2024/01/12

Finally got myself in gear to write some weeknotes again.

I was tired at the end of last year. I started drafting a ‘year note’ but gave up pretty quickly and went back to DIY to get the house ready for Christmas.

So this is maybe a bit more of a general update but…

• The kitchen is finished. So pleased it was all sorted 5 days before Christmas. Its a mess already (of course) but here’s a bit of a before and after shot comparison. See if you can spot which one is which…

• We had a nice Christmas, family came to ours, including our brand new 11 day old nephew.
• Since then has pretty much been a blur of toys and collecting/delivering parcels. We went on a new year ‘clear out’ push, which has involved some left over tiles, a computerised sewing machine we inherited a while back, so many children’s clothes, a lot of fabric, various bike parts. I think we’re finally done with that now though.
• The kids even had a few days away with their grandparents so we could buy and build their new bunk beds in peace (A good idea, they were tricky!)
• I had a bit of a slump going back to work I think, it was a proper break and I definitely hadn’t got bored of it yet, but of course that was offset by great colleagues and interesting work. I just didn’t feel ready to give up my schedule-free days quite yet.
• My son getting the hang of his pedal bike for the first time was a real lift – reminded me why I’m really thankful to not work every day. Very few things are quite as exciting as when it just clicks and they’re off!

• This week I’ve leaned into all my experience working in-house has given me. That mostly means hitting MS Teams hard, sending out messages to drum um interest and input from people who don’t really know who I am or why I’m contacting them. Not sure I’ve got it down, but the ability to send a well-worded ‘you don’t know me but…’ type message that triggers their interest is pretty handy!
• For me its been trying to get input into a service map, although writing this has made me reflect that the most value I’ve got before has been in group sessions. Maybe that’s needed? I’ve also been digging around sharepoint storage and usage in the hope that we can start looking at some similar things to my last months at Co-op.
• I’ve also been leaning on John Cutler’s neat diagram to get myself more comfortable talking about ‘operating models’ or ‘how everyone talks to each other, and when, whilst trying to design and build products and services’.

Having a few more irons in the fire has meant I feel like I’m regaining some momentum. Hopefully it continues.

A new (to me) long read this week was this report on ‘Design’s central role in realizing executive vision’. I don’t know whether its just me being cynical, but I bet pretty much every profession out there has a similar report explaining how in fact finance/business analysis/strategy etc is central to realizing executive vision.