Weeknotes July 16th, 2021
In the spirit of transparency and candour, Kevin and Jill are publishing weeknotes reflecting on the what and why for their team.
Kevin’s notes
A short week here, only 2x days. I was on a whirlwind road trip with stops in the Crowsnest Pass and Edmonton, clocking a casual 40 hours of driving in 6 days (note: not recommended). YEG provided an opportunity to check in with my former colleague, dear friend, and design leader Davis Levine, hearing about the work he’s been up to with advanced education at GOA (Government of Alberta). Quite mature design processes in action and common challenges in actioning new ways of building in gov (why is it so hard to hire developers?!). A few notes from my days back at the desk this week:
Climate Action Secretariat: While scope rapidly expanded today via senior exec with laudable ambition, I do believe we’ve landed on the right balance of desirable, feasible, and viable in our approach crafting to delivering a high-profile public-facing web piece this fall. Big thanks to Meg, Karl, and Elaine for the iterative collaboration; now on to the doing.
BC Parks: We briefed the Deputy and ADM on the work we’ve been doing and are now preparing for a Minister’s briefing next week. This is new terrain for me, and while I’m mostly quiet in the room as part of the core team and on-demand design expertise, it’s incredible learning how to approach these engagements with our highest-level decision-makers. Truly an art, and I’m grateful for the tutelage of Jill and rumon carter, clinicians in elegant articulation of the problem space and ways forward.
I also continued to work with the bcparks.ca team on our design approach and prioritization through to launch. Thankfully we’ve extended our GDX partners and have additional design capacity rolling on from the vendor team. There’s a lot still to do w/ content and UIs, but overall we’re in a significantly better place than 3 months ago — no small feat!
Other things: I briefly presented at Quarantine and Quaffee, a casual BCPS virtual meetup where folk share something their team is working on, what has been a success in the past month, and what hasn’t worked or been a failure. I chatted about our success with user-driven design for the Parks pages and how we’ve had challenges getting crisp on what ‘done’ looks like across the project team — a more common alignment breakdown than we might want to believe. Next week we’ll be getting the stakeholders together, refocusing on the roadmap, and working back from the end of the contract to ensure everyone is on the same page with delivery expectations and how to get there. Great to see some familiar faces at this session. I love connecting across gov!
Reflection time: It’s good to know your weaknesses. One key area in which I aim to expand my knowledge and practical abilities are government financial literacy. Capital, operational, amortization, cost recovery, TB subs, Concept Cases, etc. etc.: the mechanisms and bureaucratic systems in which we unlock funding to do the things are all still pretty cryptic to me. And so much of this is enables our ability to (human) resource the work, either with staff or contractors — a constant challenge. I don’t speak the language, and I don’t fully understand the puzzle in which these things intersect. Effective gov hacking / dark matter design requires this skillset—time to level up.
Two very different kinds of links:
The Ultimate Guide With All The Secrets You Will Need To Know To Become A Fabulous Design Unicorn. A free, self-guided class to help you take your first steps into digital product design from the incredible folks at UX Collective.
Effective Implementation of Government Platforms: How architectural decisions, operational approaches, and government structures alter the economic benefits and costs of government platforms. A report from Lauren Lombardo at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Jill’s notes
We are officially into the summer vacation countdown. It’s this weird part of the summer where half the people you need are already on vacation, and you’ve realized you won’t see them until you’re back from vacation. And before you know it, it’s September. I suspect the next two weeks will be fast-paced and action-packed before I attempt to take nearly 3 weeks at the beginning of August.
The list
Here is my attempt at brevity — long story short (aka for those who know me, it is never short):
Connections: I met with Scott McNaughton from the Digital Investment Branch. Scott is new to the Provincial government but brings some serious human centred-design and policy chops from his experience in the federal government. I was pleased to find plenty of alignment, and I’m excited for Scott’s impact at the centre — particularly around re-establishing strong and supportive relationships cross-government.
- I checked in with Michelle Smith from AEST. We talked about design cadence and prioritizing accessibility within the constraints of fixed timeframes.
- Jennifer McLean and I reconnected on her web governance and content strategy work. With a few side musings about creating space for ourselves and setting expectations.
- I met with Aaron Unger in our regular product owner check-ins. Always a pleasure to strategize with Aaron, and I’m always impressed with just how much he’s absorbed and his open leadership style.
A few other mentees, mentors, and coaching sessions where career planning, future educational opportunities and the value of credentials came up. I’m very much of the opinion that all credentials have value, but not all checkboxes need to be checked. The theme was that it takes work to a career plan. My mentor had reiterated the importance of both personal and professional planning. You can’t separate them. The reflection, health, and balance need to consider the whole.
BC Parks: I continue to learn from Kevin, Rumon, and our design partners. As Kevin mentioned, lots of briefs and prep this week. I love distilling a deck into a narrative, and there is no one better than Rumon to learn from.
This week emphasized how reading something and doing something have such different impacts. You can get the theory, but it doesn’t sink in fully until you work with it. Grateful to learn and more to come.
Agile governance: Kerry Pridmore, ADM leading the new FOI modernization agile team, invited me to speak at the kick-off of her cross-government governance team. This is a fascinating project, and it was great to layout the lean, value-driven approach that’s been so successful in guiding our digital projects.
The right structure and engagement are always a theme. We’ve also been thinking about this a lot as we prepare our concept cases. The nature of the content is that multiple leaders will be involved, and finding a structure that leverages their experience without slowing down the team will be essential.
Digital strategy: Worked with Fraser Marshall and our ADMs on a brief for our DM next week to check in on our implementation approach. We are taking a people to focus — in the ministry and those we serve as we draft an action plan.
With people in mind, I met with Rosa Montgomery from our digital academy to prep for next week's digital era leadership course. We’ve targeted two half days with plenty of guest speakers specifically to BC Parks staff as they begin their digital journey.
The rest: I met with David Tesch, Jessica Wade, and Lindsay MacFarlane to catch up on the Water team's work. As an ENV agile team, I’ve been a bit out of the loop, and it was lovely to learn a bit more.
HR Jenga continued talking about product owners, job descriptions, exclusion criteria, and I write more job examples. It reminds me that what we are doing is different. It’s unique, which makes this stuff challenging but worth it. Some quick thinking end of the week by my oh so brilliant colleagues has landed us in a much better place bolstered by some serious talent. The future is looking pretty damn bright for our work.
Weekly musings
I admit I was feeling a bit out of my depth this week. I consistently struggle with the desire to tackle the meta-problem. On the one hand, it’s my superpower. On the other, it complicates the crap out of everything and can lead to complete frustration. After talking to a few colleagues, it really hit that I’d like some more focused mentorship and coaching from someone who has done this before (outside of BC). It’s one thing to read about the amazing work other jurisdictions have done, but what we are attempting is certainly new to many of my colleagues and me. It’s not to say I haven’t and won’t continue to benefit from my brilliant mentors, but a new perspective can only help.
The highlight: The best part of my week was a non-work milestone. We officially booked flights for my 12-year-old niece Anna. She’ll be flying solo for the first time to join us for a week of good old west coast adventures. I can’t wait to show off the beautiful place we call home.
