November 12th, 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
Let’s not have a 30-minute meeting this week about something a 5-minute phone call last week could have avoided.
That was my favourite and repeated quote this week. Yet another reminder that meetings should be thoughtful, well structured, and come with a clear purpose. I felt busy and productive, yet looking at my calendar, I was underwhelmed. It’s always hard to quantify the value of thinking, catching up, organizing and coaching. I had a fair bit of unstructured time with staff this week, which I love. A lot of those five-minute conversations have saved the future calendar. Overall, we learned more about what we are good at and where we may not fit (see Kevin’s notes below). I reconnected with some peers for catch-up chats across a few ministries, chatted digital strategy with our NRM IT governance board, and shared a virtual/in-person hybrid lunch with our parks crew.
Governance reflection
One conversation in particular with Jessica Schafer in Agriculture, Food, and Fisheries (AFF) felt extra productive. They are setting up their digital governance, and we were able to cross-reference notes, share lessons learned, and, fingers crossed, accelerate their journey. A critical reflection was that it’s just tough to support an executive governance group with responsibility for sometimes tiny operational decisions and simultaneously very strategic ones. Some care about every penny and want rationale. Others have no interest and only want to talk big picture. Finding the balance is challenging. On one hand, our IIT needs direction to authorize spending of ministry money (even when it’s small). On the other, we need to focus on making the best use of our strategic brains and solving the crunchy complex problems we are tasked with as a ministry. I have no words of wisdom other than it’s a moving target that requires constant attention and re-calibration. We must do our best to provide decision-makers with the details and the impacts—an example below, it’s not perfect, but you get the point.
It might seem like a simple example, but how often do you see presentations or attend meetings where unclear tasks or details are presented, and then BAM! — you are asked to make a decision. Okay? But how do these IMPACT me and our ministry? We all need to get better at thinking through the aggregated impact our seemingly small one-off decisions.
Lest we forget
Yesterday I took some time to reflect on all of those who served and sacrificed for our country. Both my grandparents served in World War II. It was heartening to see many in-person ceremonies return and just how meaningful it is to many.
Kevin’s notes
This was one of those weeks where I don’t feel like I’ve much to report, but it could just be my foggy brain on a Friday afternoon. Let’s walk back through the calendar and see what comes out.
Started the week learning about new local government climate programs being developed out of the Climate Action Secretariat, to see how we might be able to add value to the overall design process — namely a kickoff meeting of sorts with key collaborators next week. Once up to speed I realized that in the short term, there’s a roadmapping process already in flight that would be tricky to intervene in without the requisite baselayer of relationships and trust. So while I was comfortable running some sort of generative alignment exercise, I realized that the kind of process facilitation (or strategic planning) required to make this meeting a success is a bit out of my core skillset. Point of note: there are many different flavours of facilitation! I’m a decent design facilitator with years of experience running workshops which co-produce knowledge though tangible artefacts. But when it comes to more mediation-style facilitation — like bringing diverse (and even oppositional) stakeholders together to plan work — this is not my comfort zone.
Which reminds me to always be clear about what you do and do not do. Also don’t be apologetic about it. But when saying something like ‘we can help facilitate’ it’s important to box what’s in and what’s out. Hoping we can find a way to support and create value in the program development moving forward, as I love the intent and impact of the work.
Later Monday I attended a Natural Resource Ministries investment board meeting where Jill spoke about ENV’s digital strategy, I chatted about design, and most importantly, we recieved JP Fournier’s Digital Operating Model presentation. All I have to say there is heck yes. An incredible amount of work establishing our technology paradigm current state (from staffing to vendors, tools, and platforms) to a proposed vision of the future that enables the BCPS to sustainability design, deliver, and maintain high quality (digital) services. As I said in to colleagues this morning, it really put the wind under my wings for the rest of the week.
I met again with Danna from the PSA’s Innovation Hub to chat about the Parks’ transformation narrative, as they work to develop a video project through their #thisisdifferent campaign. I think we’ve got to the core of it (as always, process more than outputs) and who can speak to the journey the organization is undergoing. Glad to be part of this as I truly believe there’s such an inspirational story to share coming out of Parks, and I’m proud to be part of it.
I checked in with my friends at the Environmental Protection Division who are working on a design scope with our collaborators at Disco. To paraphrase Caitlin (Disco designer), this kind of discovery scope in a complex organizational environment like EPD is like flying a jet plane: you burn half the fuel on takeoff, then it’s much more efficient going once you hit cruising altitude. Big truth. There’s so much work to be done in the early days of a project like this: aligning on purpose, understanding the business landscape, and piecing together a process which might achieve the outcomes prescribed in the contract — or even having to revisit the utility of those prescriptions with a deeper understanding of the problem space. Things seem to be falling into a good rhythm with this work and I’m grateful for the efforts of all involved.
On Wednesday aft I attended the first of a resurgent Human Centred Design community of practice meetup in the BCPS 🎉 I love, freaking love, this kind of cross-government networking to better connect people and practice. For HCD neophytes to seasoned vets, everyone benefits when we come together and talk about how to do the work — the what, why and how of it all. Big thanks to Martha Edwards (CITZ) and collaborators for getting this going again, excited to hopefully contribute in the near future!
And today I had coffee with an old acquaintance, Nat Gosman from the Built Environment team at EMLI. We chatted the background of their involvement in the CleanBC program and visions for the future. I’m super keen to be involved in this phase next of CleanBC, and while the breadth of its past (politically and bureaucratically) is a lot to speed up on, I’m jazzed to driving a service orientation as we synthesize all the component pieces for an improved public experience.
Finally: an old film photo of Murph I stumbled upon in my archives this week. Because what are these weeknotes if not a forum for dog glamour shots.
