Weeknotes S04E01
By: Matt White
Tags: Weeknotes, Delivery, Portfolio Management, Org Charts, Volunteering

I only managed to write two episodes in series 3, so I’m cheating starting season 4 but I like a nice clean slate to get going on! I’ve been inspired by Philippa Newis and Lingjing Yin who have started working for Royal Borough of Greenwich (where I am very lucky to live) and are documenting their time starting in new roles in product and delivery.

Volunteering

Since I last wrote, I’ve started two new volunteering roles. The first I started in February as part of the local team rolling out the COVID-19 vaccines. It was so good for my mental health to be getting out during a brutal lockdown and feel like I was making a difference in getting some sense of normality back in the world. In addition, I have found it fascinating to see the service being delivered and from a nerdy work point of view, seeing the different ways the service design works, doesn’t work, barriers for folks accessing and delivering the service and so much more. A stark reminder of how important service design is and the involvement of researching and designing services with a sharp focus on user needs.

The sign outside my COVID vaccination site

Last week I started my second volunteering role as a listening volunteer at The Listening Place. The organisation provides face to face listening support to people who feel that life is no longer worth living. I was super nervous getting started as there was a little gap between completing the training and getting started but it all went well. I’ve changed my working pattern so I work condensed hours (thanks Citizens Advice for flexible working!) to accommodate having every other Friday off to do this role.

Coaching and mental health first aid!

I’ve also spent some time working on my personal development during the lockdown months, completing a training with the MOE Foundation and becoming a qualified coach as well as completing the Mental Health First Aider training. Both courses were so brilliantly delivered, and I can’t wait to get stuck into some coaching with folks over the coming weeks. I’ve been practicing coaching conversations where I can, but glad to have some folks I’ll be working with 121 in the coming weeks so we can get into some goal focused coaching!

Work updates

Since last writing, my work situation has evolved slightly where I am now focusing on leading the delivery and portfolio functions across the design data and technology directorate. Alongside working with the team to figure out our ‘offering’ as delivery, the team has increased in headcount and I needed to think about putting a structure in place that would help set us up for success. The main objectives I was looking to achieve in this structure were:

having a structure that scales easily over time

give clarity on the progression path through the team

work on standardising role profiles (as folks had come together from different teams)

have the right line management support in place

introduce a new lead role around portfolio management

I think this has been achieved as a good starting point, but as with all good org design work, I’ll be working with Jo and the other leads when they’re in place to check in on what’s working and what need work to identify any future changes we need to make.

New team structure org chart

I’m particularly excited to have a second delivery lead in place to support on the overall work of leading our excellent delivery managers as well as working across the directorate with other leads (tech, product, research, design, data) to truly think about collaborative working. I’m also thrilled to have a Portfolio Lead in place who will be helping to raise the visibility of our work, shift us from thinking in deliverables to outcomes, support prioritition and workfore planning decisions and more (but that’s plenty to start with — don’t worry Alex if you’re reading this — no pressure, honestly).

This week

I’m excited to get started on some big chunks of work this week.

Recruitment — an ongoing slog at the moment, but we’ve had some movement in the team because of promotions, so this is always a nice reason to have to be recruiting Portfolio next steps — we’ve gathered a first iteration view of our portfolio together in trello. We now need to do use it as part of a quarterly planning session and looking to get help from the delivery folks to design something for this to happen by the end of the month. Delivery offering — Jo and I have done lots of work with the team on figuring out our offering, who we are etc and I’d love to turn this into something ‘comms’ friendly’ that doesn’t need constant updating. I’d love ot tell our story, describe our impact as a team and then share with folks. Q1 forecasting — as budget holder for the team, it’s that time where we’re checking in on Q1 and beyond. I’m not great at maths but I like to think I am pretty good at managing our budget, so oddly looking forward to working through this with our excellent finance business partner.

Listening, watching, experiencing

I just finished reading this — probably the last person to have read it. Quite jolly and dark in places.

I finally watched It’s a Sin — again, late to the party on that one. Phenomenal. Heartbreaking. Tragic. The last episode broke me.

I’m obsessed with Jessie Ware. Have been for a while, but this song is guaranteed to get me dancing.