Ep2 — problem solving
I don’t mind admitting that I’m pretty excited about the new series of Line of Duty…Have you seen the trailer and did you find the Easter egg? If not, be aware, minor spoilers ahead…
There was a brief glimpse of a QR code in the trailer which could be easily missed, but spotting it and scanning it sent you on a mission — There was a fair bit of investigating and problem solving and a bit of Googling as well, but that’s just part of the standard problem solving journey these days, isn’t it. This really appealed to my nerdy side 🤓 And my nerdy side is probably a reason why I enjoy the job I do so much.
Well on to my week notes…Problem solving has been a major theme this week. Problem solving can be fun and very fulfilling, but it can also be extremely stressful too. My thoughts of whether it’s fun or not can be influenced by a number of things:
- How critical and urgent it is to find a solution
- Whether you’re working on your own or with others
- How many lines of enquiry you have
- How comfortable/experienced you are with the subject matter
- What else you have on
…and so on .
My examples this week varied along the spectrum of stressfulness…
The problem we can do nothing about:
I feel the amount of anxiety this scenario creates is proportionate to how zen you are…We had an issue with third party software and is completely in the hands of the supplier to fix. It did have knock-on effects to things upstream, which we are responsible for, but there wasn’t anything we could do to fix it. Rationally speaking, this shouldn’t be creating a lot of stress. We’re managing the situation, people know how critical the problem is and the right people are looking into the solution. However, we’re also having conversations with the services that are directly impacted by the problem, so we understand the consequences of this. We’re also generally wired to be problem solvers, so the combination of feeling helpless and out of control can also create a lot of tension. It’s also the case that we care [a lot] when things are not working, which can cause rational thinking and zen to go out of the window.
The problem we can do something about:
We’ve had another issue this week, caused by applying a standard patch to a third party system, which has then stopped certain things working. Similarly to the first scenario, we have raised a ticket with the supplier, but in this instance, the system is not a closed box and we have a lot of control. Again, this is a super urgent problem and causing many teams issues, so we needed to get this resolved as soon as possible. This is another example of where problem solving is not fun. There’s a lot of eyes looking on, waiting for some good news. The team all pulled together, but there’s still a lot of pressure.
The “is there a way we can…” problem:
This week we also started to rollout our first Progressive Web Application (PWA). This is really exciting and I must say, the way this work has been sponsored all the way through has been really encouraging. The conception of this work started with a question of “is there a way we can create an application that works offline”…There wasn’t any solutionising of “can you build us this” or “we need to buy that”. It was also managed in a staged way to mean that we were given time to investigate and problem solve. We started with a two week investigation and we all signed up to the fact that the outcome of the investigation could be one of three things:
- We’ve found this way of doing it
- We don’t think we’re going to be able to do this
- We need more time to carry out more investigation
At the end of the two week investigation and depending on the outcome, we could then decide how we wanted to proceed. This was really refreshing and allowed the space for innovation. The outcome of the investigation was 1) and our talented developers even went a stage further and produced a proof of concept of a simple application working both on and offline. The next step was to then manage data, so the user could use the application as normal and when any data needed to be submitted, if there was no connectivity, it would submit the data at the next opportunity. We continued with this iterative approach and fast forward to this week, we have an application that our Highways teams are now using in the field to take photo’s, record data and submit forms, even when they have no connectivity. This is the problem solving that is fun, but the investment will also see a return of huge amounts of value to the authority.
Anyway, back to Sunday, I’ve got the popcorn ready 😀🍿
