Dan’s Weeknotes s07e02

Week ending 2020–06–19

I don’t understand how the weeks seem to take an eternity and go by in a flash at the same time. Monday seems forever ago, but where did that time go?

What was good?

• Had a good chat with Richard Pope about data standards. I get a huge amount out of conversations with him.
• Kylie (head of product) invited me to a call with colleagues from Samaritans to hear about their approach and learning from delivering new technologies for their various channels. It was really valuable, haven’t had a session with that much golden practical advice in a while.
• A few weeks ago Tom (chief analyst) and I were asked to come up with an approach and framework for forecasting demand to help Citizens Advice prepare for the next 9 months. 9 months which are going to be really tough. We decided to source possible inputs or forces from our policy colleagues, with a view to agreeing as a group which scenarios would be most likely. The next step will be to apply those likely scenarios to our demand data, so that we can develop projections. Rachel expertly ran the first workshop with a group of about 20. My main takeaways were that it’s fiendishly complex — more complex than anything I’ve been involved in before — and that there’s such a wealth of professional expertise in our organisation.
• Tom and I had a brilliant planning and prioritisation session for our shared work with Cat (delivery manager) using Trello. When things work well remotely I really notice it.
• I attended an unconscious bias training session in advance of some recruitment I’ll be doing. I’ve done similar sessions a few times before, but it was good to be reminded and reflect and have a few “oh God I do that” moments.
• My plans and longer term goals for data at Citizens Advice really clicked with me this week. Felt like a big step forward.
• The weekly review of what our data is telling us (see episode 1) was great, as usual. It was good to have Matt (head of delivery) there as a first time guest to give us some perspective on the probable reasons for some of the web trends we had been seeing. I’m constantly struck by the deep knowledge and curiosity in this group.
• It was good to have two days working from my own home, definitely an improvement on just having one.

What could have been better?

• I feel behind on things. I am finding keeping on top of admin tasks especially difficult. Pete (principal data manager) really helped me out this week with some of it which I appreciated.
• Wednesday was supposed to be a non-working day but it didn’t happen. There hasn’t been much notice for schools reopening and it’s been hard to plan in advance for childcare patterns. I had some preexisting commitments that I didn’t think I should miss. I need to get on the front foot with my diary because I want to spend quality time with my kids.
• The news was a churning river of chilling batshit insanity. I need to pay less attention to it.

What are you looking forward to next week?

• It’s Adam’s data club on Tuesday.
• I’m doing my first set of interviewing for a role in my team since I joined last September.

Thanks for reading. Stay safe. Fight racism.