week notes s02 ep04
It’s National Apprenticeship week!
TL;DR apprenticeships then and now, Digital and Change Team, Fostering project, Dorset Council; brand and what’s behind it
The theme of National apprenticeship week is ‘Build the Future’, an apprenticeship gives you the opportunity to develop new knowledge, skills and behaviours to apply in the workplace while gaining a professional qualification and so… it’s been an exciting few weeks for me since being promoted to project manager role in the Change Team. My new manager has put me forward for the Level 4 Project management course. A life experience I didn’t expected to happen right now and am grabbing it with both hands.
I first started out on an apprenticeship scheme at IBM Warwick back in 1988, so it’s going to be great to be learning in my job again!
The ‘we learn and then we do’ approach doesn’t work; ‘learning AND doing’ go naturally together and reduces failure. We prove this in our work daily. Act Big Start Small and iterate.
I must admit although feeling slightly nervous about going back to formal learning (plus giving up my own time; not being able to do long cycle rides every week and the puppy project will have to wait!) and the stress of presentations, end point assessments and exams again… but really! I am looking forward to it, it’s a great opportunity.
As a service designer I’ve really loved the human element, capturing that holistic view end to end (when scope allows). I’ve enjoyed managing my own projects, stakeholders and having a thing to deliver, with some big challenges to overcome and the driver; a goal to achieve.
It’ll be business cases, scope management, risk analysis, governance, leadership styles, influencing skills, dealing with barriers, cultural and physical. Dealing with budgets, comms, resource and team motivation… I
A lot of this I’ve encountered already but there’s still loads to learn there!
I’ve experienced a fair bit around change management too over the last 4 or 5 years and worked to make change as painless as possible for the service. This is something that really interests me, possibly because I am a ‘people person’ and that whole psyche is a challenge in it’s own right.
Organisational change is necessary but not sufficient to drive digitally enabled service transformation. Skills, capabilities and ways of working need to change too, if the opportunity is to be grasped.
And that’s where we come in with a Mary Poppin’s style bag, full of tools and ideas that we can help with but also facilitate people to help themselves, with the right amount of support.
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Talking of change, the Digital and Change team came together again for a short meeting to review our approach to change and work out the next steps. Groups were mixed up a little and tasks assigned. Meetings are in the calendar; will be interesting to see how the team dynamic pans out and what our final output is, there is no I in Team after all! It’s a biggish group and ‘virtual’ will be interesting. I worry they’ll be too much talk and not enough action. We’ll see!
Back on the fostering project, almost finished the main process maps; fiddling with numerous boxes, and trying to join everything up (with arrows pointing in the right direction) making into a meaningful user journey that is easy to understand.
I’ve interviewed a couple of foster carers this week both with emotional stories to tell. Already there are themes starting to emerge after just 2 of these conversations. The interviews are anonymous and the insights will be fed back to the small team who are already working to improve Dorset Council’s service and fostering offer.
The Dorset brand is important for us to promote as it represents and articulates the organisation’s purpose, proposition, positioning, and personality. The brand includes Dorset’s organisational vision, values, behaviours, strategic goals and ‘tone of voice’.
“Branding allows you to build relationships with your audience, which can eventually turn them into loyal customers. You can create a brand that people actually care about and put yourself ahead of businesses that aren’t using this to their advantage”.
Loyal customers are what we need and then we need to support them, whenever they need it. Fostering with Dorset Council is the more ethical and moral thing to do, so if you’re thinking about it, put yourself out of your comfort zone, try something new and just do it!
what I’m reading, learning, watching
- fiction; The Salt Path, Raynor Winn
- non-fiction; Good Services by Lou Downe
Learning French; hoping to get back up to the Diamond league on the Duolingo app this week after a couple of weeks in Obsidian. Now on a 417 day streak!
TV; enjoying The Tourist on IPlayer. (When I have chance which isn’t very often!)
Bye for now 👋
