[Insert weeknotes absence excuse]

Its been too long to try to recap. But by way of summary:

• My recent focus has been on how we (continue to) make sure that the services being built in DPSP are clinically safe. Partly that means engaging with the clinical safety standards, partly that means telling better stories about how UCD and iterative delivery approaches reduce risk, and partly its pretending I understand CI/CD pipelines. DevOps Re-org rag anyone?
• I (gemini) updated the Gromit Gif to reflect getting things done in a big complex org.

• I made a meme to throw shade on some of my own work

I’ve also started taking the kids bouldering. Its the most recent attempt in my ongoing mission to find a thing that they both enjoy doing at the same time, in the same place. Its been a success so far, and allows me a slight naval gazy opportunity to think about learning a new-ish thing for. Being OK with not being very good, and continually re-evaluating your approach.

I’ve climbed a bit before, on and off since I was a kid, but never more than once or twice a year through school, clubs, friends etc. I partly find the faff off putting, lead climbing (with ropes and the like) outdoors requires a LOT of standing around, walking stuff in and out and generally not doing a lot of climbing. You might get one or two attempts, if you fail that’s annoying.

Bouldering in a climbing gym on the other hand is totally different. There are almost infinite climbs or short length that you can attempt as many times as you like as long as you’re not in anyone elses way. You are always within safe ‘failing’ height and mats are plenty sufficient to stop you hurting yourself. You can try one or two moves, then step off the wall and re-evaluate, then get back on and try again.

I think this is why it works well for kids. Its low stakes, easy to adapt to different abilities and hard for it to ‘go wrong’ to any level of severity aside from people getting a bit tired, or a blister now and then.

Dare I say it, its also a bit more test and learn.

Creating environments where people can rapidly try things out doesn’t mean that everything is easy. Bouldering can be *really hard* but the whole thing is set up for even the most skilled people to repeatedly fail safely.

How do we set our orgs up so that everyone from the novices, through to the experts can safely and repeatably fail, on the path to pulling off sometimes spectacular feats.