Weeknotes 3
It’s been a long time
It’s been 5 weeks since since my previous set weeknotes. I see this as an occasional series, and I never expected to write notes every week. At the same time, I don’t want to leave it so long between writing that I get out of the habit and find it hard to re-start and pick them up again.
Since last writing, I’ve done an exam (the culmination of 18 months of studying — not got the result yet…), had an introductory rolfing session, and been on holiday.
I’m sticking to my format for these notes of drawing on the 20 questions that I wrote to help me to reflect on things and think what to include.
What went well? (1)
In my second set of weeknotes, I mentioned that Jason, our Chief Executive, had asked me to make a presentation to our Board on how we’ve improved project delivery in the FSA.
Like many government departments, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is implementing a huge amount of change at the moment. We’re preparing for the UK exiting the European Union — the source of over 90% of the food law we enforce. So we’re changing the legislation underpinning food safety and authenticity. Through the Regulating Our Future programme we will also be changing the regulatory model for 600k food businesses, to keep up with the modern world. This means new policies, and a new operating model for the FSA. At the same time, we’re changing the contracts for all our staff, we’re changing where we work, we’re making more use of data & digital technologies, and (of course) we’re making savings.
We’re managing these changes through a portfolio of projects and programmes. So getting project delivery right is important, and the Board needs to have confidence in our ability to manage change and implement these things for consumers.
The presentation — on Wednesday — went really well. Denise, our new Head of Profession for programme and project delivery, and I had talked about what to include and how to present it. I spoke about the changes we’ve made over the past couple of years to professionalise this area of the FSA’s work, and then Denise spoke about her plans for the next set of improvements we want to make.
Our slides weren’t the most professional ever, but we’d put a lot of thought into what to say and had a couple of practice runs. I hate practising presentations in advance and reading/speaking the thing out loud to myself. I worry about over scripting things and taking away from a more engaging, natural style, but it certainly helped me on this occasion. We got some really positive feedback from Board members.
[Update: the video of the session is here — https://registration.livegroup.co.uk/fsaboardmeetings/downloads/embed.aspx?dfid=31587&ctid=0&cat=2391 see 4:16:50]
What went well? (2)
Also on Wednesday, I presented a new Performance & Resources report to the FSA Board.
I’ve really enjoyed working with Anna on a mini-project to redesign this report, applying user-focused, iterative design principles. (Yup, agile ain’t just for developing software!)
The report is meant to help Board members know how we’re performing as an organisation, how we’re spending our budget, and whether we’re on track to meet our strategic objectives. The previous report had grown too big, and it no longer reflected our priorities. In short: it no longer met our users’ needs.
Over the summer, we’ve run a short discovery phase and iterated the report, gathering feedback on prototypes. We’ve worked on the measures to include in the report and on the design of how those measures are shown.
This week was the first chance to get feedback from the full Board (kind of like going live with a public beta?). It was very rewarding to hear that Board members like the report. Crucially, they also gave us feedback on things to work on for the next iteration.
[Update: the video of the session is here — https://registration.livegroup.co.uk/fsaboardmeetings/downloads/embed.aspx?dfid=31587&ctid=0&cat=2391 see 3:13:40]
What made you proud?
In my first set of weeknotes, I mentioned that I’ve been leading the set-up of a new Private Office in the FSA to support our Chair and Chief Executive.
7 of the 9 team members are now in post, with another person joining us next week and another the week after.
FSA Board meetings take a lot of organising — the meetings are open to the public, they are webcast live, there are papers to write & circulate, briefings, accommodation, food, transport, press releases, social media, we had two new Board members attending their first meeting, and anyone can ask the Board a question live on the day.
Lots of people helped organise the meeting this week, particularly the FSA team in Belfast, where we were meeting, and for the new private office team to have coordinated arrangements for the meeting was an amazing achievement.
What did you enjoy?
The feeling of sun on my face as I sat outside with a cup of coffee this morning.
What inspired you?
Yesterday (Thursday) I had a day off and went to see a ballet. I grew up a massive sceptic of ballet, and I’ve only been to see one once before (Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands). More recently, I’ve come to appreciate the extraordinary range of movement ballerinas show.
We went to see Akram Khan’s Giselle. It was totally amazing.
What am I looking forward to next week?
We’re having our first unconference for our Executive Management Team on Tuesday.
I can’t claim this is an original idea. I totally pinched the idea from Defra:
It feels a bit risky. But I’m sure we’ll be ok: Sian “the facilitation queen” is helping to organise the afternoon.
