Weeknote 13: bleak

Week ending 10/03/23

A bleak, wintery scene up on the Cotswold hills.

What went well?

• We welcomed a new user researcher to our teams. She’s going to be helping us with our content type development work which is so important in helping us manage our content more effectively. Everyone seemed energised by being able to re-start discussions about the contraception content type which had been on hold for so long
• I had a good day in the office at Canary Wharf. Kicked off our new sprint and had a really useful extra-long planning session for our women’s health work
• I finally made some progress on an outcome measurement framework which I’ve been finding really challenging. I can’t really talk much about why it’s been hard unfortunately, but as is often the way (for me), the breakthrough was a combination of talking through the problems and getting the thoughts of my colleagues, and stepping away from it for a few days and coming back with a fresh perspective.
• It’s felt like the discovery/IA research work we’ve been doing has been particularly collaborative this week, with decisions being reached together as a team on a number of things. We’re quite a new team so it’s nice that we’re working so well together.

What could have been better?

• I tried saying no to something but I don’t think the message landed. I think it’s going to be one of those ‘no s’ that is subtly and not-so subtly re-iterated over time in multiple different no forms and maybe even incorporating a small, low-risk yes if pushed.

Next week

• Lots more activity for our women’s health work
• Planning some Show & Tells for different strands of work, some internal, some external to NHS England.