weeknotes s02 ep09
TL;DR farewell to fostering, why not doing user research isn’t an option, hello Change
What I’ve done;
By Monday I’d managed to get the ‘opportunities time line’ finished on Fostering review Miro (whiteboard). I’m so glad I listened to a more experienced colleague on this (nearly didn’t because I didn’t think I had the time to reorder) but once I’d got over my melt down am pleased I can hand over the board knowing the information is in a more legible format and therefore, I hope, be more chance the data will be read, understood and used.
We held a pre ‘show and share’ run through on Monday, agreed the problem statements, made some slight changes to the presentation order (insights and quotes before the problem statements) all good to go for the meeting on Wednesday with the ‘business visionary’.
I delivered a ‘mid-level’ account of my research carried out over the last 10 weeks and although as the business visionary pointed out, some changes already taken place; there are lots of insights, quotes and (quick wins) that could inform current and future initiatives and he did state he wanted to take a closer look; so I take that as a win.
Not having presented (from my screen) for a while and was able to test out the ‘Present in Teams’ button from the PowerPoint deck which worked well and made it easy to see slides, notes, and chat.
I was able to use some of the visuals taken from the survey that I’d asked foster carers I’d spoken to if they’d mind completing the check box and ‘likert’ questions which they were more than happy to do. Even though only 5 did so, there were some emerging themes just from that limited quantitative data source backing up the quant data too.
It made me think about user research and why not doing it really isn’t an option. This is a good read. Gaining qualitative and quantitative is key to fully understanding the problems your users are facing.
Next week will be my first full week in my new role and now know what my new project will be. I’m lucky that it’s a fresh project and I’ll be starting off setting up a new team with a service that we’ve worked well with previously. I’ll miss colleagues in the Digital team, in particular 3 who I’ve built good friendships with and plan to keep in touch. Obviously I’m keen to keep service design alive and kicking as I can see the benefits of adopting the ‘design thinking’ approach especially where service designers aren’t in the team.
This is a useful read around new ways of thinking and doing.
What I’ve enjoyed;
Had a fab road ride with a local club last Sunday from the top of the old Ridgeway to Hardy’s Cottage Thorncombe woods. I tagged on a bit extra with another coffee stop at Oasis, Weymouth making it up to 34 miles which was quite hard work on 42mm tyres and plenty of rolling resistance!
Managed to get back out running yesterday evening, took it very steady as didn’t want to be incapacitated with DOMs like last time. So far so good.
I took (today) Friday off as the weather looked sunny and there was a team walk down at the beach, which was lovely and involved a coffee and the chance to meet more new colleagues. We forgot to take a photo!
What I’m reading/learning;
Still on the same book. Moth and Raynor have made it to Landsend, 5 chapters left!
Day 451 of the Duolingo streak in Obsidian league.
If you got this far feel free to bang that clap button!