Week 9: skiing from Italy to France
It’s been an odd week. Getting back from holiday, I feel like a bit of a spare part. I’m trying to find a way to offer help without telling people what to do, which has left me feeling a bit useless this week. I win when the team wins, and all that.
I’m thinking, throwing things away, and thinking again about how we can help GovTech make sure they deliver on the promises they’ve set out. At the moment, it looks like publishing the backlog openly alongside a roadmap, and working out which signals we need to see to know we’re making progress against these goals. Agile governance models. How to start and stop things, and when the leadership team should intervene. How to empower teams to make decisions on their own.
Alongside that, the teams had their first show and tell of the year, and I spent much of the day editing other people’s slides to create some consistency. I managed to do that without causing mass chaos.
Outside of work
For regular readers, my niece and nephew survived the whole week last week. They left a little more tired than when they arrived. I’ve never laughed and cried at the same time before. My nephew went flying off the side of the piste and ended up in a tree. My niece, screaming and crying, was what made me cry. My nephew was laughing and unhurt. They finished the week skiing red runs (the ratings go green, blue, red, black).
Also this week, GovTech had an all-hands meeting. Seeing as it started at 2pm and went on to 9pm, I took the morning to go skiing: I hopped on the bus to Italy and skied from Italy to France, and right back into Chamonix. It was the first time this has been possible since 2018. Not so long ago, you could do it most winters.