valuable insights…
By placing these and the ‘what have we learnt’ directly in to Excel it’s then possible to copy and paste up to 50 cells into Miro, which magically converts straight in to post-it notes, making that part of the process a doddle. Creating participant tags is also quick and easy, saving lots of writing and paper. From there I can do my thematic analysis and start to see the emerging themes. I can’t imagine now why anyone would want to go backwards to the old paper process!
Our user survey has been pulled sadly due to data concerns, was hoping to be able to get it completed in Teams however Dorset Council accounts haven’t yet been rolled out so having to just stick to a limited amount of interviews, which I am sure will still reveal interesting insights in to experiences with the service.
Tuesday morning our Pilates class was back on and I found I really needed this to destress and focus on something else other than work. We used some newly purchased equipment by our lovely teacher; oval squishy foot pads and a padded ring, it was great to use these to help with balance and resistance. At first I thought Pilates was too low key for me, I’m used to high cardio workouts but am really enjoying the time out, calmness and chance to rediscover my core, which is taking some doing after Christmas indulgence and winter comfort food.
More time spent writing up of interviews and rearranging meetings to finalise the process maps to capture all the tasks undertaken throughout the process, hand offs, pain points, systems used and then to capture the time taken per task, not just the statutory timescales the fostering team have to work to.
We have almost finished our Digital and Change task on the ideal ‘To Be’ change experience for the service. 3 people in my group had created their notes on 3 different documents for adding to a final journey map, (whatever format that was going to take) however this appeared to cause one team member angst stating we needed to choose one format to collaborate. I viewed it differently having done the Colour Works Insights course; in that everyone has their own way of working that they are comfortable with to be creative and that’s fine, being kind and understanding is more important. Creating good visuals is so easy on Miro and easy to share so this is what myself a colleague used to progress our task (in the short time available) by simply adding the teams’ inputs, so that everything was easy to see and collaborate on.
I had just brought everyone together to finalise the ideas and after a first meeting (tho there was more talk that anything else!). I was concerned one team member hadn’t been heard so put my virtual hand up suggesting we asked that person’s opinion so they felt included and their wealth of experience incorporated. I guess this reflects my leadership style which is more democratic/coaching. I don’t like the sound of my own voice, it can be boring listening to one person’s opinions and doesn’t sit well with Council behaviours. In my job it’s very much about having empathy, hearing what others have to say and a balance of knowing when to talk and when to listen. Tho I don’t always get it right and am trying to put my hand up more before speaking!
Next day after a spontaneous chat I met with my trusted service design colleague; we put together the required user journey map in Miro (the tool service design use daily for this task) and it worked well. After 20 minutes or so we had the user journey done leaving Friday’s session for the others to collaborate, tweaking if necessary ready to submit by Monday’s deadline. I finished off a standard ‘service design’ user journey map which I’d started and wanted to finish — so submitted that too.
Fostering conversations with stakeholders revealed that key conversations haven’t happened. I find this frustrating especially when it ends up costing the council money and time, it’s even more frustrating when we talk about how we deal with the change experience (in our team meeting) but we don’t do what we say we should do! The result of lots of work streams and not being joined up. This is something our team is working on (as mentioned above).
Wednesday I had planned to go in to County Hall to carry out a team observation, it ended up only being the enquiry officer that was in but still useful to observe and listen to conversations on the phone and with 2 colleagues who dropped in. What an amazing amount of understanding and patience they have, and I don’t think that was laid on especially for me, our customers were treated well with respect and empathy doing Dorset Council proud.
A useful opportunity was seized to finish the pre-approval process map with a kind assessment officer who was more than happy to help even though she was a day behind with her work due to losing data due to a Mosaic upgrade over the weekend.
A good catch up with a friend in the canteen was unexpected whilst waiting for a tuna and tomato panini (I wasn’t allowed tuna and salad!) and a relatively short but interesting chat about life since the pandemic with a senior manager that I hadn’t see for over 2 years! Great to see people again :)
Until next time :)