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DfE Digital, Data and Technology is part of the Department for Education. We aim to deliver world-class services that improve the outcomes of children and learners in education and care. This podcast series shines a light on the human stories behind our digital and technology projects. You’ll hear about how we build and run our services, their impact, and the lessons learnt along the way. You’ll also get an insight into the people who work here and the culture we’re building.
Episodes
Friday Oct 01, 2021
Friday Oct 01, 2021
Here is the third episode of our – 'Think digital, act human' – podcast series which shines a light on the stories of the people behind our digital and technology projects.
Host, Adaobi Ifeachor, gets to know Jen Staves, Head of Content design.
You’ll learn about content design, co-design and why communities of practice are important for delivery teams, and the part Jen plays in this space.
Transcription
[Music plays]
Adaobi Ifeachor Hello, welcome to Think Digital act Human, a podcast where we tell the everyday stories of digital specialists working on extraordinary projects.
So every day millions of pupils, teachers, frontline workers and educational professionals are affected by the work we're doing in the background here at DfE, that's the Department for Education, specifically DfE Digital and technology. That's where we work. And our work is centred around these users. But who are the people making it all happen and what drives them to do it? What are the stories behind the user stories? Well, this series will shine a light on the human stories behind our digital projects and stories behind transformational work and the skills and attitudes our people bring to and take from their work. So I am so excited to introduce our guest today. I have my cup of coffee. I hope you do, too.
So our guest today is Jen Staves.
Adaobi Ifeachor Jen, welcome.
Jen Staves Hi.
Adaobi Ifeachor Do you want to introduce your job title, what it is that you do at DfE?
Jen Staves Absolutely. So I am head of content design in the Digital and Technology Directorate at DfE Department for Education. That's a head of professions role.
So that's kind of a strange thing. People might not have heard about it as such, but it means I look after the content design profession across all of DfE and EFA, which is the educational skills and funding agency, which is an arm's length body of DfE and we work really closely. It means I need to look across all of the different teams and portfolios to make sure that content design is being its best.
Adaobi Ifeachor Now, some of our listeners who have followed our blog will have like a general understanding of what content design is for people who are complete newbies. What is content design?
Jen Staves Content design is so much Adaobi. So I think some times people think content design is just words. And I suppose that's the first thing I have to say is it is not just words. It is so much more than words.
It is about structure. It's about information architecture. It's about designing how your content is there so that it best meets user needs. And so it's first and foremost, you know, it's part of user centred design, along with interaction design, along with user research, along with service design. And so it's there to make sure that the user has the easiest, best path to achieving whatever they want to achieve.
Adaobi Ifeachor OK, good description. So, as head of content design, I've been looking into your kind of background a little bit, seeing what sort of stuff you've been up to Jen.
And what I've noticed is a bit of a pattern here. Almost everybody that I speak to is relatively new to DfE. What is going on with this recruitment wave? Is it true to say that you would consider yourself relatively new as well? I mean I mean, I certainly do. I came in November 2020 and I think that was about the same sort of time as you.
Jen Staves It is. It is. We are both November 20, 20ers. I've been here less than a year. In some ways it feels like I've always been here, but it takes a little bit of time to feel like that. So, yeah, I'm relatively new. It's not my first civil service job, though. Before this, I was at the Department of International Trade, but then before that I was outside the civil service.
Adaobi Ifeachor And I think I'm right in saying that it's not a British accent. I'm hearing where's that coming from.
Jen Staves Well, if you asked an American, they'd probably think it sounded a bit British, but it absolutely isn’t. I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, in the southeast of the US, until I was about 18.
Adaobi Ifeachor Catching that midnight train to Georgia.
Jen Staves exactly
Adaobi Ifeachor Right. That is a deep cut reference. If you’re over 30, you will know what I'm talking about. So let's dig it in a bit more into the content design space. So you've got like a team of people underneath you who are all working on different projects, designing content. I'm assuming. But you as head of profession.
You kind of like come in to what is like quite a new sort of area for the Department for Education. And you've got to kind of design or reimagine what exactly is content design going to be for DfE? Like, how on earth do you, you come in day one? What's your plan?
Jen Staves I think that's a really good question. And it's almost like you have to design the organisational design of how you want content design to work. So sorry, that was a bit of a mouthful, a bit of a tongue teaser. So I came in and for me. It's like any other job you need to come in and you need to see what's going on. You need to see what is the digital estate like here? Where are the content designers? You know, where is everybody? What is going on? And that has been tricky because there wasn't a head of profession before me. I was starting fresh, which in some ways is really exciting and in other ways is absolutely petrifying. But I knew that there were other professions that were maybe 18 months ahead of me and I could see where where you could be if you had a good head of profession and if you had people. So one thing I really noticed is that content designers were kind of often contractors, but sometimes civil servants, and they were on their own and teams. So it can be a bit of a lonely business when you're on your own and you think that this is the best way to do content design, but you're on a team that thinks something a little bit different.
So my first job really was just to get in there and talk to people and find out what their desires, needs wants, you know, concerns were. And then also just get a picture of how that map of services all connect and then did something a little bit more formal. I think it was in January so two months after I joined where we sort of benchmarked the capabilities of the community. So personal capabilities, individual capabilities,but also what they felt about their team's capabilities, what they felt about the community's capabilities, what they felt about the organisation's capabilities, because really I needed to see what I needed to be able to unblock for them.
Adaobi Ifeachor So for people who maybe they've been in the space where they've only ever had a UX team light user experience team, and they want to split that apart and kind of bring, develop the sort of constituent disciplines up. They want an interaction designer. They want a service designer. They want a content designer. That's really interesting to kind of like say, the first thing you gotta do is just work out what on earth you actually have in the building, first of all. And if you don't have the skills, do you then look to contractors to fill the gap while you're building that up? What do you do in the meantime?
Jen Staves It's a really good question. So I think it's a combination. So sometimes you will need to bring in contractors right away, right? Because delivery pressures are delivery pressures and we have an obligation to taxpayers and to teachers and to students and everybody to deliver what they need. And we can't say, oops, you know, well, we just want to grow our in-house capability. We'll deliver this service in nine months time. So we do that. But I think there were two kind of big in tandem things. One is, okay, that benchmarking told me where we needed to work. And so, for example, I realised our content designers need to improve their prototyping skills so we could do some work on our own to do that, you know, within the community. But we could also make sure that it's built into the statements of all of our contractors to help us, because in our benchmarking, we included contractors and so we could see where contractors felt more confident than civil servants. So we always, always making sure, of course, that we're within all our contracting guidelines. We make sure that contractor share their expertise.
Adaobi Ifeachor So we’ve talked about how you have like some content designers. And you're kind of making sure they have what they need to do their jobs? Well, I actually I did a bit of sneakin in the background, found somebody you line manage. And I was like, tell me, tell me the dirt on Jen. Like, what's
Jen Staves Oh no.
Adaobi Ifeachor What is it that you, what is it that you feel you've gotten out of working with Jen. Here are some of the quotes.
Adaobi Ifeachor With Jen I'm always learning. She’s taught me that content design is more than just the words on a page. And I've gotten that you're really big on getting people to reach out beyond just their team. So I hear that there was a service design conference, like a two day conference where people were talking about co-design.
Adaobi Ifeachor And that fascinated me because I was like co-design. What is this co-design business or these new kind of sexy times in the design space? Can you tell us a bit about that?
Jen Staves Yeah, absolutely. So the service design in government conference was last week and it was brilliant and it was really nice to bring people together and set people off and say, OK, learn something new and bring it back to the community. So, for example, four of our content designers are presenting at community this week about four different things they learnt so that the whole community can benefit and learn from that.
And co-design was one of them. And co design is really cool. But it's a step beyond, I think, what we've traditionally thought of as user centred design. And so user centred design is where we talk to users and we design for users. You know, we asked them what they think of things, but we traditionally kind of design it based off of what they've told us and then we test that they can use it, whereas code design is really exciting and it's kind of setting out from the beginning and saying, no, you are part of this team, you are helping design this service and, you know, you have an equal say in what is going to be designed. It's a big deal for government departments to be able to do that.
And to be honest, I'm not sure that all government departments are ready for that yet. It'd be awesome if they were. I think I've heard that there's some really cool co-design going on at DEFRA (department for environmental, food and rural affairs) where they've been working with farmers.
And that makes sense, right? No one is going to tell farmers how farms work. For the future of farming you need them helping to design it. I think it'd be awesome to think about how we could bring in teachers, schools, pupils into how we design things. But it is very much about starting as equal partners. And that's scary for some people.
Adaobi Ifeachor Well, I'm a West Country girl, so I know all about farmers. No need to tell me about that. This idea of, like, co-creating with your users, if it makes sense anywhere I think it makes sense in the public sector because you are there to serve the public. Right. And especially if you kind of like taking public money in like taxes or donations or whatever it is I kind of love this idea of co-design. That sounds really fascinating. But there is something else I kind of want to dig into a little bit more. You have mentioned the word community a couple of times, and I guess we spoke about it in terms of like reaching beyond your team. But what does that mean specifically in DfE digital and technology? Do you want people not to feel lonely, to feel isolated on their teams I'm imagining. But what is it beyond that?
Jen Staves It's a really, really good question. So community is kind of, I think, everything for our professions that DfE. And for these communities of practise it's really important because we think so much as being the member of a team member of a delivery team, we need to remember that, you know, that might be our our vertical, for example. But what's our horizontal? And I'm not necessarily keen on all these different, like words like squads and clans and all those things. I just like community because it just you always think the people. Right. And so that brings together that layer of everybody in content design. And we all come together every week, Thursday one to four. And we have that chance for sharing and for learning. So there's a lot of things we do. So there's one thing is just we're friends, if you're having a hard week because something you think you really need to do for your users has been shot down, well, you have people who are there to talk to about it and maybe think, oh, that's not great, sorry. Or have you tried this idea? Maybe you could go back and get a little bit more data, you know, so there's that sense of like how how do you sell in your content design ideas? Because content design is user centred, but it's also very data centred as well, very performance centred.
So there's also this sense of standard. So at DfE the community is supposed to own and build its standards. Right. And so I might, I might own the community standards, but they're making them. I think that's the key thing. Right. So we're a collective and we're coming together and we're building that together. So that's really, really important is that standard aspect. And then finally, I think it's about us going back out to the rest of the organisation to raise the profile. So based of that benchmarking that we did, we realised that there were a bunch of key areas where content design was lacking or where content design could improve and not just improve itself, but improve DfE.
So one of them was called, like we called it, programme capability. And that was how do we help teams to be successful and to make the most of content design? So that might be me going out and talking to different delivery managers, might be talking to the contracts team. It might be, you know, all sorts of things. The next one was about skills and standards. So I mentioned to you prototyping. Well, how do we make sure that we build that in? Standards, we talked about that. Recruitment, we need more brilliant junior content designers. So that's my job, to go back out there and talk to people to help them make the business case for more juniors so that we have that brilliant pipeline of people sort of coming through. And then innovation, so that's one of my really exciting working groups like how do we not just standstill in terms of like what best practise is, how do we learn more? How do we bring in something from a complete other, you know, maybe non-public sector? Maybe we learn something from book publishing that we could bring in. Maybe we learn something from, you know, something completely different. And also we need to learn from schools themselves. So how do we continue to innovate? So that's really exciting.
And so my goal is that we get all of our kind of senior content designers running those working groups. So it's not me like this needs to be able to kind of work with and without me. They run those working groups, they bring it back together.
Adaobi Ifeachor So bottom up. Yeah.
Jen Staves Yeah, exactly.
Adaobi Ifeachor So all of these different aspects you talked about recruitment, innovation, advocacy, all this different stuff, this all forms part of your is it the content design profession roadmap?
Jen Staves It is.
Adaobi Ifeachor You can see I've done my homework. I told you, I wasn’t lying. So, so that's pretty cool. So you've got say somebody else who's coming in to a different government department or maybe an external organisation and they want to do this content design thing. They’re like, you know, sounds exciting, first thing, find out what you've got at the moment. Next thing, maybe set up a community and then use that community to help you put together this content design roadmap, perhaps.
So I really like the idea of this because one thing, it's saying, well, what are people doing out there at the moment? Like what kind of new things are happening in the content design world that we could kind of use? But then it also sets people's expectations when they're coming into this content design world right. Because they’re saying, OK, this is what is expected of me, this is what people want. I really like how your mind works, like fitting in what we're doing now, but also what we're doing later.
So I've got to kind of ask you then I'm assuming that you're not just sort of managing everything from a strategic point. Are there times when you're still getting your hand in there, and still working on a few projects, does that still happen?
Jen Staves It does. It it kind of ebbs and flows. So, I mean, we worked together, didn't we, a little bit in the in the early stages where I got kind of my hands more into the delivery space. And and that was that was really interesting. That was working on teacher continuing professional development, which is called teacher CPD.
Luckily, we've got a brilliant lead content designer in there now so I could step back. So I kind of think the way that I like to work is if I see that there's an area that is bereft of content design experience, I might try and go in there and make friends with one of the deputy directors and try and say, can I get in there and get my hands messy and maybe help to diagnose what's going on, but then help you also bring in that capability, help get that person going. And then I can step back out because I think I can't I can't get I can't stay there too long.
Adaobi Ifeachor Do you think that's an important part of building a healthy community as well, like having everybody see that you kind of are willing to lead from the front?
Jen Staves I think so. So right now, where I'm trying to dip my toe in a bit more, stick my finger in a pie a bit more, I suppose, is the service manual team. So we've got a brilliant content designer in there called Amber, but like a service manual is full of content we need to think really, really strongly about this right? And there's so many different standards owners all over the place.
Adaobi Ifeachor And what's a service manual for people who don't know what service manual is? I know it's a manual for service, but what does that mean?
Jen Staved It's a lot of the documentation on how, how you do a good job at building a service.Right. And so there's a really good open source one that the government digital service has, the GDS service manual. If you Google that, you can open it up and just dig in.
It's great stuff. You know, some of it's about like how do you get the right team for a different phase of your service? And some of it's like, what do you do and not do when it comes to certain technical solutions? And what is the service standard? There's a service standard that has twelve things that services must meet in order to kind of meet the standard for user centred services. So there's a DfE service manual that's being built, which is is really not trying to reinvent the wheel, but it's about how does the service standard work in the context of DfE. So if you know this, then what does that mean here? How do you navigate that? But it can be murky, right? Because there's lots of different standards all over the place. And I think the main thing that we want to do is we want to make sure that we give our internal services the same due care that we would expect of our external services.
So the service manual needs to be done properly because that's the place that tells the other teams how to do it. And so it needs to be just as user centred.
Adaobi Ifeachor So do you think, it feels like there might be a bit of a tension between if you're a new person come into content design Never worked in the civil service before, and you have this kind of freedom and your soul to just kind of do your own thing. But then there also seems to be service manuals, service manuals within service manuals, guidance communities of best practise, do you think, like sometimes in a bid to build a healthy culture and improve people, their development, is there too much going on?
Jen Staves It's quite possible. I mean, it's funny, but like as a content designer, it's often more about what you remove than what you add. So I take it as a major, major win when a page is decided to remove or a step is removed from the process because it's superfluous. And so I think there's a big challenge to think about with standards or with anything else. You give people too much and they just turn off completely and then they just wing it right.
So I think I've got to get in there. I've got to see. And then we can start to think, how do we refine? How do we shrink? How do we make it proportionate to what you're doing? Because otherwise, if you're expected to check thirty different places then it's not going to happen, but I think it's less about like check this, check that. It's more about making sure that we all have a shared principles for how we work. And so you kind of know in your gut, but that, that's just by talking to people and being a part of it and. I think if you are new to civil service, it can be tricky.
It's almost like you should spend the first six months learning the civil service before you do your job.
Adaobi Ifeachor I definitely felt that. With all the acronyms you should just be tested with, like pop quizzes each week.
Jen Staves Exactly, exactly. But you have to learn on the go. That is the fastest way to learn. So a lot of people join the content design. And we hear this at interviews like, oh, I love writing.
And it's like you're going to have to find a different route to fulfil your love of writing, because that's not what content design is here for. You know, if you want to be a novelist, do that, do that at the weekend and then work on your day job about just making things slimline and streamlined for users.
Adaobi Ifeachor as easy as possible for those users.
Jen Staves Exactly.
Adaobi Ifeachor So we've talked, gosh we've talked about so many different things. But I wanted to understand this power coming from the community. It used to be everybody was talking about, what's the best practise here? How can we learn best practise?
But now all of a sudden, people are talking about communities of practise, have you noticed that switch? And what's the difference? Isn't communities of practise basically like learning best practise, but not having it given to you, sort of like figuring it out together or something? Is that the difference? Is that the shift?
Jen Staves Maybe. Yeah maybe. I think it's about, I’ll confess I hate the phrase best practise.
Adaobi Ifeachor Yes. Thank you.
Jen Staves just like I hate the phrase world class. Like it doesn't mean anything. And it's that there's one best way to do thing which isn't true. Right. And even if it is the best thing now, it might not be the best thing in three months time. We just don't know. So I guess what I like about communities of practise is that there's a plurality of good practise. And as long as we are taking into account our user needs and our business needs and we're taking into account that we cannot reinvent the wheel every time because that builds a mountain of technical and content and experience debt, then there's a community of practise. Right. There are many ways to do the job right. That don't, you know, create more problems for us down the line. So I think that I think that's a nice way of looking at it.
Adaobi Ifeachor I like that definition, definitely. I was going to ask next, you talked about some of the components that kind of go into this Thursday meetup, although I have to say one to four. It's a really long time for a meeting. How is that broken up? Like what? What are people doing?
Jen Staves Sure. So the community of practise meeting is just one to two. So that's one hour every Thursday. But something that we're trialling in digital and technology is profession Thursdays. So that's one o'clock to four o'clock every afternoon. That is time that's kind of semi ring-fence for you to develop yourself. It doesn't mean that if there isn't a huge delivery pressure that you just ignore that because you're like Lalalala. I'm learning.
Adaobi Ifeachor Yeah, sorry, I'm reading this afternoon,
Jen Staves but there's a lot of different things that we're doing in that space beyond content design. Lots of all the professions are jumping in. So there's masterclasses. So I ran a master class that anyone could come to on pair writing. My colleague Lewis, he's a head of a profession for a software, is running one on GitHub
Adaobi Ifeachor GitHub for content designers?
Jen Staves GitHub for anybody. Right. So which is awesome. Right. Because content designers do use GitHub.
Adaobi Ifeachor Because usually it's something that you just think of like software developers. Oh, this is a place for me to store my code. But you're saying like this could be useful in the content design space as well?
Jen Staves Exactly. I mean, in some of our services, the content designers are making changes in Git so, yeah, it's really cool.
So there's masterclasses. We bring in people for talks every quarter our user centred design community gets together. So user researchers content designers, service designers and interaction designers for like a quarterly meetup where we do really cool things and we bring in really cool talks.
And so the next one is the head of inclusive design at NHS (I think) Track and Trace who’s going to talk to us. And then also I think it's a real sense that learning needs to be self driven. You can't always be like Jen, what should I learn this week?
It's like, what do you want to learn? Right. So you need to set aside some time for yourself. Do you want to read a new book about your practise or do you want to watch some YouTube tutorials about using the prototype kit? You know, make something yourself, do it. You have to invest in yourself as well.
Adaobi Ifeachor Yeah. Can I make a suggestion?
I know this is actually is a little bit counter to everything you just said a moment ago, but I like when you were talking about all these kind of designers getting together, my thought was like, that's so cool. As a product manager, I'd love to know how to work better with all these different design disciplines. Like I would love some sort of thing when you're planning your next one in the future. If you think about us product managers, too, because I want to get the best out of my my digital delivery team. There must be frustrations as a designer, when you think like I come in as a content designer and my product manager doesn't know what I do, so doesn't know how to get the best out of my skills. So that's something to think about maybe when you're planning you like another future session.
But at the time of recording this, I hear that you are about to start recruiting maybe for some more content designers. If someone is interested in coming into government or specifically DfE as a content designer, what should they be lining up in terms of their experience? That will mean they are more attractive as a candidate?
Jen Staves That's a good question. So we just closed a couple of campaigns, but we are really growing, which is super exciting compared to where we were in November. I'm just really excited that we have so many content designers and that we're convincing people on the value. So a big thing that I think we don't talk about enough are outcomes.
So what I don't want to hear is that you created a cool video or that you, you know, where the content designer of the service I want to know what you did in that service that made it deliver better. Like, how did you improve the user's lives or how did you unblock them getting through that form or what did you deliver back for the organisation? Right. I want to know what your content did. So I'm really big on results. And it doesn't mean that your results had to be smashing every single time. I'm OK to hear whether you did something and it didn't work and you learnt something from it because that just shows that you're really, that you're really doing that. And then the other thing that I'm really big on is evidence and not just one type of evidence, but that, you know how to get different types of evidence and bring them together to inform a content design decision. So user research, yes, we love it. But there are times where people do use their research when they don't need to.
Adaobi Ifeachor Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Jen Staves But then also performance. How is the content that's already out there performing? What is it doing? Bringing that all that data together, that is the way to convince people is through evidence. And when people are ready to, you know, push content onto the side, when you bring evidence in, that's when you've got your best chance.
Adaobi Ifeachor OK, so before we end then, is there anything that you want to add to this idea of community, particularly for people who might have given it a go and it’s just not as healthy as they want it to be?
Jen Staves Yeah, OK. So I think, first of all, like, I'm here as one head of profession, but we have loads of head of professions who are all doing a great job trying to work with their communities. But if you don't talk to them about what's not working for you, they can't necessarily help. Right. So if maybe you try being in my community and the content design community and we're like, this is too much for me, reach out to the head of profession and talk to them and be like, these are my needs, you know? And then they might be able to signpost you or they might be able to say, you know what, that's actually come up somewhere else. Let's think about how we how we make this better. So that's one thing.
And then the other thing is, I think we all have different styles and personalities and that's OK. Right. So I would say do your best to participate in the community in some way. But it's not always that you have to be camera on, always smiling and laughing. It's like if you want to participate once a month or once a quarter, but you're actively sharing something, cool. The point is, is that it's a give and take. It's not a car. And just like, listen, it's how can you share your expertise or what you've learnt from being in your service and how can you learn something from somebody else? So it's that kind of like virtuous circle that keeps giving, but it only keeps giving if people are involved.
Adaobi Ifeachor Really great note to end on. I just want to thank everyone who's been listening. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you so much for guest, Jen Staves, who is head of content here at DfE Digital and Technology. We have so many more things that we want to share with you in future pods.
If you have suggestions, please do let us know. Our Twitter is at DfE_DigitalTech and our blog is www.dfedigital.blog.gov.uk. But of course that is a complete mouthful, so you're probably better off just Googling it. Just Google DfE, Digital and technology blog and it will make your day so much easier.
So thanks again, I’m Adaobi Ifeachor, join us next time. Bye bye.
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
Think digital, act human: Black voices in digital and technology
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
The second episode of our 'Think digital, act human' podcast which shines a light on the stories of the people behind our digital and technology projects.
Hosted by Product Manager, Adaobi Ifeachor, in this episode we’re celebrating the work of 3 Black digital and technology experts in DfE.
Keisha Herbert, Virginia Brown and Courtney Allen explain the critical part they play in designing, building and running services.
Transcription
[Music plays]
Adaobi Ifeachor Hello, welcome to Think Digital Act Human, a podcast where we tell the everyday stories of digital specialists working on extraordinary projects.
I’m Adaobi Ifeachor, a product manager here at the Department for Education. OK, so today is a particularly special episode because we have not one, not two, but three digital and tech experts from DfE. So in a second, I'm going to introduce you to them. But for now, just grab yourself a cup of coffee. We'll wait for you. We're excited, but we will wait. And now I'm going to introduce you. So we've got Keisha Herbert, a senior user researcher from Teachers Services. Courtney Allen, an associate product manager from Get Help Buying for Schools, and Virginia Brown, a content design lead from the apprenticeship service.
Adaobi Ifeachor Welcome, everybody.
Virginia Brown Hello
Courtney Allen Hello
Keisha Herbert Hi
Adaobi Ifeachor So this is a special episode for another reason, if you’re someone just listening to our dulcet tones, you probably wouldn't have noticed anything. But I'm going to tell you, we're all black, digital and tech specialists. I wanted to put something positive out into the universe, I guess.
I think, this is really to all my guests as well, like the last 18 months, say, has been pretty kind of miserable for everybody on the planet.
We've had a pandemic. We've had lockdowns. We've had missed occasions with family and friends and things like that. But recently, if you are a member of the black diaspora, we've had some extra things happening as well. So everybody knows about George Floyd's murder.
And recently with the Euros, we've had abuse happening towards players who really did nothing wrong at all except play whilst black, I guess. So I just thought, you know what?
You had all that kind of negativity. Let's have a space where it's just positivity. We're hearing about the great things that black people are doing in their careers, how they moved into this world of digital and tech. I want to know your stories. I'm going to kind of come to you one by one and just find out a little bit about what you actually do. So if I come to you, Keisha first, so senior user researcher Teacher Services. There are people who will be listening who have no idea what a senior researcher is. When your mum asks you, what do you say?
Keisha Herbert She does still ask me quite a lot. So I still have to keep telling her what I do. Senior user researcher is basically understanding the user needs. So if you're designing a service, developing a service, you have to understand what the user needs to ensure that that service is built for them and built to really meet those needs. So that's what I do. I go out and speak to people within Teacher Services I'm speaking to potential teachers because I work on the Get into Teaching website. So that's all about inspiring, informing and reassuring people that want to get into teaching. So I go out and speak to them and understand what can we do better? How can we improve the website to ensure that they have all the information they need and they understand what to expect when they're going along their journey to becoming a teacher. That's ultimately what I do.
Adaobi Ifeachor Awesome, thanks Keisha. Let’s come to you next Courtney. And this is a bit awkward. Like when I was first looking for who I might invite to be on this panel of guests, I was like, Courtney Allen, Courtney Allen, that name seems so familiar. And then, of course, I remembered I was one of the people who interviewed you for your job.
Courtney Allen Yes.
Adaobi Ifeachor Don’t feel like you have to be super polite to me, it’s fine. Say whatever you want to say. Courtney, what does an associate product manager do?
Courtney Allen Associate product manager is a trainee role. Product management is kind of sitting at the heart between user experience, tech, and a business team to kind of systematically figure out what is the best thing to build next and why.
Courtney Allen So you'd work regularly with your user researchers and your content designers to work through what they've discovered and decide what's the best thing to build next and the most important thing for both the business and the user.
Adaobi Ifeachor So, Virginia, Courtney just said that he works closely with people like you, with content designers. Is that true? Do you work closely with product managers? And if so, what are you doing?
Virginia Brown Yes, we do. Content design is, I’d say at the heart of things. We are problem solvers and without content you don't have a product. There's nothing there. It doesn't exist. It's empty space. So you kind of need content designers to help you solve that problem or solve the ask, as I like to think.
And it's not all just about writing the words, it's about creating the right content at the right time, in the right space as well. And when you serve up to people or our users, like, what is that content and what is the expectation? What are they supposed to do with that information? Because everything we do, especially within government, must have a purpose. There must be an ask to it. Nobody comes to us to browse. As much as people like to think, they come to complete a task, so by creating this content, what do they need to do next? What is the next call to action? And working with our product owners and product managers, it's really important to understand. Have we done that? Have we solved the ask? And is it what everyone expects, look, we don't want to all be in one one meeting and come out with several different ideas. And the results are really different to what you expect. So it’s having those open conversations and really getting into the the detail of always asking those questions. Have we solved what we intend to at the beginning of a project?
Adaobi Ifeachor So before I worked for the civil service, I actually worked over at the BBC and I thought I knew what agile was, I knew like the different roles that would be like on a digital delivery team, for example. But we had UX designers (user experience designers) and that was kind of like the only designers that I knew really existed. And then I came to DfE and all of a sudden I've got content designers, I’ve got interaction designers, I’ve got service designers. So are you able to say Virginia, like, how are you different from those other types of designers and how do you kind of work with them?
Virginia Brown Yes, so content design. It's fairly, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a fairly new profession, like it's, I think 10 years old, perhaps. Don't quote me on that. But the work of a content designer is more than just writing the words or filling in the boxes. We work really closely in what I call the UCD triangle. So that's user centred design with a user researcher or interaction designer or UX designer (user experience designer). It depends where you are, because before I came to DfE, I'd never heard of interaction designer. I'd always worked with UX designers, user experience designers. But those three, we work in tandem. So with the user researchers, they speak to the people who’ll be using our services and we can't create content out of thin air.
Well, if we do, it will fail. So we were really close to our user researchers. So what are they saying? What do they need? What are their actual needs rather than their wants? Or the business wants? It’s a balancing act - I'm sure Keisha can attest to that. And also with our interaction designer, we don't just fill in boxes so we don't wait for them to create something and then we kind of fill in the content boxes. Content designers look at the whole package from end to end.
So bringing in the user researcher, what they actually said, leaning on our interaction design colleagues, what can we design to make that work? How does it work? Because often words won't help. It's very easy, I think, to create a glorious long document, sixty pages long, because it's really tangible. And you can show someone what you've done. But if your users are time poor or they don't have the reading ability or they don't frankly want to read a sixty page document, then you're going to fail at the very beginning. So as a content designer, we look at what do our users want, what are they actually trying to do or complete and what's the best way to serve that? You know, it could be these people might prefer a video that works better for them because content isn't just words. It's not just the written word.It's video.
It's a podcast that we're on today. It could be a webinar. It could be a series of blogs, all manner of things. And as content designers, we have to think in that way. And we bring along our other colleagues who are not in the content space. So when we work with policy, we're trying to find out what's your policy intent and how do you know it's been successful. Always thinking about the KPIs because it has to be measurable. Like, I can't tell you if something's worked if we don't set the key performance indicators at the beginning and say that this will be success when someone does X, that's really important. So as content designers, that's what we're thinking of. So then we can go to our product managers and say, hey, I’ve got a great idea, we're going to do a webinar
Virginia Brown instead, because actually our users are not going to sit and read this document. They're going to listen to it or they’re going to learn. They want to learn something and want something tangible. And that's what content design is, that’s what it is working with our two other professions. It's really important that we work closely together, because if we have our user researcher go out and do lovely research, they speak to like twenty people, they come back with some really key and important information to say actually the assumptions we made at the start are completely wrong. We need to go in a different direction.
If a content person doesn't know that, they'll keep going with the assumption they had the beginning of a project. And it will still fail. So it's really important we have those user research conversations and work close together. So the content we're creating aligns with the user needs that have been found at the beginning and then we’re bringing the interaction designer who can help us design. And this is when you think of design, you know, what the person's going to see, what they're going to look at on the screen and how it will work. And then we can work together to ensure it's accessible for our users. Is it something they're actually going to do, for example? Is that a form they're going to fill out? How many pages we need to go through, it’s things like that. It’s hand in hand. You can't have one without the other, in my opinion. So when there's a project that's whipped up, a delivery team, when one of the triangle is missing, so there's no content design, no user research, I get very nervous because who's doing what in this profession? Because as much as I love user research, because I’m quite a nosy person, I can't go out and start doing research for people. It's not my profession. I need those expertise within my team.
Adaobi Ifeachor So you're hearing that Keisha, Virginia needs your expertise in her team.
Keisha Herbert I like to hear it.
Adaobi Ifeachor [laughs] So, yeah, you know what Keisha, let’s stick with you for a second. Can you give me, like, an example of, like someth ing you're working on at the moment? How did it start and how do you start breaking the problem down to to know what to do with it?
Keisha Herbert Yeah, I can give you an example. So at the moment I'm actually working with different people in my team, so the interaction designer, content designer. And they've come to us, the researchers in the team and they've said, OK, we want to develop this page, which is a page around events. They want to develop that, they've got their assumptions, but they want to make sure that when they actually change that design, that that design is based on the user's perspective. So everything that they change is user centred. So they want us to go out and speak to users to understand what they think of the current page so that they can then go off and then develop new designs based off the back of that research.
So that's how it tends to work within the team. And it's really nice because there's value you've seen in understanding user needs, but also the research that we do. So it tends to be that other people in the team come to us, ask us whether we've got an understanding from previous research or actually that we need to go out and speak to our users and then they bake that into their, I guess, designs and developing the service. So, yeah, I think being user centred is key. I'm just making sure that the users are at the heart of everything that is created within the service.
Adaobi Ifeachor I know what I do as a product manager if I'm asked to kind of look at a problem and see if it really is a problem, like, you know, how to lead a discovery, move something that's worth looking at into alpha or beta or whatever. Courtney, how is this for you as an associate? I have to say I haven't really thought about that very much, because what I've noticed so far is that there tends to be a product manager and an associate product manager on a lot of DfE digital delivery teams. So I've always kind of seen my role as trying to mentor my associate product manager and make sure that if they go for the next step up, they're ready to go, or if there's like a project that suddenly comes up, they feel confident leading that project. For you, like, do you hope you'll be given a meaty piece of something to own or do you have to kind of like, fight for it and let people know that, yeah, I can do this or here's my idea? Like, what's your approach as someone coming in as an associate product manager?
Courtney Allen It's a bit of both, if I’m honest. I think, well, the good thing about being an associate is you're working with people that want to see you succeed so they're going to give you opportunities. The product manager that I work with, gives me, you know, some meaty pieces of work but there are also opportunities to help out the team with other areas. Let's say we don't have enough user research resource. You can jump on and fill in and do some diary studies or you can jump in and help out with synthesising some user research stuff that's already been done.
So it's both, it’s both. You have opportunities that are given to you and there's kind of a plan for helping you to succeed and progress. So it kind of it’s looking at your capabilities and where are your strengths and help you build on your strengths, as well as kind of ironing out your weaknesses.
Adaobi Ifeachor Yeah, I’ve always thought of being a product manager as you've got the traditional sort of strategic long term view of a product as a product manager. Then you got like this sort of daily tactical, I'm working with the engineers and the BAs (business associates), product owner space.
And on top of that, there’s this is kind of if, it's no one's role, you can't let that fall because it's not officially in your job title. If it’s not officially in anyone's job title I always see it as being like being in my job title to either do it or delegate it. It's when people say servant leader I never really used to get that, but I guess you are doing things for the team to make sure that team is as healthy as it can be.
But anyway, listen, we've talked about your jobs today, and that has been very interesting. But I want to know, how did you all get into your roles and particularly how did you get into sort of digital tech roles in the civil service? I'm fascinated by this because I just don't think it's the first thing you think of when you're starting to think about a job in digital tech. Civil service might not come to everyone's mind straight away. So how did you get here?
Keisha Herbert Yeah, I can talk about my trajectory and just how I got into the civil service. I guess my route might be quite different to other people. So I worked in boutique qualitative research agencies for the past 10 years. So I've done a lot of traditional market research, quite different to what I'm doing right now. And I worked across lots of different sectors from energy, charity, cookie brands like very, very varied and also lots of different projects from advertising to sort of international. And I think what made me take the plunge into civil service in DfE, which is only a few months ago (I'm very new to the civil service), was that I've always found UX and Digital just very fast paced and exciting. I've also really enjoyed to see the focus on accessibility, diversity and inclusion. You don't see that sort of emphasis when you're working in more traditional market research.
And then in terms of being in civil service in DfE, I think I really wanted to work on more meaningful projects. So working on services across education was just very motivating for me. But also to be involved in those end to end projects rather than just going off doing a bit of research, delivering it to your client and then not hearing about it again. I'm now involved in the full lifecycle of that project but also in the strategy as well. So that's how I got into it and so far really enjoying being in that digital space within Teacher services.
Adaobi And what about you, Virginia? Any advice for people who have heard you talk about content design, are fired up and they want to know more about it? How do you even walk towards that journey?
Virginia Brown Yeah, I got into it in my last role, I was a web editor and I focussed on web copy and copywriting and then my head of department at the time was like we do more than that. She had heard of content design and we went on this content design training course and learnt more about what that was and what it encompassed and realised that actually, we do more than just edit. We are having those conversations with our colleagues about what content they want, the types of content they do, and what's the ask.
And so content design is, I think of it as like solving a puzzle. You're trying to solve a problem with either, you know, with research at hand, which is quite nice, or often you don't, and you have to make your best guess. And you’re having to balance the needs of a business with the needs of your user.
And so as a content designer, anyone wanting to get into it, it’s really exciting because I think you see that end-to-end journey and you can see if what you've produced actually helps people. Does it solve their problem or do you need to do a little bit more work because people have to use your content. And it's not all guns and glory. You know you’ve done well when people don't realise they've been pushed along a journey, essentially, it kind of happens in the background it's very subtle. And, you know you’ve done well when people just complete things and they’re like that was really easy. And that's just music to my ears when people say that - that was really easy - because I know I've done my job. The role of a content designer is to make complex things very simple for the user. Because something is complex within your department or within your company, your user doesn't need to know that, that's not their business. They just need to complete the thing they’ve come to complete. They don't need all the stress and hassle that you've gone through. You need to shield them from that. And to show them it’s actually very simple. You take them on a journey and they can complete the thing quite easily. And people want to get into content design. It's, you know, if you're curious, like to solve problems and can work really well with different people, that's kind of what you need, I think, because often writing is like the last thing you do that might shock some people, but it really is the last thing you do. Often you're bringing people along the journey with you, you're explaining things. You're trying to really get to the problem, because often the problem you're presented with initially isn’t the problem. It’s easy, I think sometimes to jump to the solution and it’s actually well what we're trying to fix. What is the issue - is it that they're not filling in the form or they're filling it in incorrectly? And what is incorrect about it? What do you need them to do? And often, when you ask people what they need to do, they tell you very succinctly but then what they produce is all of their internal struggle, to then serve it to users, it’s like we cut that out and make it very, very simple for them.
Adaobi Ifeachor Courtney, you have like, the perfect job for someone who is aspiring to be a product manager. How did you get into that? How did that happen?
Courtney Allen Yeah, so my recent experiences as a digital officer and that's kind of a jack of all trades digital role, so I did a bit of web management, social media, content design and a bit of project management. And I was kind of never getting very deep into any of those disciplines, and I'm kind of looking to get deep into one. For full context, my previous role was in a local government. SO I worked at an organisation called London Councils, and we’d recently signed a local government digital declaration, which kind of meant that we needed to start designing services that best met the needs of citizens. And this kind of led me down the rabbit path into doing less project management and more product management, working more in more agile ways, building prototypes and testing them with users. And then, you know, finding out how to improve things and then building again and kind of got to the end of that process and thought, I think product management is something I wanted to do. I explored a course in it. And I started seeing, you know, associate product manager roles and programmes start popping up all over the place. And I wanted to stay within the government area. I wanted to do work that had an impact on people's lives.
Adaobi Ifeachor Yeah, I think the money is pretty good for the market. But let's face it, most people who come into the civil service are here because we want something that's very meaningful. We want to help other people. So, yeah, it's kind of hard. I heard all of you say something like that that really resonates with me, too.
I think in the spirit of adding something positive into the conversation about black professionals, black working professionals, what I wanted to kind of do it’s a little bit of a tongue in cheek exercise, actually, because I asked my white colleagues if there were any questions that they have always wanted to ask a black person, but felt a little bit too shy to ask and so I’ve a list of things here and we'll see what we can do for time.
But one of them and the reason why this idea came to mind is because I started off by talking about George Floyd. And I remember I was actually at the BBC at the time and a friend of mine there phoned me up the day after and just was like, you OK? I just saw the news. Just want to see if you were OK. And I was like, super surprised by that. I was not expecting that. But I was also incredibly touched that he had thought to do that. And then at the same time, there were people who I thought I was quite close to as work colleagues who didn't say anything because I think they were like, it's kind of like when someone dies, right? You're like, do I mention this? Or would they prefer that I don't speak about this at all? So I kind of wanted to say, like, if you have any questions, this is the time to ask because we're a friendly bunch and we'll see what we can do. So here are some of the questions that came through, some are a bit funnier than others. So let's see.
Adaobi Ifeachor One of them has said, how do you feel when asked about your ethnic background? I'm often asked where I'm from because of my accent. And I'm always happy to say Romania, but I wonder how black colleagues feel when asked something similar.
Virginia Brown I would say to that, accept the first answer they give you. There's nothing worse than if you say, Oh, I'm from, for example, London and they go oh, but where are you really from? Don't say that. That's rude.
Courtney Allen I couldn't have put it any better.
Virginia Brown Just accept the first answer.
Courtney Allen Yeah.
Adaobi Ifeachor And I think, like picking up off the back of that, I think the reason why people ask you where you're from is because they can kind of hear something that lets them know like, oh, that doesn't sound like anywhere in the UK, they must not be from here. If you're kind of saying, but where are you really from to a black person that says, well, this black person couldn't possibly be from here. And the only reason why is because they're black. Right? So that's kind of like the step that so many people make without meaning to be rude.
And I totally get that because I grew up in Devon. So I literally was the black population for a significant part of the nineties. So um yeah, I totally get it, as Virginia says, accept the first answer that people give you gracefully, and we'll all be happy. That's pretty cool.
Adaobi Ifeachor OK, so someone said, how does it make you feel when white people get it wrong? Is there anything that would help you in that situation? Could acknowledgement that they've got it wrong be useful?
Well, firstly, I'm going to say to that question, thank you for making yourself vulnerable and sending in a question we really appreciate it! I’d say that it’s 2021 at the time that we’re recording this and I imagine for people of a certain generation, yes, it's a very awkward time because there are men and women and people who are non binary and there are black people and then mixed race people and how do you refer to people? And I feel like for some people it can be a bit kind of like daunting, like hoping you don’t offend people and I will tell you right now, at some point, you're going to get it wrong and that's OK.
If you accidentally refer to someone as a man and they correct you and say, well, actually, I prefer you said they or them, it's kind of similar to the thing that Virginia said. However someone self identifies, that's what you go with. If you get it wrong that first time, they may correct you, then just go with the correction that they've given you. If you get it wrong and they're immediately super angry with you and there's no conversation, it's just kind of anger that's coming at you. In a way, I would say that's almost not your fault, just try not to take it personally. Like, all you can do when people correct you is just try to do better next time, just try to kind of live and learn. Is there anything I'm missing from the answer, guys?
Keisha Herbert Yeah, I think it's just important to be open to learning. I think that's the main thing. So if you've got it wrong, rather than being precious about getting it wrong, that you're open to building your understanding, so then the next time when that situation arises, you don't get it wrong again and another person isn't affected. So I think it just openness and that's in all areas of life. But I think in those situations, just put your hands up say, OK, I'm sorry, that was wrong, and now I know what to do next.
Adaobi Ifeachor So another person has asked, have you felt uplifted by any of the actions people have taken in response to incidents of racism?
Courtney Allen Yeah, I'd say definitely after the Euros when in the immediate aftermath, there was a lot of hatred for Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka and it was quite you know, it was very hard to watch. I was uplifted by seeing the outpouring of love that lots of fans gave to Bukayo Saka. He missed the last penalty but he was like, you know, the 19 year old that you know, was given all the pressure in the world. And the mural that went up up north for Marcus Rashford as well. Like, I think there was definitely lots of hate at the time like in the immediate aftermath and then a huge outpouring of love that came after that.
Adaobi Ifeachor That’s a great answer. I'd say for myself, I'm someone who lives in the north of the country. And I was on a tram a couple of years ago and it was quite a busy tram. And this white man who identified himself at the time as a police officer told me to get off the tram. And I didn't really know. I mean, I didn't know if he was a police officer or not. And secondly, I didn't really know what my rights were in that situation. Do I have to immediately do what someone says if they say they're a police officer? So I just kind of stood there but I also was like, I really need to be on this tram because I'm actually kind of late getting somewhere so this is the last chance for me to get there on time. And as I was thinking that there were other people getting on the tram who were white and he didn't say anything to them. And I realised, oh, that's what this is. And he started getting louder and more kind of obnoxious, shouting at me to get off.
And this voice in the crowd, like somewhere buried deep in the crowd. This one woman said, just leave her alone. And it was like, it broke the spell for him. And he immediately backed down and kind of grumbled to himself a bit. But then the tram moved off. And when he eventually got off the tram, like all these people came up to me afterwards and they were like, oh, my gosh, that was such blatant racism and it was so disgusting the way he was talking to you.
And I was kind of like, where were you five minutes ago when I felt extremely alone? But I will always remember that one woman I didn't even see her face just saying something. And I think it feel intimidated if you’re like a bystander. But just that one thing you can do, it can really uplift people, it can really give them the strength that they need in that moment to kind of carry on with something that is humiliating or kind of upsetting. So please, I would say, like be that voice, be that bodiless voice and not necessarily the people after the fact, you know. But that was something that was extremely uplifting for me.
Adaobi Ifeachor OK, so we're coming to the end of this. And I will say, as positive as I want to be in this whole case, my digital experts like there is going to be something else we know, that's just kind of the fact of being a black person in Britain. Right? There's got to be something else that happens. And in my case, like how would you like your kind of colleagues to approach you or not approach you? Like what would be cool behaviour for you?
Keisha Herbert Well, a really great example for me was after the Euros 2020 and after what Courtney mentioned happened to the three footballers. And I felt that the response from Teacher Services was great and not something I’ve ever experienced before in the workplace. So they put up a statement on slack and they were just acknowledging that it had happened. Because sometimes I find that these things happen, they go viral and they're quite difficult situations for us to be in at the time, but then you get to work the next day and it's not mentioned at all and everyone talks about everything that happened around the awful situation. So I think actually having your team, your colleagues actually acknowledge what happened is really important to let you know that they understand and they appreciate that actually it might be a difficult thing that you went through the night before. And so that's what happened in Slack. But in addition to that and following on from what you were saying, Adaobi, about action, they also put in place a safe space. So there was actually a space for people of colour to go if they wanted to talk about this issue in more depth. So there's an understanding that maybe people don't want to talk about it with white colleagues, but they might appreciate talking about it with people who can empathise or have experienced similar things. So to me, I think that's a really good way of a) acknowledging and b) sort of putting in some action. And I think that's a really good starting point.
Adaobi Ifeachor and a really good, positive note to end on as well. Thank you so, so, so much to my guests, Keisha Herbert, Courtney Allen and Virginia Brown. I really enjoyed this discussion today.
And I hope that it has done for you listeners what I hope it would do, which is to put some positivity out into the universe. I want to say thank you to the show producers as well, Rosie Roff, Lou Mullan and Nettie Williams. So that's it. Thank you very much for joining us.
In the meantime, if you want to hear anything more from us specifically, why not tell us? You can always get in touch with us on our Twitter, which is @DfE_DigitalTech. And if you're not really on Twitter, you can always leave a comment on our blog post, which is dfedigital.blog.gov.uk.
Thank you so much for joining us for this cup of tea. Speak to you next time. Bye!
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Think digital, act human #1
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Think digital, act human is our pilot podcast series. We'll be shining a light on the human stories behind our digital and technology projects.
In this episode product manager, Adaobi Ifeachor, meets our chief digital technology officer Emma Stace to reflect on quite a year, discuss topical issues and look forward to what’s next for DfE Digital and Technology
Transcription
[Music plays]
Adaobi Ifeachor
Hello, welcome to Think Digital act Human, a podcast where we tell the everyday stories of digital specialists working on extraordinary projects. I'm Adaobi Ifeachor a product manager here at the Department for Education. In a moment, I'm going to introduce you to our first guest. But let's dig in a little bit more into why we're doing this podcast, what the concept is. Every day, millions of pupils, teachers, frontline workers and educational professionals are affected by the work we're doing in the background here at DfE (Department for Education) digital and technology. And our work is centred around these users. But who are the people making it all happen and what drives them to do it? What are the stories behind the user stories? Well, this series will shine a light on the human stories behind our digital projects, the stories behind transformational work and the skills and attitudes our people bring to and take from their work. So absolutely no pressure then to our first guest, Emma Stace, Chief digital and technology officer. Welcome Emma.
Emma Stace] Hi.
Adaobi Ifeachor
Can you tell us a bit more about what exactly does a chief digital technology officer do?
Emma Stace
Okay that's a big question. I think I'm still trying to work out. What do I do? I would say that most of my work is about people and very little of it is actually about technology. And so as the leader of digital and technology, my role is focussed on making sure that our work impacts the people we're here to serve - children and learners and also create the environment in which all of our people working across digital and technology can do excellent work to deliver value to those children and learners. So, you know, most of my day is focussed on people.
Adaobi Ifeachor
So full disclosure to listeners, I am actually pretty brand new at the department and the civil service completely. So as I understand it, this group we're talking about today didn't even really exist five years ago. We're going to dig into that, and we're going to find out what it is you've been up to over the last four years or so. And we're also going to talk about the DfE (Department for Education) digital and technology merger and what your plans are for the future. But first, I have to know, what was your journey? How did you get here? Who is Emma stace?
Emma Stace
There are no simple questions on this podcast.
Adaobi Ifeachor
I'm going to need to know the meaning of life at the end as well.
Emma Stace
[laughs] I'll try and figure that out as we go along. So who am I? In terms of the real basics I have three children, one beautiful child from my first marriage, Kiran, two children from my second marriage. I am the daughter of a civil servant. I travelled the world with my father growing up. I went to American schools. I went to boarding school at 13 while my parents were living in India. And then I married an Indian and lived in South Africa for a while. So my lifestyle and my background have been very nomadic and I arrived back in the UK about 10 years ago and I'm determined now never to leave. I like being settled finally in my life and in my work. I think those experiences are pretty formative in terms of how I got to where I am today. My father instilled in me the values of public service and thinking about others and dedicating your life toward others. He always tells the story of leaving LSC with a doctorate when he was 24 and he went to Unilever and they were offering him lots of money and big bucks. And the one question he posed to them is, can you tell me why I would dedicate the rest of my life to selling soap? And that was the story he used to tell at the kitchen table, which totally shaped who I am and what I value. And then probably the other informative part is, is all of that travelling. So I've had the great gift of experiencing many different people, many different cultures, and also working across many different industries. I came to the civil service eight years ago. Before that, I was in television production. I worked for a multimedia agency. I've ran my own business. I've been a consultant. And I just I love diversity of thought, diversity of talent, and I love the power of what you can achieve when you can bring all of that to the workplace.
Adaobi Ifeachor
A lot of people, when they think government, when they think civil service, technology and digital they're not necessarily the first things you think of, if that's a career that you're looking to go into. How did you end up in this particular role? I'm assuming you didn't start off in a digital and technology role in government or did you?
Emma Stace
No, I did. So, I was living in Australia with my young family and had ran an organisation in Australia which was aimed at supporting young people in their mental health, an organisation called Reach Out. And in that organisation, I was what was called a chief operating officer and was responsible for transforming the whole organisation to be more service focused and more user focussed in terms of how we reached young people and delivered to them and I got the real bug there for digital and transformation and business change and cultural change. And when I came back to the UK, I was shopping around for what are the most interesting and important things happening in the UK that bring all of those passions together. And at the time, the government digital service led by Mike Bracken, was this force of change within the civil service. I met a giant of digital and technology, a gentleman called Tom Loosemore for a coffee. We had a chat and then I found my way into the Government digital service, leading transformation across multiple agencies for what was then the Department for Business. So my way into the civil service was through the Government digital service. And then as my time there matured, I really wanted to not just be in the centre of government, but actually have the privilege of working within a major government department to do the do but from the inside.
Adaobi Ifeachor
I have to say, a bit of advice for listeners who are considering making a career change, asking someone for a cup of coffee, asking them for their time, asking them for a remote cup of tea is really powerful because not only are you forming those relationships, but you find out stuff that you wouldn't necessarily find out if you just emailed them. Would you agree with that?
Emma Stace
Yeah, it's interesting. I was on a forum yesterday evening. We were talking about the values of the civil service and how is it different from the private sector. Because money isn't the motivator, profit isn't a motivator in the civil service I think it brings a culture and attracts people who are very generous with their time. And I have been gifted a lot of time from some very brilliant people and, you know, in the position that I am in now I want to give that back. So someone reaching out and saying, let's just have a coffee and a chat, I think is incredibly powerful. That can take a bit of bravery, I guess, on the end of the person reaching out, because that's an assumption, isn't there, that everyone's really busy and these are important in inverted commas, people that I try to make myself as available as I possibly can be to anybody who just fancies a chat. Because as you and I are experiencing now, there's power in conversation, and there's power in connection.
Adaobi Ifeachor
Well, I've got my cup of coffee right here, so let's have a look at some of the work that you've been doing over the last four years or so. I hear that things started in a basement somewhere. Like this digital tech team. Can you tell me a bit more about that and how it's developed?
Emma Stace
The legendary basement in Sanctuary buildings in DfE. So I think the most important thing to say is technology has existed in the DfE (Department for education) for many, many years. But digital in terms of digital first service delivery and the skills of user centred design, software development was new to the DfE approximately four years ago. The apprenticeship service is our most mature service within DfE and as part of machinery of government changes, that service arrived at DfE four years ago.
Adaobi Ifeachor
And by service you mean anything that helps members of the public achieve a specific goal? We're helping them to do that?
Emma Stace
Yes. So the apprenticeship service helps young people find employees in which they can undertake apprenticeships effectively. So going back to the basement, a few individuals from the apprenticeship service arrived in DfE and actually seeded the beginning of where we are now, which is a single digital and technology function. And it's interesting, isn't it, that it has literally started from the bottom up digital, and the basement is a good analogy of where we began and where we are now.
Adaobi Ifeachor
So where are we now? What are some of the things that we're doing now that we weren't doing four plus years ago?
Emma Stace
Gosh, these are good questions. And what I'm struck by as we're talking is the past year working in Covid or through covid, we have just gone at a hundred miles an hour for a year. And so actually even pausing with you this morning and having to cast my mind back four years ago feels like an opportunity I haven't had for a really long time is what I'm reflecting on. So where have we come in four years? I mean, firstly, it's often really hard to articulate that because change has happened quite organically and incrementally. And it's really hard sometimes to celebrate those successes and see how far you've come because you're so caught up in the present. What, I would say is we are constantly maturing. So I think we've gone from digital being seen as something that the organisation was relatively wary of to now, something that is front and centre in our strategic approach, about how we're thinking about the future. And clearly Covid demonstrated the absolute necessity of having a good digital and technology capability within the organisation that can pivot really fast to the demanding and ever changing needs of our users.
Adaobi Ifeachor
One moment kids were in schools, the next moment, you're expected to work from home and you might not have a computer, for example.
Emma Stace
Right? Yes, our technology teams and our technology infrastructure kept us going and working throughout Covid, I mean on a dime we went from being in the office, didn't we, to working from home and is now just become new normal, hasn't it? I think covid for every organisation, not just for the DfE, has put digital and technology front and centre. It no longer feels like we're having a 'we need to become more digital' conversation. The question is now, what do we need to achieve and how do we need to achieve it? And that's a mindset shift more than anything else.
Adaobi Ifeachor
I mean, you're right to point out that everybody had to suddenly shift to working from home. But I'm specifically pointing out with that question, there were kids as well, kids who maybe had the use of a family laptop, but then all of a sudden maybe even children with quite different ages are having to fight over the family laptop and still get learning and and DfE had to help support that. It's a challenge.
Emma Stace
Yeah, it was huge. I mean, we spun up what is the biggest delivery of laptops. I don't know if it's in the world, but certainly it's a massive undertaking, one point four million laptops shipped to young and vulnerable people so that they continue education. And I think that whole experience has brought us as an organisation and digital and technology in particular, much closer to the front line of what's actually happening across the country and the importance of schooling, not just in terms of supporting education for our children, but also in supporting their mental health and their well-being and their connection to their community. So, you know, and it sort of reaffirms why you work in the public service when you receive a message from a young person who's just received their laptop and feels connected to their school and their community. That's why you get up in the morning isn't it really.
Adaobi Ifeachor
A couple of things we've briefly touched on for the briefest of moments. I'd like to hear a bit more about, you mentioned user centred design and I know there's this user central design lab, unfortunately, because I started working here during the pandemic, I've not even been into the office. I'm not even sure I would be able to find the office without Google Maps. So tell me, what is this user centred design lab?
Emma Stace
Well, the user centered design lab is a group of very talented user researchers and user centred designers who are tasked with ensuring that what we are trying to achieve in the Department for Education, we're doing it with a lens on our users. And when I say users, we should probably start talking more specifically about teachers, school administrators, people working in early year centres, in some instances, social workers, people who are working in FE (further education) colleges, they use our services. And the end goal of that is improvement to young people and learners. So the user centred design lab is working with policy colleagues to ensure that whatever policy, design or policy outcomes we're looking to achieve as the Department for Education, we're doing it as much as possible with a view on how that policy impacts people in the real world and the options to deliver it effectively.
Adaobi Ifeachor
Policy seems to run through the veins of everything in the DfE. That's understandable, I suppose, but the other thing is service ownership. I wasn't familiar with the service ownership model before I started here and I'm assuming there will be quite a few listeners who aren't either. So what is it exactly?
Emma Stace
So I think what we're trying to achieve with it is introduce this notion of end to end service. So end to end service is, in my very simple terms, a series of transactions that a user will go through in order to achieve an outcome or a goal. And very often in government, we have been guilty in the past of throwing things incoherently towards a user, and the user has to figure out all the steps that they need to do. So service is about trying to make it really clear and simple for our user about how they achieve their outcome. One of the best examples in government, in my view, is the passport office. It takes you right from, 'How do you apply' through to the physical act of going into the building and picking up your passport and so on. So that is for me, an example of service. Service ownership is about establishing within government a culture of an individual and a team being responsible for the end to end experience for the user around the service. And in DfE we try and blend it as much as possible into a role that combines policy design with the delivery of the service. Because so often the quality, the efficacy and the experience of the service is dictated by policy. So what are we trying to achieve? What are the rules that someone has to go through in order to get a passport or a visa, for example? Service ownership is about trying to blend within our culture an individual and team that is responsible for policy and delivery, combining all the skills, commercial, digital, technology and policy design and user centred experience into a team responsible for that overall outcome.
Adaobi Ifeachor
I think there are some organisations and charities, NGOs like people who work very much from a policy basis as well where it almost feels like the rules, the policy comes first and then it's like, OK, what can you do to make this happen in the digital and real world? Just before recording this a new strategy was launched for digital and technology. Can you tell us a bit more about that? What are you hoping to achieve? What's the vision?
Emma Stace
So it's worth saying that this strategy or plan or whatever we want to call it really marks the beginning of the first year in which digital and technology are working together as a single team. And I think you said in your intro, digital and technology came together last summer and we can definitely cover that off in terms of what that's been like and what we've been overcoming and the opportunities that we're now set to take advantage of. I think the purpose of the strategy is to provide a really clear, joined up view for our teams around what we hope to achieve in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two. And it has kind of four key themes. The first one is we've got to run the business. I mean, technology and our credibility rests on our ability to keep the whole organisation running. So that's number one. Number two is continue to respond to the needs of our users and children and learners as we move from what effectively has been a year of crisis response into educational recovery. So what are we learning and what does it mean for the, you know, vast numbers of young people who are coming back into full time physical education and lost learning, as well as impact on mental health? How do we make sure that we support young people moving forward out of crisis? The third one is around what we call raising the bar around our own operational maturity. So we're still maturing. Digital and technology is never a fixed state. We can't stand still ever, because if we do, we're falling behind. So we've got to continuously be investing in our people and our skills and our practises and our ways of working. And then finally, we we need to work really hard on what we call reducing burdens. So I think it's common language within the DfE to say, what we do clearly impacts the sector. And it's our duty to make sure that the way that we're trying to deliver to the sector is as simple and easy for teachers and school administrators and frontline staff as possible. And then equally within our own organisation to make sure that we can move at speed and take out some of the friction of bureaucracy that can stop us achieving value quickly.
Adaobi Ifeachor
It feels like there's an ambition to be a thought leader in terms of digital and technology there if I might interpret it a little bit like that. So what would you want other organisations in the public sector to know about the service ownership model, if they were considering doing something along those lines, what would you say to them?
Emma Stace
Well, the service only model requires collaboration at its heart. It's about bringing a melting pot of different teams, perspectives and skills together to deliver that outcome for a teacher. So if I think in the example of one of our key services is helping teachers find jobs. We got a team who are dedicated towards that, who are a mix of skills from right across the department. And I think this is the big challenge for digital and technology is how do you blend yourself into the organisation? Digital shouldn't be something that is other to the organisation. It should be embedded at its heart. And so getting to the service ownership model is a collaboration between myself and policy directors and policy colleagues, as well as commercial and finance colleagues. So it's about bringing people to the table. I don't have full ownership end to end of that service. My job is to bring the digital and technology expertise to it. But I think what I would say is it's organisational change, not just digital and technology. It's how we think about what we deliver and how we deliver and how we measure our performance.
Adaobi Ifeachor
As a side note to that, I have to say, as a product manager, I would love to be in the room at the very start, the inception of things when you're talking about those policies. With digital, we can reimagine this, this could be something drastically different. So it would be quite exciting to kind of see people collaborating from the very beginning of a process.
Emma Stace
There's that great quote from Hamilton, that song I love, 'you got to be in the room where it happens' do you know that one?
Adaobi Ifeachor
Yes, I saw Hamilton. Actually, all my friends are like Adaobi, can you stop talking about Hamilton? I'm like never.
Emma Stace
I love that song and I think that's a real challenge. If I speak to my fellow CDTOs (Chief Digital and Technology officers) across government, it's a real challenge getting into the room where it happens.
Adaobi Ifeachor
CDTOs? Another thing I've noticed being in the Civil Service, people speak in a different language here.
Right There is something that I have been wanting to ask you about. It goes back to one of the first things we were talking about, which was changing from four people in a basement to, you know, over 100 people and building this reputation amongst the rest of the department that, hey, we're not trying to restrict you, in fact we want to enable all your dreams to come true. But this is like a culture shift, isn't it? Have you come up against, I imagine you must have done, have you come up against a more traditional view of how services should be created and implemented? And how have you tried to negotiate your way around that?
Emma Stace
Yeah, well, I think it's a tightrope walk is the way I describe it. Because you've got to be both a challenger within the organisation, prepared to take risks and show what is possible. But you also need to bring the organisation with you. I mean, I think I've definitely been guilty in the past in some instances of sort of say berattling. And I don't know that that's the right word, say rattling. But what I mean is advocating too strongly and losing people as a result. I'm really trying hard not to talk about the word digital. I'm really trying hard to talk about what is it we're trying to achieve? What is the best way to go about trying to achieve that and sort of deconstruct, if you like, some of the mythology around digital. And at times, I think we're really bad at helping ourselves. I think we speak in a different language. Digital can seem like a dark art or a mysterious art. And I think we are also guilty within the digital community of putting some of that language around us as well. So a lot of it is about just trying to get people to the table to talk about what is the solution to this problem and bring user centred design and expertise and product ownership to that question. But to try and neutralise it, because otherwise, I think certainly at the very beginning of digital in government, there was a perceived notion of us and them. Digital being new and fantastic and actually, I'm not sure if that helps, specifically when it comes to taking a whole organisation with you. It requires a degree of impatience to get going and patience to accept that it takes a while for the organisation to come around. So I would say that most of the days I get quite confused. Are we doing enough? Are we going too fast or are we not going slow enough? But it takes time, it takes a lot of time.
Adaobi Ifeachor
I think also just talking to people on a human level and building relationships, I mean, that's harder to do, now that we’re at home. And it's all video chats and things like that.
On that subject, how have you coped in terms of managing your mental health at home? I mean, there's two aspects to this. I guess there's what you're personally doing and then how exactly do you encourage that in your senior leaders?
Emma Stace
If I think about this last year of leading through covid, it has definitely been the most challenging personal journey in terms of professional working life, and also helping to lead others through that. I suffered from anxiety and I found the crisis at the beginning sent my anxiety through the roof. I just remember being very triggered and very anxious. So I'm fortunate enough that I can recognise that in myself now. And I have a number of strategies that I put in place to support me. So I gave up drinking. I made sure that I did yoga in the morning, in the evening, and spent as much time as I could off screens when it was available to me. And I think that's really important for me because I think the job of the leader is to bring positive energy to work. And so if I'm not taking care of myself, how on earth am I able to take care of others? In terms of looking after others, I think I try and lead by example. Part of me sharing what I just shared with you now is to encourage other people to talk about their mental health and put in strategies to look after themselves and to know that it's okay to say I'm not feeling great today. Being able to share your vulnerability is for me, a mechanism that I use to help others share theirs so that we can create a workplace in which we're looking after each other, in which it's okay to say I'm having a bit of a crap day, maybe even having a crap week, and for team mates to support and encourage each other. And like you said, we're meeting each other across an electronic screen this morning. And yet you can still have human connection, can't you? I mean, I'm looking at you and I can feel your energy in this conversation. So I think the job of a leader is to look after their own energy and then to help others manage that.
Adaobi Ifeachor
You're not just a CDTO, chief digital and technology officer. You're also a mother. How has this last year been on your kids? How has it been being a mother and suddenly a schoolteacher and trying to do PE lessons in the front room or something?
Emma Stace
I am very fortunate. I mean, the one thing about covid is it’s affected all of us, hasn't it? No one has gotten away without being impacted. I'm really lucky. I've got three healthy children who have managed their own mental health really well throughout. The biggest challenge being my gorgeous 17-year-old son. Frankly, I think it's been really tough on teenagers. I'm lucky because I know that it's impacted friends and family and I'm a governor of my local primary schools. I know and experience the impact that it's had on other families. So I would say overall we're in pretty good shape.
Adaobi Ifeachor
I think you've mentioned before that your son is mixed race, is that right?
Emma Stace Yeah.
Adaobi Ifeachor I didn't want to end our discussion without mentioning everything that's happening in the world in terms of George Floyd. As a black woman myself, it feels there was a world before George Floyd’s murder and there was a world after it. I know how it's been like for me and all of my black friends and family, but what is it like as the mother of someone who is mixed race? Did you have to have certain conversations? I mean, what was your experience like? I don't want to assume anything.
Emma Stace
I will share with you 2 experiences. So, one on the personal front: I have a brown skinned boy who was electrified by George Floyd's murder and brought a new level of discussion around race to the family dinner table, no question! And then at work, George Floyd opened up a conversation around race, which we were having in terms of inclusion and diversity. But I don't think we’d really, truly scratched below the surface of. What started off as very difficult ended up in a really open, enquiring place around race within the civil service. And what I learnt through that experience as a leader is it's my responsibility to make sure that black and brown voices are at the centre of all the conversations we're having around race and inclusion and diversity. And that actually I have a role to make sure that I enable those who may not feel naturally confident to voice their experience, to give them the space and the safety to do so. And so this is a long journey we’re on right, there are no easy answers, but I'm committed to making a difference and to using whatever small influence and power I have to ensure that our work place is one that is fair and open for everybody.
Adaobi Ifeachor
Thank you very much for sharing that. That means a lot to me. I know it would mean a lot to our listeners too.
Emma Stace
Across digital and technology, we have the Race working group, which is a brilliant bunch of individuals who are really committed to ensuring that we stay vigilant and we take action. I have a race mentor, an individual who I speak with every fortnight.
Adaobi Ifeachor
You have a race mentor? What’s that about then?
Emma Stace
I've got the lovely - I hope she doesn't mind if I say her name - Lindsey Williams. We sit and chat every fortnight around what's going on and how’s it feeling. And I think one of the things that I've learnt is, you know, we can talk about inclusion and diversity in the metrics, but really it comes down to how are people feeling in the workplace? Do they feel seen, recognised, supported? Does it feel fair? So I really work with her on what more I can do. But she also sort of plugs me into and grounds me in what people think. And we're going to launch together a new initiative where we're going to have people come and spend time with me and follow me around and we'll have a conversation at the end. There is no secret sauce when it comes to being a leader. And hopefully by opening up what it means to be in a senior position, it makes it more accessible to people to aspire to that position themselves.
Adaobi Ifeachor
Thank you so much, Emma. It's been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you, listeners too for joining us on this journey. We hope you got a lot out today. And we've got so many topics that we want to talk about and delve into. Next time on ‘Think digital, act human’, we'll be speaking to a black colleague about their experience of DfE digital and technology. You heard from Emma some of the things that the department has put in place to start talking about race and start sharing black experiences. But we also want to hear some black voices and hear what they’ve got to say about the matter. So that's going to be on our next pod. We hope you join us. You'll bring your own cup of coffee and we'll have a good time. Many thanks to Emma Stace once again, and thanks to the producers of the podcast, Rosie Roff and Louise Mullan and the show creator, Nettie Williams. Thanks a lot. Bye.