Hello folks. I almost didn’t write this week but then a lovely colleague reached out to say how much they enjoyed reading these notes (hi K!) and how ‘real’ I am on the internet, and despite being absolutely exhausted this Friday night I feel I owe it to them to get back into the habit! A lot as happened in the few weeks I’ve been away, let me bring you up to speed…
In very exciting news for me personally, I found out just before I went on holiday that I had been successful in my application for a promotion. This came as a (very lovely) surprise! As anyone who’s been through a Civil Service interview process will know, they’re very structured with there’s not a lot of back-and-forth between you and the interviewers, so it’s difficult to judge how they’ve gone. Evidently I did enough on this occasion, and I’m so excited if a little daunted to take this next step.
Due to some upcoming changes in personnel in the team I’m going to, I’ve needed to start my onboarding straight away, so I can get up to speed on the programme context and ask a bunch of questions before some colleagues depart. I’m thoroughly enjoying getting to poke my nose into the material, although it means for at least the interim that I’m juggling my attention between my project in Funding Service Design (FSD) and my new role. The context switching is draining but it is only for a short time.
With this in mind, I’m being extra conscious of my rest time and breaks. I’ve turned down a few gigs this week that I would have liked to book, but I know at least between now and the end of the summer that my weekend downtime is vital. I’ve also been focussing on the ‘basics’ of early bedtimes, nourishing food, and time in nature to keep my body and mind healthy.
In my FSD project, I’ve been grappling with what I call ‘discovery wobbles’ this week. I often find during discoveries there comes a point where we’re surrounded by a vast quantity of insights and it all feels quite bewildering and like we’re not making progress. I’m trying to keep us grounded by leaning into working in the open as a continual reminder of our progress (through team weeknotes); using prototyping concepts but in very tiny ways (e.g. 10 minute sketches) to test our collective understanding and give us something tangible to latch our conversations to; and starting to give our roadmap more shape.
If that wasn’t enough, I’ve also had lots of 1–2–1 conversations this week. I’ve been chatting about recruitment plans, about how to make a good first impression in a team, how to prepare for a job interview, my reflections on how we work with contractors… One of my core values is generosity and I always strive to share knowledge rather than hoard it, although this week I may have overstretched myself with the about of time I committed to these ‘side chats’. I’m also giving some thought to who I need to learn from as I move into my next role; I really enjoying mentoring and sharing my knowledge but I need people who are ahead of me to learn from too.
Finally, it’s been a big fortnight for Government! I didn’t stay up for election night — I would have liked to but I was working the next day, and insomnia and I are not good friends. I’ve been following the news through my favourite political podcasts (The News Agents and The Rest Is Politics; other suggestions very welcome!), as well as listening to the internal departmental conversations. I joined the Civil Service in 2021, so this is my first General Election period and first change of Government since arriving, and I’m fascinated to see what happens over the coming weeks and months.
