December 17th, 2021
In the spirit of transparency and candour, Kevin and Jill publish weeknotes reflecting on the what and why for their team.
Jill’s notes
It feels a bit like groundhog day to say again (in back-to-back weeknotes) that it was a long and tiring week. Looking back at the week, I realized I had over 20 hours of one-on-one sessions. Partially the pre-break push, partially long overdue connections, and lots of listening. At times it’s frustrating that those hours aren’t tied to quantifiable deliverables. If my boss asked what I did this week, I’d have nothing to show, but I was drained at the end of each day. Just as I felt sorry for myself, I came across the Simon Sinek post below. It immediately reminded me of the BC Parks “la directors” crew Leah, Lisa and Jess. They had a killer week, accomplishments galore, and I’m so happy to have been riding shotgun with this team for many months. That is true joy.
I also came across Jaimie Boyd’s post (shhh, it’s Sunday again, or maybe I’m an oracle) — her takeaways are on point. It links to an HBR article — How to Navigate the Ambiguity of Digital Transformation. Reading through it, I couldn’t help but say “yes” and “exactly” so many times that I had to include it.
The problem with any digital transformation plan is just that; it is a plan, rather than a path. — Mike Walsh
I may have even quoted that unknowingly this week. It is worth the read for anyone in the digital transformation space.
Rather than rehash the details, Kevin does a great job of highlighting the rest of the work below — the summary is we continue to move the dial. I’m around the next two weeks and targeting reflection, planning, and learning. Seems like a few good intentions. We will see how I do!
Kevin’s notes
The last week before many take a deserved holiday break is usually a big push, no different this year with many projects at a high velocity with the spectre of Q4 bearing down. Recapping:
EPD
- We regrouped to scope the next phase of design discovery unpacking the services the Regional Operations Branch delivers and maintains. We met with the directors to hone in on scope and discuss lessons learned from LRS to date. I also really enjoyed our in-person planning session at Disco HQ, so nice to be in the room working together! I’m looking forward to hitting the ground running on this next step in EPD service transformation come January.
- Speaking of LRS, the first round of final findings and recommends from that discovery was on Friday. There aren’t enough superlatives for Jackie and Caitlin in the delivery of this scope, diving all the way into the deep end of a truly complex service space and bringing high impact recommends across all scales of the ecosystem. Plus, shepherding the process and bringing staff along. Truly the work of pros, I’m so grateful for the full team effort the last few months. This deserves its own mini case-study, perhaps a task for over the holidays.
Parks
- I was proxy to both DM and MO briefings, both of which went well. Great work Lisa/Leah/Jess/Jill. We have clear direction for Q4 and no shortage of work to do.
- bcparks.ca 2.0 inception with team Osprey. [audible sigh] if you’ve been following these weeknotes you’ll know how long this site/service has been on the burner (and in the churn cycle). It’s unfortunate that it’s not live in the world yet, for a variety of reasons. I’m resolute that we will have a beta in front of a wide public user audience by late winter. It’s not a small task Osprey have been handed taking over the final dev push from where the vendor left off. There are many cliche gov design/tech lessons that have come from this journey, and I hope to share them publicly in due time. Most of them are exactly what you’d think, if you’ve payed any attention to public sector digital/service transformation over the past decade. Anyway — we will get this dang site live before camping season 2022, and that will be an incredibly gratifying day.
- That said, huge shoutout to Osprey and Parks Prov Services Branch for launching the day use pass reservation service! There is no understating what this represents for the organization as its first fully designed, built, deployed, and administrated in-house digital services. These are mostly entirely new competencies for an org that has traditionally relied on outsourced products and supports and not experienced great results and relationships along the way. This is ownership and accountability, and a sense of confidence and optimism as we scale this transformation to other crucial service touchpoints for the public 🎉
CleanBC
- Continued alignment across all the stakeholders (read: meetings) and definition of the scope and outcomes. Again, for persistent readers, you’re probably thinking, ‘jeez, haven’t you been doing this for weeks?’ — well, actually, yes. Because it takes that kind of time and diligence in a complex services/marcomm space to ensure you’re not breaking eggs to make the omelette (not sure what the reverse metaphor is, but point being we can’t break any eggs). The central design team is moving to concrete work planning next week, excited to frame up the scope and activities and vision the workback.
- We issued a SOW for design support for this research/UX/IA, hoping our vendor collaborators are jazzed at this opportunity and bring high quality resources to the table when we go to award in the new year.
Other
- I hung out with ex-GDX teammate, intrepid designer/facilitator, and friend Laura, currently at Health. Interesting to hear of the evolution at their Innovation Hub, an internal-ministerial initiative I’ve been mostly out the loop on.
- I attended the NRS SD/UX quarterly meetup, a really cool sharing of projects and practice. Another example of how design is truly growing up in the BCPS. Proud to be part of this sector and help move that dial.
- I got small stack of books delivered, mostly recommends from out in the designosphere (special thanks to Gordon Ross): Seeing Like a State, Solving Public Problems, and Grounding Knowledge.
- Finally, Jill and I presented [rambled] at Quarantine and Quaffee, my favourite cross-gov monthly open forum. I’d like to say we were on fire as our usual candid and [darkly] humorous selves, but I’ll let others be the judge of that.
Happy holidays to you and yours! Hope you find the time and space to reflect, recharge, connect, and refocus for all that’s to come. Life is beautiful despite its tumult, and I wish you all the best.
