Weeknotes 20th January 2023

How have I made a difference this week

I had mentoring sessions with two of my mentees, both of whom are from underrepresented groups and both told me how much they value my openness and honesty as it’s something they don’t often see from leaders around them. It was also a theme of feedback that ran through another meeting that I had. I will always be open to challenge and open to challenging where I think it is needed. There will always be people who may not be comfortable with that and sometimes you have to pick your moment, but as long as people are open, honest and challenge in an appropriate and respectful way then it shouldn’t be the exception to work in that way. Openness and honesty are part of my values, make a difference to me and it seems to others around me and I am sticking to them.

I had a check in with the team delivering the inclusive design work, made sure they were linked into who they needed to be, had time and input from the colleagues they needed, answers to queries and ability to escalate any issues. I also met with Sara and Sophie to discuss the joint health user research away day next week that Lisa and Sara have been working hard to organise and looked at how we can jointly set the scene for the day.

In my voluntary work, I linked 2 sets of people together to help them get peer support and know they are not alone or the only people having to deal with their particular set of circumstances. I also linked people together to enable someone’s story to be told and awareness to be raised about the value of knowing your BRCA status. No one has exactly the same context, or experiences it in the same way, but knowing there is someone similar to you thinking through the same personal decisions can be a real help. I guess that’s where my openness and honesty also comes in. Whether it be a work or non-work issue, knowing that others have/ are experiencing what you are, makes a big difference to how you might feel about it and helps people connect to work on similar issues. That’s why working in the open hugely benefits everyone.

What do I need to do to make more of a difference

I had a couple of conversations where there was a theme of UCD folk having to ‘police’ ways of work and ensuring things were delivered to the service standard. This is probably an indicator of where the teams are at in terms of user centred maturity and also in terms of product maturity. It isn’t the job of UCD folk to ‘police’ how their teams work but it does often happen when other roles are missing, the team’s product mindset is evolving and the team isn’t linked into assurance processes.

Ensuring that people work to the service standard is part of assurance and governance. Supporting their team to meet the standard in terms of working to meet user needs is part of what UCD folk do. We need to make sure that the 2 sides of this coin don’t flip over into each other and leave UCD folk performing a role that they shouldn’t need to. They are part of the team and need to be have the space to be working collaboratively with the team towards collective team goals rather than feeling like an outsider trying to impose rules on their colleagues. I need to look at how I can use things like the UCD maturity work and my links into assurance to make a difference in this space.

There was one day when although I walked before work, I didn’t get fresh air and daylight at lunchtime and I really notice how it impacted on my clarity of thought and my sleep that night. It was a reminder that working through is counterproductive. You think you’ll get more done but the evidence shows that you are more productive if you have proper breaks. It is often when I am having a break or outside on a walk that new thoughts, ideas and clarity come to me. I need to make sure I do this every day next week.

Next week

• User research community away day
• More urgent ask work
• UCD profession work
• BRCA Direct steering committee