January — a new path
New year, new beginning and all that. But this year has been different. I’ve set off on a new route; one that I haven’t tried before.
In December, I left the Civil Service after 9 years of working in central government as an analyst, morphing into a product owner for analytical products. The Civil Service gave me my first job after I graduated from university where I saw a real future for my career in analysis. It had everything I was looking for in those years — work-life balance, career progression, relatively competitive pay, and human beings who valued the same things as me. Though I flirted with the idea of leaving the Civil Service a few times, I always seemed to find something that would pull me back and stop me from leaving. Whether it was a new challenge, the job security, the social impact, or even the pension(!), I would find it.
Last year was a bit different. I felt like I was reaching a crossroad in my career, where my background in analysis was starting to converge with my interest in product management. Part of this was just chance — the type of analytical projects I was delivering in the last few years at HMICFRS lent themselves to being ‘productified’ well. But there was another element. I had become really interested in creating analytical ‘products’ instead of ‘models’, delivering through an ‘agile mindset’ instead of ‘waterfall’, and thinking about ‘users/customers’ in all aspects of my work. I was using more of my time to learn about these topics so that I could use them in my work to deliver more value, quicker. I was taking product seriously, and I had a decision to make about what this meant for my career journey.
So during the summer of last year, I started to think about where I needed to be to get the exposure to product that I was yearning. I looked around the Civil Service, but couldn’t find what I was really after. More and more avenues I was exploring started to point outside the Civil Service. Certain things did make a difficult decision a little easier. Announcements around huge cuts to the Civil Service were being made. Our Prime Ministers and government were in turmoil. Civil Service pay awards were far outweighed by the rising cost of living. Although my immediate area of work felt important and impactful, those things that were pulling me back and stopping me from leaving previously weren’t there in the same way. It felt like the right time to take that step that I’d considered many times before.
In September, I resigned from the Civil Service so that I could join FSP as a Product Manager. FSP is an award-winning, digital transformation consultancy specialising in business strategy, change and adoption and digital solution delivery.
I was first introduced to FSP towards the end of 2021 during my work on the Digital Crime and Performance Pack at HMICFRS. FSP provided Power BI expertise to develop the technical build of the product. Through my engagement with FSP, I was drawn to certain characteristics of the organisation; the quality and pace of their work, the specialist skills and knowledge of their consultants, but most of all, the overall values underpinning how they delivered value to their clients. They cared about our success. I felt a pull, and I felt like I wanted to be part of this, so I started to explore opportunities at FSP. One conversation led to another (I didn’t realise these were interviews!), and soon enough, I was offered the chance to join FSP’s newly-formed Product capability. I felt incredibly lucky!
In my first month at FSP, I’ve been trying hard to get to grips with the world of consulting quickly, while delving into my first client engagement. Moving from public to private sector, and consultancy at that, was making me feel slightly apprehensive. But what I thought would be a daunting step has been made to feel manageable. FSP’s core values have contributed to this immensely. My new colleagues at FSP have demonstrated the culture of belonging by being warm, welcoming and responsive, making me feel at home from the get-go. The Company Kick-Off at BAFTA 195 Piccadilly was a great way to set the tone for the year ahead, but it also showcased FSP’s core values of being human, inclusive, performance driven and ambitious — it was refreshing and inspiring to see how success is visualised and measured at FSP, and though it’s important, how little emphasis is placed on the numbers. Being performance-driven, instead of results-driven, really stood out at the Company Kick-Off and helped to put me at ease.
I think I’ve landed on my feet in month one. I now want to turn my attention to adding value to the clients I work with, and myself — delivering and learning at the same time. I hope the novelty of working in a shiny, new place with diverse and ambitious people doesn’t wear off!
I’ll share my next bout of reflections at the end of month two, and they’ll likely be a bit shorter. Yes, fitting.
