Month(ish) notes #4 — visions, strategies, and asking for forgiveness
September 2022
What’s been happening
I’m finding that the transition from summer to autumn is catching up on me. Work has been quite varied, jumping from big visioning/zooming out to zooming into small details of delivery. I have found my energy and motivation levels dropping with the seasons. How are you doing?
Things I’m thinking / learning about
How visions are created.
Visions are about being inspiring and motivating. I’m thinking about:
- how visions are created — how might they be codesigned in spaces where they are led top down, where people might not see the value or be reluctant to involve others.
- how they are communicated.
- how they can be positive, encouraging and enabling.
- how they are evidence-based — how can we ensure visions are created based on solid evidence about a problem.
It’s been hard seeing pieces of work where the space and set up hasn’t allowed for the above to happen. Navigating different spaces whilst working with these constraints has been hard. I had been figuring out my role within this especially around influencing which is an area I wish to develop more within.
Following SDinGov space on twitter, I discovered this wee gem from AndThen studio on What makes a good vision which gave me reassurance.
Making a vision work.
The strategy is about planning how to achieve the vision — it gives direction and a plan to create the future we imagine. This month, I found myself often reaching out for the bookshelf and particularly for the Good Strategy Bad Strategy book by Richard Rumelt. A good strategy honestly acknowledges the challenges being faced and provides an approach to overcoming them.
I have been learning and chatting with folks involved in creating strategies and helping people communicate vision and plans. Folks working on projects and delivery teams can feel detached from visions, especially if it’s a new one — they might have seen many previous ones and this could be ‘just another update’. It’s important to learn from everyone’s experiences, knowledge and get folks involved. This way, everyone can relate to the strategy and see how they’re contributing directly, how the work we do aligns and adds to it.
I have been working up on aligning 10 year vision and mission with policy and strategies alongside defining medium term goals in project areas to feed into the vision. The scaffolding, as I call it, looks like:
- Organisation-wide vision and mission
- Area of work 10 year vision and mission
- Strategies and policies related to both of the above
- Medium term goals — what good looks like in each overarching work ambitions
- Objectives — what are the objectives or work packages that need to be in place to enable these ambitions and goals
- Tasks — what are the activities that we need to do, what is their priority, timeline of delivery and who is responsible.
The value of mapping this so far has been starting conversations to define the work ambition and long-term goals, as well as check what these mean to people. The next steps would be to discuss tasks and objectives which are core to delivering the vision and mission, and tasks/objectives that could be done differently to achieve it. In doing this, everyone can see, track and monitor how day-to-day tasks feed into bigger objectives and ultimately contribute to long-term vision.
A thank-you goes to Emma Gasson who heads up the design team at MoJ and who very kindly untangled some of my thoughts and shared work they’re doing over there.
Asking for forgiveness, not permission — when you’re new.
I have often heard this saying within the work context of spotting opportunities to fix and just doing it, rather than waiting for someone to give a green light. I’ve noted a pattern of hearing it especially when folks have changed to a new role, and within the public sector. When I have been given this advice, I have often not really accepted it and never really knew why it didn’t fit right. I realised why when I heard it mentioned earlier this month.
For me, being able to feel confident and trusted in a role comes with time — when I’ve got the knowledge and the relationships in place, the fundamental understandings of the inner and outer workings of a thing or a team or organisation. Everyone is different and context is key here. But often I notice there’s an expectation to ‘elbow yourself’ into work/team/project and ultimately, if that’s not your way of working and doesn’t feel authentic then find a way that works for you. My approach is building and maintaining trust and relationships, and inviting new folks along.
What’s next
- I’m working on standartising junior service designer job descriptions.
- Taking a proposal for a centralised team a bit further up.
- Helping a variety of teams with user-centred design planning including preparing for recruitment.
Grateful for
- Making time to read. I’m making slow but steady progress through George Mobiot’s Regenesis book and learning a lot.
- Growing stronger in my aerial practice. This month, I branched further from my trapeze and onto straps and hoop.
- Switching my mind to watch nice things like Frozen Planet and the bake off.
