If you follow my blog or social media, you’ll know I’m a proponent of ‘working in the open’.
As public sector digital teams, we need to work in the open to meet the Service Standard. But this isn’t merely about compliance. Sharing what we’re building and learning helps build communities, helps us find people working on similar problems to share ideas and stories, and gives the opportunity for public scrutiny and debate that supports us to refine our thoughts and ensure we’re making best use of public money.
Well, that all sounds great in practice. But what happens when we’re working on something we can’t share? Unreleased policy, contentious legislation, commercially sensitive projects — there are numerous situations where we can’t be 100% transparent.
Here’s how I approach that problem:
- Share the ‘how’, not the ‘what’
Even if the content of your work is confidential, there will be parts you can share, for example:
- Ways of working, tools and methods. E.g. Reflections on a design sprint*
- How we approached a problem. E.g. Questions to ask when creating a service map
- Reflections on how you’re feeling. E.g. Many of my weeknotes** are light on detail but heavy on authenticity and reflection
*I wrote this while supporting the Communities for Afghans policy team. At the time that work was unreleased, so I was unable to mention any of the details.
**I wrote these weeknotes during the summer 2024 pre-general election period. Pre-election doesn’t mean you have to stop writing entirely, but you need to take care if you’re a civil servant.
2. Pick a topic that isn’t the ‘here and now’
You’ll have lots to share that isn’t the work in front of you right now (although often this is the easiest content to write, as it’s at the forefront of your mind). You could talk about:
- Your profession, what you like about it or how you found it. E.g. Switching between digital roles: from Business Analysis to Product
- Your sector, what excites you about it or why you’ve stuck around. E.g. Why you should be excited about Local Government
- Your hobbies. E.g. Transferable skills from music
- Your manual of me / your work environment / what it’s like to work with you. e.g. Manual of Me
- Or go meta and write about writing. People love that kind of thing (apparently)
This all counts. You’re building your writing habit and sharing content that people will be interested in and will learn from. Your ‘here and now’ work is not the most interesting thing about you.
3. Amp up your openness in internal channels
Can you speak with your colleagues? Your communities of practice? Your internal networks?
There’s very little I can write publicly about right now, so I lean into my team. We talk all the time, share sh***y first drafts of work, and ask for each other’s opinions constantly.
Even if you’re not open you can still get some of that benefit of the hive-mind — you can gather feedback, ask questions and seek contributions from a smaller audience.
4. Wait
Some things are easier to describe in hindsight, once the policy has been announced and you’re not worried about accidentally pre-releasing something in an unofficial channel, or once the dialogue has moved onto another issue and you can express yourself more freely.
If you’re going to wait, make some private notes somewhere, just for you. In six months you’ll have forgotten it all without those prompts.
5. Don’t
You’re allowed to cut yourself some slack. Nobody is holding you to a timetable of weekly or monthly output except you.
While ‘working in the open’ should be the function of a team, often it falls to highly motivated individuals to keep it going. You don’t need to keep carrying this. Especially if you’re working on a high profile/high stress area, you’re allowed to take a break and not write for a while.
But please come back eventually, when you can.
