I’ve not got here alone

Screen printed design imperatives posters. Designed and printed by designers. 1. Grow the design capability. 2. create visible design standards, and 3. Talk about the work we deliver.

My transition into design leadership has been good so far. I’ve started to believe in myself about being a design leader. I’m in my dream role (I think).

I will share what I told myself when I took on this role.

• Treat each thing I do, as an experiment! Test different leadership techniques. Have a play and see what works
• Do whatever feels right
• People first (all the time)
• Block out time in my career. To see if design leadership is for me

I’ve divided this quarterly note into 3 sections.

1. Thanks
2. Last quarter reflection (there’s a lot)
3. What’s next

1. Thanks.

I want to start the year by saying thanks. In alphabetical order.

Designers in the service and interaction design community of practice:

I’m in my dream role as Head of design at DfE (Department for Education). We are a true design community that wants to be a community.

[Community: group or groups of people who share common interests]

The most exciting day of the week is Thursdays. I spend my afternoon in profession time. (Protected time for all DDaT professions at DfE digital and Technology). Many of us get together. We listen, watch, present, join in. Each person is unique. Their differences, experience, personality, backgrounds, and identity contributes to a healthy culture. I’m thankful to all the designers who believe in me and join in each week. As the months have progressed our community has grown in size. Attendance and engagement is wonderful. I started with a small working group (9 designers). They have supported and shaped the strategy, process and outcomes. I now have a rather large working group (17 designers). I’m trying to create carrots for being a DfE designer. I’m so excited about the future, our achievements, and the impact we can make. It’s this community that’s keeping me energised and excited.

Emma Stace and Charlotte Briscall:
Thanks for bringing me into your Future DfE workshops to map out the future operating model with you. I’m grateful to our directors who believed in me. I felt they cared. They didn’t treat me any different than the other attendees with more political power. I enjoyed watching them lead where everyone’s voice matters. I saw them being leaders and role models. They showed me firsthand that being a leader can be an opportunity to shape the space we lead.

Lisa Keenaghan:
I’m thankful to Lisa Keenaghan for making time for me every Friday for 30 mins. Lisa is a deputy director. She’s not my line manager nor responsible for any of my outcomes. She didn’t need to make time for me, but she did. She’s a busy leader. I like how direct, honest and practical she is. There was something we both liked about each other, from our first meet and greet. Since then we talk about everything and anything. She believes in me and my ideas. She listens to me as I share my challenges. She gives constructive feedback, encouragement, and reassurance. She helps me to throw my imposter syndrome out of the window. Having Lisa to talk to each week has kept me focused and determined to ignore the politics and noise. Staying focused on ‘doing’ is our conversation. I respect Lisa.

Lewis Wilson:
Head of software. Lewis is a peer. It feels like we’ve had our heads down and focused on our people in a very similar way. Whilst our professions are different. Our leadership style is similar. We’re both exploring leadership in our profession and talking about what works and what isn’t. The development profession usually is first on the priority list in our profession queue for most things. Lewis usually has spent time reviewing processes, giving feedback. This quarter I’m working on the capability skills framework. Lewis has taken so many friction points away before I’ve even started. I’m thankful for all his attention to detail work he goes through as he usually sets my work up for success.

Sally Cooper:
Sally is a community manager. I didn’t know Sally until she helped me run open sessions. Sally became another person I am inspired by. Sally is super calm and organised, Great at writing. Her creative writing and presentation skills/tips are awesome. She introduced me to more perfection. Sally has production notes! I’m stealing this from now on. Sally took away some of my anxiety about public talking.

2. Last quarter reflection

• The 90-day plan I set out when I first started resulted in an experiment. To introduce 3 design imperatives and test community objectives. Our backlog format is simple: OKRs (Objective and Key Results). I’ll share more on this in an official DfE blog post/talk. The good news is the experiment was a success. We got to the end of the quarter with 5 objectives we were able to share in a show and tell. We had 1 drop out which was due to a designer leaving our organisation.
• We had our first community away day where we all met for the first time. We screen printed our design imperative posters by hand. The purpose was for the community to own, create and live the imperatives by doing. We’ll circulate the posters across the building. What’s amazing is each poster is unique like every designer in our community. These posters are more than posters. They represent our values, our purpose, and represent our uniqueness. For the community to own the strategy is important.
• Being in a community is a choice. This is exactly how I head up the community of practice at DfE. I facilitate choice. We have a huge backlog to define what our practice is/means/needs to do. The community prioritise, lead, contribute, observe or skip. Leading in this way has led to high engagement. For me, this is a success marker. The servant leadership style in this context seems to be working. And I’m finding my feet.
  This video by Simon Sinek is one I follow. Each designer in my community has their own story and purpose which is bigger than their job. Giving designers a choice. Exploring, learning, and developing might help them get closer to their self-purpose. I want to be a leader who creates an environment where we learn, develop, and grow as people. With this type of leadership, we create win-win outcomes. I want designers engaged, happy (I’m aiming for fulfillment), and themselves. They will deliver great work and they’ll get better and deliver stronger results. We together as one community help ourselves, our profession, and the department. We deliver better outcomes for the real people we serve. The users who need to do something. Design is difficult to deliver alone. Together it all seems possible. I’m excited about this space.
• Creative warm-ups. I introduced creative warm-ups before we start a meeting/workshop with the community. It sets the tone for the time we have together. I ask the community before the meeting to see if anyone wants to lead it. Each week we’ve had different designers come forward. We have a huge bank of ideas. We’ve had so much fun. The purpose is to create a safe space for our designers. To test different ideas and build trust and confidence with one another. Designers can take any of the warm-ups into their delivery teams. I’ve noticed warm-up becoming ‘a thing’ in delivery teams. I’ll blog on this too as there are so many benefits.
• I ran an open session to help us attract more designers. This was a new thing. I was nervous before it happened. I opened my mouth by saying ‘what if we….’ And two weeks later we were saying hello to potential designers. With the right people around you, everything is possible. I’m lucky to surround myself with amazing people/teams. So many designers helped. We had the recruitment team present to answer questions. And I had wonderful community managers who help to shape and facilitate. Alex, Nettie, Lou, and Sally are the heroes behind the scenes. We have a blog for this.
• We ran our first community end-of-the-quarter show and tell. We invited lots of stakeholders as we talked about the work we delivered. I want to shine the light on designers demonstrating good behaviors. I want us to create a safe space where experimentation is ok. I want confidence, trust, and skills to grow. The outcomes we deliver to help us mature as a profession are a huge achievement to celebrate. We had an ideation session. We created 50 different ideas in 10 minutes which we may go on and explore. This might become open by default…well that’s my vision. I’ll push for this at a pace that feels right for the community.
• Had a community retro to listen, reflect and learn. I’m pleased to see how open, honest the community is. We started the retro with a feelings wheel and a creative warm-up about ‘What was your first job? What did you like/hate about it?’ this helped to set the tone for the retro feedback I was seeking. I’m taking feedback to improve onboarding as an action.

3. What's next:

• This quarter we have 10 objectives! For me, this is a lot. I tried to reduce it and failed. But the community is set. 10 it is for Q4. This will be a challenge.
• Design Standards is what all designers feel very passionate about. And we want to improve and develop our skills in this space. To work to best practices. I’m so pleased to feel the energy in this space. We’re making these open. We ‘forked’ the work done by Defra on GitHub. I speak to Cathy Dutton, Head of Design at Defra to brainstorm and test my thinking. the work done by the designers at Defra is where we want to be. We’re iterating and improving our standards as we define and create them. They will live here. Since doing this Jen (Head of content design) and Sophie (head of user research) will work with me. We’re looking to house our UCD standards together. Super exciting that we’re going to collaborate and work together on this.
• I may speak at a ‘proper’ conference in June. I’ll talk about the design imperative, community objectives. I will play with my storytelling techniques by ‘doing’ and by forcing myself out of my comfort zone. I’m most definitely going to extend the invite to some designers in my community. I’ll spend my time preparing for this. Some nice skills to develop by doing this.

Having fun and enjoying myself, is the key takeaway from this last quarter! I need to remember to stick at this. Learning through play is the secret ingredient for me.