A space to think

I’m planning on looking at and reflecting on the principles I previously suggested here and writing a blog post for each one using my own personal circumstances and requirements to help me understand what applying the principles would mean in practice.

My previous post “the ‘right’ environment” essentially looked at the principle “Enabling communities and environments” so that has now become the first in the series.

This post will look at “Create Space for reflective practice”

I’ve blogged before on the power of reflective thinking here and here but this post will be slightly different.

Firstly let’s be clear about what I am talking about  - Reflective practice is “the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning”.

The concept of reflective practice centres around the idea of lifelong learning where a person analyses experiences in order to learn from them.

So why is all this important in the concept of the future of communities, people and places?

Regardless of what political views you have and whether or not you think local government will disappear or simply change a bit, the reality that needs to exist is that people in communities need the capacity to reflect on their own community in order to be in a better position to help shape it. One current problem I see is that communities don’t really have any “memory” or “capacity to remember” so that over longer periods of time people within communities have the ability to call on past experiences and actively reflect in order to shape future decisions.

In my personal opinion the only experiences which are shared are personal and not community based so they are biased and those people who might have influence push those biases into decision-making and therefore the outcomes and decisions could be inadvertently affected in a negative way.

Looking at my personal life and my personal situation I’m a school governor (Vice Chair of Governing Body and Chair of Resources Committee) and one of the key roles as a governing body is that we reflect as a body on the experiences we have gone through. However I am not able to understand any learning from the period of time before I joined as the practice was not formally recorded or even actively encouraged at that point.

We are fortunate that the current Chair is promoting this practice (not overtly referring to the words and term) and we have reasonably regular governor forum days where we reflect on where we have been and what we need to focus on moving forward as well as learning about new stuff and this is all set in the context of school improvement.

In my personal opinion it is an essential part and role of the governing body to demonstrate reflective practice as this is a key part of showing leadership within the school and wider community. Reflective Practice provides a tremendous development opportunity for those in leadership positions. It can provide leaders with an opportunity to critically review what has been successful in the past and where improvement can be made. (I’m sure Ofsted would love to see this )

So what do we need to do moving forward?

Firstly and foremost we need to create that space and time for ourselves to be reflective. Without this we wouldn’t be able to be effective in other situations. How you do this is up to you, but I originally found it hard to do in a semi structured way until I spent time at UKGC12.

What I learnt about the process is that I personally needed four ingredients to make that process work, which are:

1. The right environment – the space has to be inspiring or at least not clinical in nature…I can’t sit in a boring room with nothing to look at, although if I have to I absolutely need ingredient 2.
2. The right people – simply spending time with other people who are reflective (and also those who aren’t) is empowering and also uplifting, it can also be awkward and uncomfortable to start with – but you can’t beat a great group discussion.
3. A place to share – I use my blog as a tool for reflective practice and others uses diaries or journals of some kind but capturing stuff and being able to look back and share that with people is very powerful.
4. Feedback – what would life be like if no one ever gave you feedback on anything you did…I’m not sure I can really imagine that…but I know that every day we all receive feedback directly or indirectly on actions we take and for those who reflect future decisions change because of that feedback.

So are these things available to you in your community and are you doing this in a way which will help your community?

 

The “right” environment

For some this may appear a somewhat random post but the right environment goes straight to the heart of feeling good in your job and what you do generally as well as how communities and networks enable co-operation and collaboration. This picks up on the principles which I referred to in my previous post.

Work won’t go away

One thing I know to be true about the future of my job – assuming for a moment that I do indeed stay in employment with my current employer – is that the pressures on the physical work place will be greater and greater as the council reduces the number of offices it has and moves toward a totally flexible and mobile workforce.

In principle I don’t disagree with this direction, in fact if I were a decision maker I’d be suggesting and making the same kind of recommendation – it just makes sense.

However as you’ll often hear people say – the devil is in the detail – I’ve been considering how the detail might look in my own team and the wider team of communications and have also considered things from a number of other perspectives.

One of the challenges that we need to get our head around is “it’s not where you work but how you work” that matters. This might seem really obvious to say but we also need to ensure that the environments we are creating actually facilitate and enable this shift in thinking.  If the environments stay the same but the pressure on space increases  then we simply stay in a mindset that says “I need my own desk, my own space and my hours of work are between x and y”.

When you consider how the majority of current workplaces are set up – they actually foster and reinforce a level of control over the workforce. Essentially we are saying “in order for me to feel comfortable and safe as a manager I need to see my staff at a desk between these hours in order for my to justify that they are indeed working”. This feels all wrong to me, but I can and have to appreciate that there are challenges in adopting a more flexible approach in every job role without really thinking how the job needs to be done…again  ”it’s not where you work but how you work” that matters. But often enough any change isn’t supported by a change in how people work…instead people are expected to work flexibly and mobile whilst essentially having the same restrictions on their role as before. These may include things like access to file stores in a network, access to applications from anywhere etc.

I’m not for a second saying that this is the situation where I work, however there are some challenges and some real fundamental questions that need to be asked about what type of organisation we want to be and how we create a working environment that fosters a culture and workforce who are capable of delivering, supporting and commissioning services in the future.

I recently came across a new ways of working week which is promoted in Holland and I wondered whether we need to consider something like that here in order to really test out whether some people can in fact work differently and what we need to do in order to change the working environment to really support those people to work in new ways. Maybe that involves piloting a new piece of technology, working from a different location (home, cafe or another office), adopting a new process or whatever it might be…but for me it feels like that unless we actually try new ways of working we will in fact carry on working as we are but faced with less space, more work and fewer colleagues to work with.

The problem for me is that it is ok to have a broad direction of travel but with the pace of change being so fast we can’t or don’t have time to create strategies. We need to allow strategies to emerge based on how people wish to work and to create and support those environments.

If you look at your organisations policies, I mean really look at them you’ll find that essentially they are there to protect the status quo and not to push forward new ways of working (internal or external) whether digital or otherwise.

But I suspect in a local and central government context many councils are reducing the number of properties they own and operate from as this is an easy way to reduce costs without affecting front line services (unless those buildings are front line of course).

It’s a balancing act

I have a family (Wife, 2 kids and a dog), I enjoy activities such as cycling and karate as well as spending time with my family and seeing my kids grow up. It is important to me to be visible in their lives and that means being present at Xmas nativity plays, taking them into school each morning and helping them with their homework. Having a family is a full-time job – yet I also have a paid full-time job for the council where I want to do the best job I can within the scope and remit I have been given to work within. I also have a couple of voluntary positions (school governor, Exeter Schools consortium mgt board member and NED of Cosmic – it’s all in my about me page) as I want to be able to contribute and give back to my community in various ways as well as gain personal learning and development.

Now the challenge with all of the above is fitting it all in – it is however possible albeit not actually straight forward – AND this is a key issue, it could be a whole lot easier for me and those I try to work with and for, if some basic little things were made simpler and more integrated.  The reality is I’ve created a set of unsustainable and inefficient processes in order for me to simply manage all aspects of my life – something will and has to give in the near future!

One example  - which would make something easier for me would be having a “single unified calendar” where I could manage all my activities without having to duplicate or copy stuff from one to another.  Currently I operate from two main calendars. A work calendar which has my work life in it and the odd appointment (dentist, doctor etc) so I don’t forget it as well as booking the time out otherwise it gets filled up.  I actually used to put everything into my work calendar and tried to categorise it makes things private etc which weren’t work related. That was quite easy to do up until I started the additional roles i now perform…

I also have a calendar for everything else, but this calendar isn’t easy to manage due to the complexity and often conflicting times I need to book things in for. Before i can really accept or book anything into that I need to check my work calendar to ensure that i am in fact free or available on a given day regardless of the time as some work commitments take me away therefore they move into evenings etc so there isn’t a clear break point in any given day as to when work starts or stops.

Now being able to have a single calendar might not seem that much but it would mean that I would actually know where I was supposed to be and help me manage any “spare time” that occurs. But in order to actually achieve this kind of environment would mean that I need to have a level of access to my work calendar which is not currently there due to security and access restrictions. These maintain a position of work being very different to everything else I do. When for me it is part of everything I do and just like my real life it is and has to be integrated for it to work.

The right environment

In order for organisations to adapt and change they need to be able to provide the right environment for people to excel, to manage their complex lives and to be able to feel that there is in fact a work life balance.

I don’t know what the right environment is for you…but for me it needs to allow me to be a husband, father, friend, boss, colleague, community member, volunteer and allow me to manage all aspects of my life. Nothing much to ask for is it?

How about some principles…

I’ve been wondering for a while now what actually needs to start happening or what would need to happen in order for communities and local government to start addressing the predicted financial meltdown.

I guess I’ve been looking for a checklist or some kind of “how to guide” that I could look at to help me and others I speak to outside of work better understand how we can start to move forward.  As a parent governor at my local school I’ve been intrigued by the early years foundation stage principles (PDF warning) and how the approach taken there is a lesson which can and should be reused and adapted to help guide us moving forward – perhaps this is too simplistic, but for me it has helped.

So I’ve decided to do just that and create a set of principles which could be applied to organisations or even communities themselves – I’d very much welcome comments as I’m sure I’ve missed things.

People and communities are unique

• Design “with” not “for” people and communities
• Design for Inclusion and accessibility
• Enable independence
• Foster health and wellbeing

Positive relationships and networks

• Respect diversity of opinions
• Connect people and connect networks
• Co-operate and collaborate
• Open by default

Enabling communities and environments

• Evidence based research and decision-making
• Support everyone to achieve
• Think Local and Global
• Digital infrastructure for smart communities/cities

Learning and development

• Learn, discover and explore though experience
• Create space for reflective practice
• Foster creative and divergent thinking
• Enable sustained learning

A little thought experiment

As usual I’ve been thinking…

Instead of writing and sharing my random thoughts I’m keen to know what others think about the future.

So the basic experiment is this.

Assume ALL #localgov services are using digital tools (and people are actually using them) what do people see the biggest challenges being then?

I tweeted a version of this earlier…hence I included “people using them” as well.

Thought experiment: assume ALL #localgov services are using digital tools what do people see the biggest challenges being then?

—
Carl Haggerty (@carlhaggerty) November 07, 2012

So what do you think?

 

 

Open Data Network

This a post really pointing people somewhere else…

I’ve written a blog post over on Re:Work Digital about looking at trying to facilitate and promote a south west open data network.

Using data to generate conversations, is one of the key ideas in the 5 stars for open data engagement and this is something that a network can start to address as well as the other ideas listed below.

1. Be demand driven
2. Put data in context
3. Support conversation around data
4. Build capacity, skills and networks
5. Collaborate on data as a common resource

Check out the post and let us know your thoughts and ideas on how we can take this idea forward.

So gov.uk is now live…

Stating the obvious and in case you didn’t know GOV.UK is now live.

Congratulations to all those who got it this far  - a big thumbs up:)

I could leave it there, it has been a long time coming and now it is live, I’m sure many people can sit back for at least a second or two to acknowledge the huge first task they have completed, but I suspect the scale of the task ahead is focusing the minds.

Mike Bracken explains in a post why GOV.UK matters, it’s focusing on user needs, its faster, clearer and is now a platform – all this stuff is really important. But the most important thing that Mike does say is this:

Our upcoming Government Digital Strategy will address the urgent need to redesign our mainstream transactions.

I wouldn’t for a minute under state the task that has been completed and the scale on which it has been completed. It has certainly provided a number of great resources via the GDS blog which my council and my team have benefited from and as Mike explains it is already improving the experience for users…

This morning however it appears that I may have offended or at least annoyed a few people by tweeting:

@MartinHowitt @marxculture well done to all - however it is only a content veneer at the moment

—
Carl Haggerty (@carlhaggerty) October 17, 2012

Now if you believe “veneer” to be a negative word then this would naturally offend people, however I don’t think veneer is a negative word, I personally believe it is a positive component of redesigning services and is an often understated tactic.  It has its downfalls and challenges but it is a valuable approach

In Devon we often employ the veneer tactic to help people understand how things can look, how language can be used to improve the usability and how it can help users engage better – we have now started using that tactic in a more open way by employing a beta environment and sharing our thinking about how we build stuff – similar to how GDS approached their early stages -  instead of an old approach which was to simply use pictures to inspire.  It took some hard work to get to this point here for us.

Our content strategy reinforces this approach by explicitly saying that we will focus on content and design, experiment in open and share our thinking and refresh our infrastructure. We have a separate strategy for applications and how we will tackle and improve the overall transactional experience as this is a longer term game for us but it is an important part of shifting our whole web estate to be user focused.

It is much, much harder dealing with applications and transactions and I don’t want to for a second suggest that GOV.UK is a failure – it is completely the opposite, it is a success, but not for the release today.  In my view the biggest contribution to public sector digital, is the “permission” that sharing your thinking, sharing your code, exploring ideas and asking users in a very open environment can work and does work.

My only remaining question is where will the beta environment live now – the continuation of the testing in public, the sharing of ideas, the continuing tweaking and updating, which needs to be sanity checked before a live release.

GOV.UK used to be the beta, but it is now mainstream…so will we see beta.gov.uk (as of today there is no site at this address)

5 Paradigm Shifts for #localgov

Most people know I think a lot – I was recently thinking about culture and mediocrity within local government and the wider public sector and have considered the following:

1. Culture
Number 1 on any list in my humble opinion – the culture of local government generally is one that often assumes that external changes and challenges will often pass by and that a slower pace of change is sometimes considered as the most appropriate way forward. But that is no longer a valid assumption

The Old Paradigm: “Head down and it will all go away.”

The New Paradigm: “Embrace the new direction and provide leadership.”

2. Mindset

You often get people who simply turn up and literally sit in meetings and contribute nothing…I’ve always been a fan of the rule of two feet, if it isn’t working for you leave.

Old Paradigm: “Just put your body in the room.”

New Paradigm: “Show up with a creative, open mindset.”

3. Group Wisdom

Obvious perhaps, but just because someone has been promoted to the top of the organisations, it doesn’t and shouldn’t mean they know more than anyone else…In my personal opinion most senior people are actually more politically aware than intellectually aware.

Old Paradigm: “All wisdom exists at the top.”

New Paradigm: “Listen and make space for various voices.”

4. Environment

I’ve only really recently appreciated this one, most people are forced into cultures that require them to sit in rows, in quiet offices, without any real social interaction even when the rooms are open plan. I understand that the sector is rationalising property assets and encouraging hot-desking and the like but we really should think about what we are trying to do…

Old Paradigm: “Do what is normal.”

New Paradigm: “Approach space creatively to serve the purpose.”

5. Vision

For me this could have also been called purpose…why do we do the things we do…A recent session at Open Space South West creatively called “reducing isolation and helping those who give a shit”

Old Paradigm: “Work to get paid.”

New Paradigm: “Make your work about something bigger.”

That is enough for me for now…