Weeknotes 397

This week I did:

Meeting of minds

Really enjoyed working with a couple of awesome colleagues on some recruitment. It was amazing to see the coming together of different minds, exploring different perspectives on what we wanted to know about candidates, and what interview questions would give them the opportunity to show themselves at their best. This is why everyone is always more than their job title. It’s both a high bar and no bar at all for the new recruit.

Productivity

33 tasks completed over 5 days, averages 6.6 a day. It’s like the old days of productivity before my new system optimised me.

Achieved 30% of my weekly goals.

I had 45 interactions with 24 people.

Experiencing digital transformation in health care

In a doctor’s surgery earlier this week I spotted a poster about the surgery’s new chatbot. I got my phone out, scanned the QR code and opened the chatbot. I was slightly relieved to see it was an old type chatbot with buttons (I think this type of chatbot is going to see a resurgence soon) rather than the large language model type. The chatbot lets you choose from a few options.

If you want to access your GP heath records, the chatbot tells you to download the NHS App. If you want to book an appointment, the chatbot tells you to download the AskFirst App. If you want to check if your prescription is ready, the chatbot tells you to call your pharmacy. So, if you were expecting the chatbot to be able to do these things for you, which is a reasonable assumption, then you’re probably going to get pretty frustrated. If you knew ahead of the chat that its purpose is purely signposting, then you might find it useful.

A few days later, I saw this poster in a hospital. An innovative approach to using new technology, communicated using old fashioned paper.

And then I read Dr Sarah Knowles’ post about the Chancellor announcing more money for ‘Digital Transformation’, providing another example. Perhaps Sarah’s example is less about the tech and more about how shiny new things get investment but boring old things don’t, but it’s all around a theme of digital transformation’s bad reputation.

So maybe it’s an expectation problem. We expect technology to just work, for things to be connected. But transformation isn’t evenly distributed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And almost never for everyone, that’s what makes it so difficult. Photocopiers were transformations once.

I read:

Boiling frogs

Nick Scott wrote about how the charity sector doesn’t have a burning platform to force it to adopt more internet-era ways of working, digital business models. He says, “I worry society is moving faster than our sector, putting our current and future strength and impact at risk.” I agree.

Why aren’t non-profits invested in digital transformation?

And Digital Leadership wrote about why non-profits are falling behind with digital transformation. Although I don’t agree with the definition of digital transformation, I think it’s too internal looking and misses transforming entire business models, but “an equation that shows how transforming people and processes maximises the impact of technological change” is an interesting idea.

System-Shifting Design: An emerging practice explored

I still believe that system-shifting product management is required to sit alongside system-shifting design.

Why aren’t non-profits invested in digital transformation?

And Digital Leadership wrote about why non-profits are falling behind with digital transformation. Although I don’t agree with the definition of digital transformation, I think it’s too internal looking and misses transforming entire business models, but “an equation that shows how transforming people and processes maximises the impact of technological change” is an interesting idea.

System-Shifting Design: An emerging practice explored

I still believe that system-shifting product management is required to sit alongside system-shifting design.

AI resources

Resources from the National Centre for AI.

And I thought:

Aren’t user stories great

I don’t use user stories nearly enough. But I think they are/can be great. When used as boundary objects (rather than following a fixed format) they allow for deep understanding within different knowledge domains without having to go into the detailed specifics. That’s super powerful. Everyone looks at the same thing but they each see what matters to them, and they don’t need to know what others see because they trust them, and even if someone misunderstands it doesn’t matter because a user story is the smallest deliverable value so it’s easy to change.

Shu Ha Ri

I think Shu Ha Ri might offer a kind of roadmap for teams. They start with learning technique, then they find new approaches, then they move away from needing a structure to follow. But I think Shu might be the hardest part. Adopting and sticking to established technique long enough to learn from it rather than jumping to Ha isn’t easy.

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How effective are case studies as a marketing/lead tool? I wonder if anyone has done any service design around how best to make use of them.

Need to add partnerships and a bit more on research to my mental model.

Watched a video about burnout. Makes some sense.

Read a report on system-shifting design. And thought a bit about whether I should focus on system-shifting product management instead of the responsibility stuff (not that I really work on either at the moment).

Also read an article about the low adoption of AI tools in businesses. Not surprising.