Week 42 and 43
Double
4 min readNov 22, 2019
- Double weeknotez for missing last week. I just didn’t have the will last Friday and went straight to the pub and had a curry. That was much better self-care for me than reflecting. Sorry, future Nate.
- Tunes. More techno than usual. Spotify is forcing it down my throat after a few weeks of head down designing. Not a bad thing, but I need to listen to different types of music.
- Rethinking the format of these notes again. Taking inspiration from Co-op Digital alum, Gossy. Her weeknotes are bullets. Which makes for a clearer read whilst getting what you can across.
- Last week was good but tough. It started with me questioning my purpose once again. The Head of Product for Membership moved some people around in the membership teams, including a designer. I didn’t want to get all ‘why didn’t you tell meeeeee’ and throw my toys out of the pram, but I did. Its hard enough knowing what people are working on, what people we need and where the gaps are. He was apologetic and felt foolish.
- Another tough thing from last week was a session our programme manager called ‘widening the circle of trust’. This was to engage people in marketing, store and colleague comms functions to help deliver on some of the work we’re doing. Loads of tough but fair questions. Mainly around timings. I had to present the prototype of the vision piece (remember Neils advice: get used to repeating yourself). I left straight after (to the pub and curry) as I was mentally exhausted.
- This week was better. I consider Mondays my ‘community day’ where I get to have (most) of my 1:1s, the community of practice and talk design as often as I can. I caught up with another principal designer to share some of our frustrations (recruitment, pressures from exec etc.). I also had 1:1s with my direct reports and the designer that got moved onto another team to understand the ask of him.
- I then had to prepare for an epic user journey mapping sesh on Tuesday. I thought I was over preparing because I knew there were some tough cookies in the room but I’m sooo glad I did. I sketched out some desired outcomes and some high level ideas and stuck them on the wall. I took everyone through these at the beginning. Then to get everyone loose I did a quick empathy map of a Member. 3 hours later we had an ideal journey map. I revisited the outcomes on the wall and asked everyone if they had got everything they needed from the workshop. One person hadn’t so we covered their issue off in 20 minutes. Everyone left with actions and clear idea of what we’ll be testing in the coming weeks. They all commented how energising the afternoon was. And I agree, it was probably the most fun I’ve had in weeks! I spent bits of the week digitising the map and tweaking it after feedback. Next week I’m going to print it and stick on the wall. Our North Star.
- Thursday we had the All Design Community of Practice. This is where all disciplines from the Design Community come together and show some work. We had 17 talks from 16 product teams. Since when did we get so big! It was such a warm, fun and enlightening afternoon. I can honestly say I work with some of the best designers in the industry. Loads of good work. Human focussed, progressive and all with a learning mindset.
- I tried live tweeting it but I fucked it. I also deleted the first tweet as it had a picture of Evas baby in it and I didn’t ask permission. So rather than asking I just deleted it which left the whole thing a bit weird. Anyway, Katherine did a better job of summarising the afternoon.
- I did look around and notice a few faces missing. This is something that has been niggling my head for a few weeks now: how can we make everyone feel like the community of practice is valuable. My own CoP has had waning attendance and I can’t get to the bottom of it. I know it’s not for everyone, but I believe it’s a differentiator for us. The communities should be where we share knowledge and skill up. Doesn’t help when Product Managers schedule regular meetings over the top of them.
- Thursday evening all the Principal designers went out to drink wine, eat cheese and dance silly. This was needed as we’ve all had a tough few months and haven’t really done anything together to bond. It was a great evening and I deffo feel closer to them.
