👋 it’s been a while! Haven’t done a work related blog post in what feels like too long. So here goes… a rambling update across a few different topics as a stop gap.

What have you been up to?

Had a very enjoyable 18 weeks so far as part of the Nando’s family….

Been involved with plenty of stuff and lots of urgent tasks (as one can imagine with the entire restaurant industry trying to reshape itself in the wake of the pandemic).

This has included;

• helping making new items available on the menu (and getting rid of a lot too)
• contributing to how we redesign the eat-in restaurant experience in the wake of COVID-19 (moonlighting as a service designer)
• working with colleagues to cut prices due to VAT reductions
• assisting in getting the eat out to help out discount scheme up and running
• working on new menu pages for beta.nandos! I’m going to do a much bigger post on this but with a tiny tiny part-time team (filled with absolute legends) we’ve created a brand new menu page experience in only a few weeks. It’s already out there being used by real people and we’re pretty happy with how it is going.

User research update

Still committed to the 2hrs of user research every 6 weeks principle.

I’ve been experimenting with recording how much research I am exposed to in 6 week blocks. Can report that:

• first 6 weeks: I observed or ran 4 hours of user research
• second 6 week block: 9 hours of research
• third 6 week block: 6 hours so far

Would say I’m on track. I’ve had the chance to work with a great researcher which is of course very helpful! All the sessions were remote using varied methods.

Weeknotes

Once upon a time at the Department of Health and Social Care I did an entire year of weeknotes. Well I’m back at it. I’ve thus far done 18 internal weeknotes published in our organisations confluence space.

They are all written under the principle of “communicate in small doses, frequently. Allow your story to develop over time” and I share them openly with colleagues. In all honesty though, I think their utility has been structuring my thoughts of work done and helpful when expressing updates to stakeholders. Typically I post them on a Monday night and then have a few Tuesday morning meetings sharing updates with colleagues so often timely to group thoughts together.

Show the thing

For our beta.nandos menu work the team was obviously going to be remote. I pitched that for our show and tells, instead of inviting stakeholders to attend at x time every week we record our short updates ourselves then share the recorded video. This means every week a 15-25 min video is available to stakeholders choc-full with us showing progress on what we’ve built plus all the research, designs and other findings from our work.

My hypothesis for this was that stakeholders capacity to attend another remote meeting was non-exisitent plus our team is part-time and wanted a more manageable way to share and get feedback. I think it has worked quite well and we get good feedback from stakeholders. We have created 13 so far. Suspect I’ll keep this method in my back pocket for future teams I’m in.

Prioritisation

During lots of change we’ve had to merge and remould teams. Got involved with making sure work is regularly prioritised. We’ve been using the Eisenhower matrix method which has worked pretty well remotely and having an open invite so all professions in the team can come and vote on the priority of issues. We’ve had a few iterations but in the context of an ever-shifting landscape due to coronavirus the mix of urgency and value has served us sufficiently.

Supporting others

Each week I’ve got at least 2 hours in my calendar for community of practice/mentoring activities. I’m continuing to try support colleagues and find/create opportunities for people to learn and grow (hopefully surpass me). I still get lots of joy from this - I’m very conscious that I know some people who are amazing at this. I’m likely a pale imitation but I continue to have a good crack at trying to get to their level.

Next?

I have on my to do list to do a good ‘ol fashioned company blog post. Watch this space…