This week I've been thinking about how teams work together and organisational culture.
Bringing teams together
I feel like I spend more of my time speaking to people about what they’re doing than I do working on things myself.
For example, after demoing some of our work to people across NHSE a few weeks ago, I ended‑up having an interesting conversation about the relationship between the work we’re doing on health assessments and the work that NHS 111 online are doing.
But it’s easy to forget how hard it is to look outside your team when you have an actual job to do. Recently I’ve seen that teams, who in my mind, are tightly coupled are not as aware of their relationship to each other as I had assumed.
This week I brought 2 teams, one looking at health assessments and the other looking helping people find services to reduce their risk, together for 4 hours in a room. The plan was simple enough, draw a journey map that helps team members understand the wider context and how they both fit into it. Talk about what they’re doing and the relationship between the work.
Putting an in-person 4-hour workshop for 8 people to come from across the country to attend is stressful. But I think necessary if the goal is shared understanding.
It was a good session. Smart people being engaged makes these things fun. At the end of the session, it seemed clear that there was an improved view from both teams, a bit of realignment and some gaps identified. I’m hopeful that future conversations across the teams will be clearer. We also realised the need for some shared definitions.
Internal comms and culture
As I wrote about last week, the Digital Prevention Services Portfolio (DPSP) is refining how it communicates. Getting a clear message is helpful to the way we work, and the people we work with. The better we understand what we’re doing, the more effectively we can move in the same direction.
It made me think about how GDS used to be referred to as a ‘cult’ by the rest of the civil service. At the time I didn’t really get why. I understood that GDS wasn’t like the rest of the civil service and there were some very enthusiastic people around.
Since then I’ve worked in 3 central government departments plus NHSE. Each part of the civil service has its own culture, but there is a clear thread that runs through all of it. That thread is a culture that I have struggled with at times. Its a different way of operating to one that makes sense to me.
Looking back I now understand the reaction against GDS. We had a different culture to the rest of the civil service, but equally they had their own culture. If we were a cult, then they were a religion.
DPSP is treading more carefully than GDS did, but its a balance to protect the culture that works for your team while integrating with a wider eco‑system.