exploring visual communication

I've been keeping myself busy exploring different ways of working, including my communication skills. In particular, how I can translate my thoughts into more visual or blended forms.  Hanging around with designers has highlighted how broad the options are - and how much more persuasive and engaging different forms can be.

I have been drawing pictures to go with this blog - admittedly very rough, but they are easier than poaching stuff from online, get me practicing, and work fine to break up the text.

I have been converting my note-taking practices into more refined concept overviews.  This basically involves being clearer, and using images and visual tools more imaginatively.  These notes on Damian Kernahan's (@protopartners) presentation at Service Design 2012 are a good example. (It was a great session by the way! I look forward to being able to engage with Damian more in future.)

My handiwork has really deteriorated since being a bit of a drawer as a child - you can see I struggle with the sharpie.

I will also be exploring how I can use Prezi more - I think it suits my style which is very text-based, but also revolves around logical connections between ideas.  I tried it here to express a couple of thoughts on fostering the Adelaide innovation community.  It took a very long time (for what is essentially a copy of 5 minutes worth of hand written notes), but seems clear, and I think is a good start for presenting ideas in a professional electronic manner.

My modus operandi is still to take text-based notes and convert to different forms, but I'm interested to watch whether this changes.


www.jsbaxter.com.au
@JohnSBaxter

'Agile' - much to learn about working in complexity

I have been able to get a sense of what 'agile' is over the last month and I've had to conclude that, yes, there is vast experience in programming that will be of value for those helping government manage complexity better.

The method parallelogram

We can create a neat parallelogram, combining

• Waterfall > Agile
• Government (as it is typically today) > Redesign (and like design-thinking methods)

Waterfall programming gets its name from an approach to work where each step is completed in-full before progressing to the next stage. The issues with Waterfall programing and typical government methods are the same: the methods are built on an industrial-era philosophy of the world and work that is much simpler, and can be reduced to predictable bundles to be addressed efficiently in compartmentalised steps (along with other traits that are no longer applicable).

Agile is much more fluid, and includes (re)design-like elements, including rapid prototyping.  The heart of agile isn't a rule-book, but rather a manifesto and a set of principles.  Those familiar with design-thinking will see an obvious similarity - strip out the programming-specific elements and the heart of the approaches is much the same.

Programming methods and language generally

Programming methods and ways of understanding tasks tend to pop up in unexpected places.  I asked someone (Matt @Collabforge) their opinion on how well government manages complexity, and in response he talked of how government seems to not deal with complexity, but rather be counter-productively reductionist  - which in programming would apparently be understood as 'inappropriate compartmentalisation'.  In government, you won't have much luck explaining it, let alone have a word for it.

There's something about the very conscious logic and structure of software project management that appeals, and I'm curious about how much one can learn.

Experience

The thing that is getting me excited - particularly about 'agile' at the moment - is the experience of making this very different approach work.  The experience fighting up the other arm of the parallel. Practitioners that have had a clear vision for years, of a working method appropriate for complex systems, but still seem to need to fight to make those principles work.

So how do they fight? And where they do, how do they win?

www.jsbaxter.com.au

@JohnSBaxter

Acting on motivation

I have done a bit of brainstorming lately on public administration and my interest in it.  It has lead me to think about a motivation>action combination which seems like a very useful starting point - not only in terms of public administration, but personally as well.

To understand the scope and space of different ways of working I needed to relate different methodologies to one another.  How can one talk about options between traditional and design approaches to policy development without being able to relate these methodologies?

Different methodologies all have different components and labels, seemingly irreconcileable, but have strong parrallels.  Starting points including problems, opportunities, policies, objectives and outcomes.  Finishing points include plans, policies, programs and actions.  So many different methodologies have vastly different interiors, but nevertheless start at something like this, and finish at something like that.  They're processes, they all start, and they all go somewhere (though they don't all finish).

TACSI working backwards approach

But they don't all start at different places.  It's not like design starts at a drawing board, but policy starts at a polling booth. Each one of them starts at some sort of motivator.

They all end at action - or at least at some sort of a program for action.

Motivator > (program for) action

So now we have some sort of a reference point to relate these different methodologies, and at least a conception of how to choose between them.  Identify your motivator, and work out what methodology is the best approach to realising it.

Unfortunately, methodolgies aren't determined by a judgement of the best approach.  They are determined by things like precedent, experience or profession.  Or where none of these are present there is no structured response at all!

What are your personal motivators?  What approach do you take to realise these?  Does this make sense considering the importance of your motivators and the options available?

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John Baxter
http://www.jsbaxter.com.au/
@JohnSBaxter

Some things you might want to start with

Things you may or may not know if we haven’t been in regular contact recently.

Source: from soneone's blog

I have informally given notice of leaving the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office where I work.  I call myself an analyst of public administration systems (public transport) - my title is ‘analyst’.

Am looking to pivot my experience towards something more focused on innovation and understanding how to manage systems, particularly systems of public administration (e.g. regulation, social services), to deal with what the future will be throwing at us.  Particularly interested in design-focused innovation types like TACSI.  So yes, I’m looking for work!

Have been inspired by some of my recent experiences like the global sustainability jam, and a few others that I’ll look to post about over the next couple of months...

Am trained in literature and mathematics, and have a particularly analytical approach to understanding systems.  I’d be suited to economics, if only economic theory wasn’t so void of accuracy or moral value - soapbox posts to come on this no doubt (though I’m thinking of a separate blog along the lines of Economic Philosopher - how’s the ring?)

Currently live in Melbourne, but I'm not wedded to any location.

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John Baxter
www.jsbaxter.com.au

Newer beginnings

I often end up back to the Global Sustainability Jam weekend when talking to people about what I’m up to.

The Jam is a weekend developing a concept for a service, and a pitch for it, following an abridged service design methodology.  It was a great fun weekend, meeting a lot of interesting new people.

More than that, personally, it was an eye opener.  We may not have reinvented the wheel, but we did do things so far beyond what I’m used to that we may well have reinvented me.  It may not have happened overnight - but it has certainly catalysed a process akin to some pretty magnificent shampoo.

This process may speak more to my experience and employment than anything else.  My current employer, the state audit office, has offered great experience, but I don’t think it’s a very conducive environment to further growth or - at this stage at least - effectively creating value.  It is a deathly quiet environment, extremely product-focussed and in my experience largely anti-collaborative - not conducive to the sorts of skills I need to work on.  It is hierarchical and bureaucratic despite its size, and while at the local level there is lots of freedom with the work, it is difficult to generate value more freely.    It is also driven according to processes made to maximise vertical accountability and minimise risk, which don't necessarily deliver on value.

As someone relatively intellectual, analytical and mathematically trained, who prefers to work independently, it could almost be a perfect fit.  Indeed, if I hadn’t had a few Jam-like experiences over the last couple of years it would seem natural to me, and I might never have seen the light of day.

There were a few components of the Jam that made me sit up and ask whether the world really needs to be like that - almost in shock...

We worked together - collaborative working.  You know, a group of people working together towards a somewhat common idea, making decisions based on discussion and agreement, sharing and testing ideas, contributing where we could.  No signoffs or boundaries around our roles!

We just did it - we worked with things for long enough to be able to give them a crack, prototyped, and refined.  It didn’t matter if they weren’t perfect the first time round, or we didn’t elaborate plans to mitigate the risks of uncertainty.  We did it, and learnt more by trialling than we would have by analysing it all to death

I could do it - the biggest surprise was not so much that it was possible to work differently, but that I was able to!

And I liked it!

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John Baxter
www.jsbaxter.com.au