I’ve been thinking about governance a lot recently – how and where we make decisions – and specifically how we make them robust and trusted how we make them fast enough to get stuff done rather than admiring problems How we manage the tension between these two things How you build in accountability with the …
I’ve written about what we are doing on strategy / not strategy and I’ve come to write more about it again a few times but backed away as it didn’t feel ready, but we are moving into a new phase of the work now and making it more open internally and I feel a bit …
If design is the bringing together of form and function, then design principles are the organising statements that help us to navigate the myriad decisions that we are faced as we create anything, be it a product, a building or in our case an organisation. Design principles can also help us work through how we …
There is always more work – the challenge is really in how you decide what not to do. This is particularly true in local government where we can’t chose not to serve a particular group or delivery a particular service – we are here for everyone. We are doing work on planning and prioritisation at …
This is a bit of a sidebar from the strategy / not strategy post here but is also part of a longer contemplation around participation, organisations and democracy – with a bit of digital stuff as well. I’ve always believed that there is real power in aligning digital/design, participation and democracy practices. Each are fundamentally …
I have a long abiding belief that while culture eats strategy they both get devoured by purpose. This came back to the fore for me as we are doing some work as a leadership team to look at priorities and areas of focus and the question of strategy came up. People have very different perceptions …
I wanted to spotlight this wonderful piece from @georgejulian about curative candour. George always writes with huge passion, rawness and insight but this piece about the effect that real honest and painful candour had when her mum was diagnosed with cancer is – and I don’t say this lightly – humbling. I have such admiration …
A few years ago I met a really successful entrepreneur who told me that 80% of his time was spent looking for the right people – once he had them then all that was needed was to point them in the right direction. I have never been quite sure of the 80% but I do …
This is a post about multidisciplinary working – something which we rely on but don’t often think about. Multidisciplinary (or cross disciplinary if you are using the language of research or practice) or matrix (of you are using the language of organisational design) are essentially a bunch of experts trying to get something done together. …
I’ve been thinking about meetings a lot this week…..while in a lot of meetings. It’s been odd joining an organisation during what we can officially refer to as Strange Times. The thing I have found most difficult is in finding the rhythm of the place. Every team and organisation has what I call a ‘hum’ …