Service assessment looming

A weeknote starting 16 September 2024.

Prepping for our service assessment

Next week we're going for an internal service assessment. I'm not really looking forward to it, to be honest.

I feel like the service, and the team, has come a long way in 12 months, but I'm still not convinced we'll meet every part of the service standard. I guess that's the point, to look for gaps.

I also feel like spending a long time preparing is unavoidable. I don't think it's wasted time, but I wish the guidance didn't say this…

It can be tempting to spend a long time preparing for assessments. But try not to over-prepare.

I never feel able to talk about weeks or months of work, without spending a long time preparing. Whether it's for service assessments, interviews or any kind of presentation. I think my ability to talk about things like that only stretches a few hours back, or a few days at best (and only then if I'm focusing on one thing).

Still, I am resisting the urge to put together a big slide deck, and instead I'm digging out prototype links, Word docs, Murals and Jira tickets, that should show how we've worked along the way.

In future, I'm going to add "brush up on the service standard" to my weekly habits. I know some bits well, but I also recognise that there are gaps in my knowledge.

A few minutes each week spent thinking about these sample assessment questions for example, will help me build up and capture more notes.

And I'm hoping it will trickle through to everything else I'm working on.

Last week on the team

Next week is also the last full week before the team is split up. Some of the team have left already. I still don't really know what I'll be moving on to, but I'm happy to leave all that new onboarding stuff until October.

I've really enjoyed working with my current team. I'm made a couple of good friends too and will miss working with them.

I often think back to all the work friends I've made over the years. People I've worked with every day, for years sometimes, who I might never see again once the project is over.

I should make more of effort to keep in touch.

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