16 July 2021
Good People
Had a lovely catch-up with Morrighan that included our despair at the issues brought into sharp relief by the horrible violence and racism that accompanied the Euro 2020 final. I’m writing this only five days after and it was so emotionally draining that it feels like the whole thing was lifetime ago 💔
A regular project check-in with Jo exposed a new-to-me method for synthesising research findings 👨🎓
A chat with Kath on the same project involved a chuckle at the idea of “Marie Kondo-ing” project outputs. Does this Miro board spark joy?
Good Work
We spent Thursday and Friday away from client work at dxw, holding our inaugural Maker Days. They’re kind of our version of a hack day but more inclusive and with less pizza (👎). The team split into groups to work on topics including a mentoring programme, how we make learning and development better for everyone, mental health and wellbeing, and our impact on the planet. It’s always lovely when we see the whole company come together and show a bunch of things they’ve talked about and made 💚
A few of us attended a retrospective on the way we schedule work at dxw. It’s pretty much the oldest problem in agencyland and there’ll never be a perfect solution. The retro helped highlight how many individual needs there are, and that was just from a handful of people. We came away with a few things to tweak and a few things to try 🤞
I spent a few hours further working up job descriptions for a variety of levels in our career framework. We’ve been working towards some kind of consistency across specialisms while also maintaining the important differences. I don’t think I’ve ever been completely satisfied with a job description that I’ve written, and I don’t think I’ve ever been in a role that completely tallied with the associated job description. Let me know if you’ve read or written great job descriptions and if they’re anywhere that you can point me towards!
Good Stories
Like many folks, I’ve been looking at my life over the last year. The pandemic has of course been a big part of that but the declining health of loved ones is something else that’s given me cause for reflection. Maybe as I hurtle toward my 47th birthday I’m simply having an(other) existential crisis 😅
I’ve made substantial changes to my lifestyle in the last 18 months and have learned a lot about how to form good habits, and break bad ones. But I have not been doing enough to test my own mettle. I do not do anything that scares me. I need to feel like I can overcome the voice in my head that tells me “You can’t do that!”. What else has that bastard stopped me from achieving all these years? What else might I still do if I can shut him up?
Extremely related: I’ve been reading The Doorstep Mile by Alistair Humphreys. The concept of microadventures is totally new to me and I have to say it’s a bit inspiring. I’m highly unlikely to take several years away from work and walk the earth. But I’m starting to think I might be the kind of person who could, for example, cycle their way around some of the British Isles for a while… 🤔