Easter’s over, the chocolate eggs are largely eaten, and the run of four day weeks is over until next month. As much as I love a shorter week I tend to find them disruptive to working patterns and end up trying to cram five days work into four. So while its nice to have had a bit of family time just as spring proper arrives I am also glad to get back into the groove.
What I’ve been up to
Last week included:
- Our monthly digital leadership team meeting. Unusually I was “dialled in” while everyone else was in the room which demanded a bit more concentration than usual. We covered a lot of ground, including facing into the new financial year and arranging better, more regular high value face to face events with teams to encourage stronger team building.
- Reviewing progress and setting our priorities as a leadership team for April. We have to report to the board and CEO on the progress Digital has made in March so I’m looking forward to going through all the team monthnotes for March for source material in the next few days.
- Talking with colleagues to think about how we better resource and schedule our workload. Partly so we have a clearer view across the directorate about what we are doing, partly so its easier for us to demonstrate the value we bring to the wider agency.
- Its coming up to end of reporting year so I’ve been organising my 360 degree feedback as well as ensuring direct reports are ready for the various meetings, forms and reports that will need completing over the next few weeks.
What I’m up to next
- I’m off to Newcastle on Tuesday and Wednesday. The main reason is to attend a staff engagement event following our annual staff survey, listen to members of my teams’ views about how we improve our working environment and general satisfaction.
- I’m taking advantage of being in our Newcastle office to run a workshop on new ways of working. We have done a lot of thinking and tweaking of working practises to improve how our meetings run, how we report and decision making authorities. This article by Mark Eddleston about the new ways of working canvas looks like a good opportunity to bring some of that thinking together.
- I’m starting a series of short briefing sessions with our executive leadership team about our digital strategy to sense check it and ensure we are aligned.
- Steve is back after another break snowboarding in the alps so there will be a lot of catching up about our future operating model work that has continued in his absence.
Anything else to note
More than a little bit excited to be seeing Novo Amor for the first time at the Roundhouse next Friday evening. His new album is sublime.
Whitehall Webby 