Year: 2022
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What do you do if you don’t know why you’re doing it?
I enjoy recognising overlaps between different industries and careers. Here’s a quote from an unnamed TV show about the SAS (though I suspect it’s Rouge Heroes). “What happens when something goes wrong? (And something always goes wrong.) What do you do if you don’t know why you’re doing it? How do you find another way…
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You’re new, but the product isn’t.
UX collective published an article on effective habits for product managers. But it’s actually a checklist of activities for product managers to undertake when they start working with an established product. Of the ten “habits” there’s three common themes – do your research, get your hands dirty in the product and talk to people. Do…
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Order without authority
Charles Lambdin writes about the science of agile, using Jonathan Rauch’s book “Kindly Inquisitors” as a guide of the history of philosophy, politics, and science of agile’s evolutionary mindset: The thread running through all of this is the deemphasis of central planning and privileged positions, of pretending we can know the future or declare immutable…
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Accessibly whimsy
Elise Hein writes for uxdesign.cc about missing the fun in accessibility. Much of the whit and whimsy of the internet is restricted to those who have the pleasure of browsing with whatever browser they like, with no need for ever changing the default settings. Instead of keeping easter eggs and bonus content neatly tucked away…
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Use the right tools
Matt Gemmell writes about the tools to facilitate his writing. These tools have been selected to meet the specific needs for the three phases of his writing process (which loosely match the GDS agile phases of discovery, alpha and beta). Just as Matt has specialist tools for each phase (GoodNotes, MindNode and Ulysses), my own…
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Recruiting a team
I’ve been reviewing job descriptions for roles in my team, and some are dreadfully out of date. Thankfully there are a few resources out there which make updating them so much easier than I feared. LOTI Digital, Tech and Data Job Description Library The London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) have a library of…
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Fund teams, not projects
A lot of teams work in an agile way. Many organisations “are agile”. But in the public sector, there is a crucial element of an agile approach that is rarely conquered. Funding. This post is a collection of three articles from across the web which explain why organisations must fund teams, not projects. Projects are…
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Breaking into User Research
Most people in a user research role didn’t start their career there. If someone is thinking of switching from a marketing and/or communications background, then this post is for you they likely have a good grasp of handling sensitive information (knowing what to include/share and what not to) and picking the right angle (what information…
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Find out what matters most, and use it.
I’m almost two years late to an article written by Sam Conniff, but it’s no less relevant and interesting now as it was when written. Sam mentors young people through Livity, and writes about how some of their experiences behind bars has benefited them in Lockdown, and how we all have something to learn from…
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How you decide what not to do
Catherine Howe has written about the challenges in local government or prioritising an overwhelmingly important and large volume of work. We are doing work on planning and prioritisation at the moment and its really bloody hard. Everything has a claim on our attention and we are working in complexity where no one thing can trump…