week notes sO2 epO6
What I’ve done
Felt a bit of a strange week with lots of colleagues on half-term. Even working from home the vibe seemed lower than usual.
Yesterday I listened to the Radio while I worked and heard a mother’s account of trying to flee Ukraine with her 6 year old. Her husband had been conscripted to fight Putin (I say Putin rather than Russia as this is his fight, ordinary Russians are as horrified as we are, although perhaps not quite as surprised)
I ended up in tears, feeling so much sadness for this poor woman who’s home had been bombed. She had nothing but what she stood up in. Her child upset and confused.
She spoke very tearfully about a tradition in Ukraine when you sleep in a new house on the first night you make a wish. The 6 year old said his wish (in this new temporary ‘home’) was for the war to stop and he wants the president of Russia to become a good person.
I felt helpless and so desperate for her and much anger for a so called leader who is trying to claim that Russia is invading Ukraine apparently to denazify it. We are living in the 21st century where a global fascist movement merges in to a horror story and is a direct attack on the wests’ liberal democracy.
Another woman was walking the 80K to Poland, leaving a 25K snake of fleeing cars some that had run out of fuel…
Maybe this is the push the West needs to meet governments commitment to achieve net zero? Germany temporarily halted the new ‘Nord Stream 2’ gas supply directly from Russia. 60% of Germany’s natural gas comes from Russia via Ukraine and 40% of the EU’s supply as a whole, UK less than 5% . However this will hurt Germany and push fossil fuel prices up even further.
By increasing renewable energy and green gas production we’d move away from reliance on Russia’s gas supplies. Our dealings with oil rich nations such as Saudi needs reviewing too in my opinion even if we have to accept a reduction in investment in the UK from those countries, particularly as their human rights track record is unpalatable to say the least!
It feels like we’re on the edge of a big shift of fuel source and the obvious power (no pun intended!) that gives. Let’s hope green giants are good and tolerant ones.
Made good progress on my fostering research completed and wrote up what I’d learned and have done this for 5 mainstream carers and 3 connected carers. Hoping to squeeze another chat with a mainstream carer in on Tuesday.
Unfortunately the process map meetings I’d got booked in with two stakeholders didn’t happen due to illness or no capacity. I think this speaks volumes about the stress and struggles staff experience on a daily basis. There’s much time spent on firefighting and dealing with scenarios that have gone badly which then impacts on the day job.
Also staff employed to do one job end up doing four completely different roles and feel they’re doing all four badly instead of one well.
I will start my synthesis of all the data collected next week; write the problem statements and share with the team. None of the team are available share the ‘sense making phase’ with me, so it will just be me!
The design maturity has been pretty low on this project and whereas I started well bringing in key stakeholders as I mentioned, that’s tapered off for lots of reasons. Which is a shame as that agreement with senior managers around resource/availability is key. Engagement, building relationships and trust (not just at the top) is what achieves the buy-in and ownership. If this doesn’t happen we risk generating the feeling that this is being done to us; not interested, ‘nothing to do with me’.
I’ve also chivied task leaders to ensure their teams deliver something for the ‘Digital and Change’ draft To Be Change user journey. Our team task is to pull all that data together and ensure it’s easy to understand and access.
I’m really hoping that once we have agreed a best practice approach that all our programme managers are on the same page and that our approach is more consistent across the Council.
What I’ve learned
Much of this included above!
Visiting the chiropractor isn’t painful but is expensive!
What I’ve read
Back pain meant I actually didn’t feel like reading :/
But have enjoyed laughing at The Apprentice. What happens when roles and responsibilities aren’t established and communication doesn’t happen! Here’s a good read by a fellow week noter; The Apprentice Anti-pattern.
Luckily Storm Gladys didn’t come to much down here and my back sprain is much better so hope to get out on my gravel bike on a training ride for some runners who have entered Ride London-Essex 2022. On bikes of course!
I did a similar route in 2018 as part of my training for Weymouth 70.3. It rained almost the whole way (6.5 hours!) so it was good training for the half Ironman as it chucked it down then too!
Well as the sun is shining I’m off out. Bye!