Thinking and doing: theory and practice

Welcome and thanks for visiting. This blog is where I write about projects I am working on, capture my research in progress and generally organise my thinking in public. It helps me enormously to have a place to do this – I hope you also find it useful. I’ve also started a running post with some definitions and background reading that may be helpful.

Current lines of enquiry are captured in this enquiry map but I tend to roam between designing for democracy and more general thinking about technology driven change and the digital mindset. You may find it helpful to read this ‘why I blog blog’ but suffice to say that this a place where I share my thinking in public but that means its subject to change and may look quite different when its actually applied in my role at Adur and Worthing.

If you are looking for my professional bio then you need to head over to LinkedIn . If you are trying to find me online for a more research orientated discussion then you can find me on twitter as @curiousc. If you want to contact to me about speaking at an event then you can contact me via either of these routes.

Dr Catherine Howe

Here are some of the things I am currently working on:

Latest posts

Making the whole greater than the sum of the parts

My team has a rich set of skills. We draw both from the established disciplines like business analysis and project management but also from the newer disciplines of user research, content strategy and service design. We have a design principle that commits us to being agile first (you can read ...

Weeknotes: Strategy; its a tricky business

I’ve been slightly cheating on the 500 words this week as I have been doing a lot of writing for work stuff on the train and have decided to count that….so I wanted to make sure that I did a proper week note this week. I’ve been spending the week ...

2019: setting intent and seeing what happens

I try not to make new year’s resolutions but I do spend the first week of each year getting myself together, setting an intent for the year and generally becoming set up for the year I want to have. Its a companion to the firebreak that I had in the ...

Big programme design and the willing suspension of disbelief involved

I haven’t written a lot about my time at Capita but I wanted to capture some of the thinking that I did in the last year I was there as its work that I am drawing on a lot at the moment and hopefully it will help people understand where ...

Mindful system and finding our hum

I went paperless about 9 years ago when I started my PHD and realised that I might actually end up being buried under mounds of articles if I didn’t take action. However I have never ever managed to crack my addition to stationary and you can tell when I feel ...

Week notes: Taking a breath

This is a quick week note to keep me on track as I have a few longer posts in draft and that is usually a sign that I have too much going on in the brain and need to download a bit. One of the reasons for the back up ...

What happens if no-one is right?

Dogma: “a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.” This is part of my exploration of my own theory of change and perhaps a bit of backstory for my team when I am banging on about how we could approach things…… I have no ...

Mindful diary: and still she persisted

We’re down in Cornwall for a week enjoying walking, eating and a daily attempt to capture the perfect sunset shot from the local pub. Its been a hectic 6 months so its also time for some reflection and some thinking about the intent that I want to set for the ...

What makes a good decision?

Its easy just to think that a good decision is one that has the right outcome but that’s magical thinking and assumes we make no mistakes. Good decisions are taken when we bring together knowledge, accountability and the views of the people who are most effected by the decision in ...