April 8th, 2022

In the spirit of transparency and candour, Kevin and Jill publish weeknotes reflecting on the what and why for their team.

Jill’s notes

Two weeks in one, how lucky. With Kevin away most of last week, I took a mini-reflection break. My last two weeks were filled with re-connecting, HR and process — I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot. I’ll admit, I’ve been taking advantage of the flux of a sector re-org and new leadership incoming to get ahead on administeria. That pause has caught up with me, and I’m craving strategic thinking time. I need space and deep thinking.

Re-connecting

As people stream back into the office, I ran into many folks I hadn’t seen in years. I’ve returned to my nomad ways, landing at four different buildings, a few coffee shops and a couple of restaurants. I caught myself smiling ear to ear in the middle of yesterday’s sun, smiling at random folks downtown. Despite my hesitations re: moving away from my cozy wfh environment, getting out does have an impact. It’s not productive in the same way. The 47 unread emails I had at 8 pm last night were a real wake-up call. It will take some time to adjust.

HR

This is a deep topic. I have recently spent a lot of time on the practical and tactical end of this. But I was also grateful to have a conversation with several exec director colleagues re: creative thinking on how we manage and build talent inside gov. Two things that really stand out for me based on that conversation:

1. We must normalize workforce development conversations at the executive level — which necessitates staying tuned and being open to identifying feedback opportunities.
2. We must shift our scarcity mindset to one of abundance — okay, well, talent abundance must be a tad over-optimistic, but at minimum, a public service, shared, and collaborative approach to people development.

Of course, that last one is a big one and will deserve its own post one day. The critical component is that sharing our staff, being creative in how we do that, giving opportunities for staff to develop, and supporting staff that love their current role, will create a deeper and more engaged public service. Holding onto people, expecting them to ‘dig in’ for years, telling them ‘they must seek the next level,’ it’s simply not attractive. I don’t want to work for that public service either.

Process

Ah, the process. So much of it. I mentioned craving strategic time, which requires space. I cleared a full day next week. I know that isn’t enough, but it is a start. I’m going to commit to this with that space:

1. Turn off all my notifications and put on an out-of-office — personal, and work phone.
2. Reflect on our last year: do more, do less, and keep doing.
3. Brainstorm goals for our branch at three-time points: 90 days, six months, one year.
4. Not use the time to catch up on other deliverables or outputs

I’m not committing to deliverables and haven’t decided if I will do analog or digital. Here is to bold commitments!

The rest

• I was able to drop into a few of our Service Design workshops in EPD. Exciting to see staff engaged and passionate about co-design activities.
• Work with Steve Kot on our C&E business case prep, an overview for critical partners, and very excited to have Doug Forsdick taking on the Exec Lead role. I’m looking forward to his new position and our continued momentum.
• We got a new boss! Amy Avila will be our new Lead of Strategic Services. I enjoyed working with Amy while at EAO, and I’m keen to join our newly minted team.
• Last, I connected with some iWIST members at that latest book club. We chatted about Think Again by Adam Grant. Lots of nuggets I mostly listened to versus reading, but several examples resonate. I won’t even try to summarize. I know that I will be re-thinking—a lot.

On to short week 1.0.

Kevin’s notes

Back after a short hiatus — I was off most of last week for some downtime south of the border. A very enjoyable trip featuring a concert (how novel) and more incredible bookshop browsing (see concluding photo for evidence). Back to a busy week; the transition to a new fiscal year has brought no chill to our velocity, which isn’t exactly a surprise given the work I’m involved in isn’t bound to EOF deadlines.

The CleanBC suite of initiatives has been the major focus for me recently as we transition from our phase 2 priorities to new challenge spaces in phase 3 (how we move from phased financial/operational models to a persistent team is a topic for another post entirely). For me personally, the bulk of this week was preparing to launch our phase 3 activities next week:

• A generative kickoff/ideation/prioritization session with the EMLI crew and their vendor partners who work on the Better Homes service.
• How to take the breadth of potential work for Better Homes and refine, roadmap, and estimate for a research/workplan.
• A phase 2 review/light retro: what things to start, stop, and continue, and what adjustments we’ll be making in the team practices and process based on retrospective learnings to date.

As well, I participated in design reviews and demos this week as the updated GoElectric service moves into development. Very exciting stuff! I’m super proud of the team that went from research to delivery on this, with special hat tips to Harry from STB and April from Spatial. To paraphrase a GCPE partner, it looks incredible, and the product is a testament to the quality and rigour of the process that produced it. I also met with the Adaptation team at CAS to plan their deeper collaboration in the CleanBC overarching digital presence moving forward.

Other things this week

• The Natural Resource Sector leadership cohort officially kicked off. Again thanks to Jill and James Mack for nominating me for the program. I’m very grateful for the opportunity!
• Climate Acton Secretariat reporting: after working as part of the process design team in a Lean exercise — although it was much more robust than that, imo — the project leads gave the final report-out and recommendations. STB’s involvement certainly doesn’t end here.
• A pause and initial regroup on Parks future-focused strategic/transformation planning. More to come on that front.
• A couple of in-person extracurriculars with colleagues, so nice to be doing that again. Just feels right, especially coupled with the nicer spring weather we’ve been enjoying.

This week in tabs

• Mission-oriented innovation — a handbook from Vinnova (the Swedish national innovation agency). Authored by personal strategy design hero Dan Hill, this handbook chronicles Vinnova’s work together with a number of actors to jointly create mission-oriented innovation over the span of years, providing a guide with tips for execution.
• Communicating Complex Research by Rachel Coldicutt. A concise deck outlining approaches for presenting research to non-designer audiences (especially senior stakeholders).
• Don’t ask forgiveness, radiate intent by Elizabeth Ayer. Get into the habit of signalling every time you change direction. Signal even when you do not see anyone else around. It is easy to miss someone who needs to know what you are doing.
• Why use the Team Onion? A model for small, nimble, and effective delivery units.
• “Agile” is eating design’s young; or, Yet Another Reason why “embedding” designers doesn’t work. Super relevant to our work with CleanBC. Bringing up junior designers within the organization is challenging yet necessary; much in this piece was relatable and validating.
• And finally, the #DigitalBC Livestream: Reimagining the BC Parks Experience from the Outside In with rumon carter. An informative 30 interview covering the successful launch of camping reservation services in March, and how we got there.

Eclipse books in Bellingham, come prepared to spend a couple hours digging!