Hi Everyone,
I hope you’re doing ok.
Me and my riding buddy didn’t go to Bike Park Wales on Friday afternoon (shock horror!). Instead we went to an old favourite. Cwmcarn (just north of Newport) has two main trails and we did both. They have some seriously challenging climbs, even on ebikes. You really have to throw the bike at some of the rocky uphill sections to clear them. The landscape was absolutely stunning with views for miles and miles in all directions, filled with amazing autumnal colours. And because it was a Friday afternoon it was very quiet. We’ve ridden there for years and it felt good to fall into the groove of the trail, speeding along, negotiating tight switchbacks and blasting round berms. Being so familiar with the trail is a great feeling as it allows you to achieve flow. I might of mentioned last week that I’m reading a book call Thinking, Fast and Slow which describes our brain in terms of System 1 and System 2. Simply put (for me at least), System 1 is automated and System 2 is not. When we learn new skills we employ System 2 to establish patterns and this is mentally taxing. When the patterns are established System 1 handles them for us and we feel a sense of ease in carrying out the pattern. When we’re producing user experiences at work (doesn’t matter if it’s software or something else) we’re often aiming for an intuitive journey. We might not know it but we’re aiming to reduce the mental load on the users System 2. And if we’ve successfully established an intuitive user journey we’d surely have to have a very good reason for a significant change in that journey. Smaller, incremental changes that respond to the users need means that the user can adapt incrementally and in an intuitive way. Coming back to our Friday afternoon ride(user journey) along our familiar trails, we were blasting down a section of trail which had a series of sharp terms. Ahead of me my buddy hit the first banked turn at speed, moved into position for the immediate next turn and then hit the ground and ended up at the side of the trail about 10 metres further on with torn trousers and a collection of cuts and bruises. He’d expected the second turn to be banked just like the first but it wasn’t so his tyre slipped off the edge of the trail. This is the problem when user journey’s change and aren’t intuitive. Our users crash. When we crash on a mountain bike it hurst us physically and usually financially. When our users crash while using our services it can be extremely frustrating. They can’t get their task done. If that task is something mandatory, to comply with the law for example, we start to impact them emotionally and potentially legally. So whether you’re building a new mountain bike trail, or a new user journey, make it intuitive.
I’ve joined our Delivery Board and this week we held a workshop to inspect and adapt how we work from artefacts to processes to interactions. It was a great way to get to know everyone and contribute to improvements. I volunteered to take everyone’s comments for the Terms of Reference and edit the document to reflect their input.
I’ve been working with some other heads of professions on how to build the maturity of our squads, generating a sense of ownership and empowerment. We had a session with our Filing super-squad this week to look at what a mature squad might look like. There was a lot of input! We’re going to start small with our Head of Product Management and I offering to facilitate the Filing Squad team meetings for the short term. Our intention being to do some facilitation, leading by example and helping the squad members find their feet. I’ll be facilitating on Monday!
I set up a knowledge share with a friend and ex-colleague at Admiral to look at our Mission Canvas and talk about how it’s helping our teams clarify the work a squad will be doing. Our Head of Product Management kindly joined me to do the talking which was brilliant as they led the development of the canvas and know it inside out. They were really enthusiastic about it. I love working with people who love what they do.
Be excellent to yourselves and each other,
Si
