Skip to main content

Realistic - 16 to 20 February

Published
Tagged
weeknote

Work week

Bit of a reality check, after thinking about fun at work last week.

Over this week our small but mighty team has had blockers and unexpected events pop up, each one potentially derailing us ahead of our launch date. Cumulatively this reached a point where on Thursday morning we made a tough call on what can be realistically delivered next week.

We’ve been offered support for the team, so there’s still a chance to meet the original scope. Even so I hope we’ve learned:

  • everything will always take longer than expected, and things will always go wrong - so build in that expectation, avoid 100% guarantees to other stakeholders, always have an acceptable plan B agreed
  • we can be more confident in explaining right from the start how precarious technical delivery is going to be with a short timeframe and a small team

On the plus side it has been great to see the core team pull together, especially the newer members. We’re bringing our own strengths, supporting each other, working things through. It’s definitely been a bonding experience, which should help with future challenges.

Myself, as we’re temporarily short of experienced management roles (who know how to navigate the organisation) I’ve been stepping in to support every other bit of delivery, and almost park my actual design role. I’ve had to reckon with how the resulting context switching and extended responsibility has affected both my mood in and out of work, and my physical ability to actually do work. There was a point on Thursday where I felt totally jammed, which hasn’t happened for a long, long time. So yes, it’s all experience for the future CV/interviews, but also something to think carefully about if this becomes a regular situation.

Weirdly, a job ad in another department popped up this week which is almost a carbon copy of this temporary super-hybrid role I’ve ended up in the last 2 weeks (delivery management-service-designer-plus-content-and frontend-design-and-ops-thereof-oh-and-also-product management). All I can say, from my brief experience, is “errr I’m totally not sure it’s a realistic, sustainable, full time role for one person, maybe…?”.

Amongst this have managed a couple of good chats with like-minded people in adjacent and not so adjacent parts of the organisation, helping with perspective and sparking ideas. It’s a good place because of good people, ultimately.

Other things

Set up the next meetup day for public sector folk in Sheffield on Tuesday 17 March, loads of interest already - if you’re round the South Yorkshire area, join us! Find out more and sign up for X-Gov Sheffield breakfast/lunch.

Attended a helpful design community session about pitching for Service Design in Government. No excuses now.

Played tag rugby on Tuesday evening in -2C, and really struggled physically over the next couple of days. So maybe I’m just ill 🤷.

Reading