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This week, User Researcher and Designer, Bobby King talks to Tremis Skeete about sketch noting. Tremis asks him:
If you have any suggestions for a future Three at Three, or would like to take part in one, we'd love to hear from you -email us.
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 By Tremis Skeete Lynn Pilkington is a self-described ‘accidental COVID entrepreneur’, looking at different ways of working and how to bring the most out of people using accessible working environments. This focus has been on fast-forward since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Previously training to be a therapist, Lynn is acutely aware of how everyone’s brain works differently. She has been passionate about developing workplace inclusion and diversity for years. But the onset of the pandemic has brought many of the issues she’s been working on into sharp focus. Learning remotely and digitally showed her exactly how inadequate some of the processes and models are in today’s world, where sending a link simply isn’t enough. Taking inspiration from her background in community engagement, digital learning, accessibility, and equality & diversity, along with her own wavy and winding career and learning journey, she is now focused on creating productive ways to bring out the best in people in a new world of work. “The pandemic has offered an opportunity to approach work differently - to ‘Build Back Better’ with new methods, rather than sticking to the way things have been done in the past,” Lynn says.
Welcome our latest Three at Three. In this week's episode, Angela Prentner-Smith chats to Tesco Bank's Process Improvement and Development Lead Ann Marie Dockerill, about Process Modelling. Angela asks Ann Marie the following three questions:
Why is good process design imperative for business? What do you think the key steps to good process design are? Can iterative process mapping be applied in an agile environment? We hope you enjoy it, and if you'd like to find out more about Ann Marie, click on her name to go to her Linkedin profile. If you'd like to request a topic for future Three at Three, or get involved in one, we'd love to hear from you. Please email your suggestions to: [email protected]
Welcome to our Pride Month special of Three at Three. In this episode, our Engagement and Inclusion expert Lynn Pilkington interviews Mental Health First Aid Trainer and consultant, Davey Shields.
Davey is an independent Mental Health First Aid Trainer and consultant. He is also the founder of the charity MenTalkHealth which was set up to tell stories around mental health to encourage men and others to talk more.
This week, our Product Manager Tremis Skeete is back, this time talking to Labster's Martin Keane about Martin's career journey into product management and learning from his perspective, what it takes to be successful in a product career.
Tremis asks Martin the following three questions: 1. You have a background in marketing with specialities in international research and social media. As you progressed in your career, how would you say that your past roles prepared you for the product management role you have now? 2. You have been in roles with the titles 'project manager', 'product and project manager', and now, a 'product owner'. Could you share with our audience the distinctions between those kinds of roles, if any? 3. If you could list the top five skills that you feel make you successful as a product manager, what would you share? We hope you enjoy it!
In today’s Three at Three, our product designer Tremis Skeete and our UX designer Morgane Tanguy, discuss UX and User Journeys. Morgane gives Tremis her take on the following questions:
1. When you want to understand how a user will use a product what's the first thing you do? 2. When you decide to focus your efforts on understanding user journeys, what problem/s are you trying to solve? 3.Why is it so important to understand the scenarios for when a user interacts with a product?  Morgane TanguyUX Designer at This is Milk At the beginning of this year, I was lucky enough to be one of the twenty women accepted onto Women’s Enterprise Scotland Digital Leadership Programme. Back then I had no idea that the programme would have such a profound effect on me, nor that it would result in launching my very own podcast.
The Leadership programme worked like this: Over 6 weeks, 20 of us met once a week to explore a different topic. The subjects we discussed ranged from strategy, planning, management and persuasion, to diversity, well-being, resilience and inclusion. The sessions were facilitated by a different leader each week. Each one left a mark on me. It was a seriously inspiring collection of women. As the weeks passed, my knowledge grew and I felt my confidence do the same. Being in the company of such amazing female leaders was helping me work out the kind of leader I aspire to be.
When talking about the future, people usually engage in activities of hypothetical observation, negotiation and informed speculation. But how does one perform these activities towards gathering this information? Where does one begin to look at data within the complex realities we live in? Identifying future signals is one of those methods researchers use to recognise patterns in the landscape of our modern world.
In the run up to our Designing for Future Signals course next week, Angela-Prentner Smith and our new Product Manager, Tremis Skeete, discuss the art of Future Signals: what are they? What do you do with them? And how do you recognise them? Here's an overview of what they talked about.
Last year only 2% of parents took shared parental leave. This year MD and founder of This is Milk, Angela Prentner-Smith, and her partner David Prentner-Smith challenged the norm by taking sharing parental leave with their second child, Neve. Here they tell us why they decided to do it, their experience of it, and why they think it’s so important to challenge the expectation that women should always stay at home with the baby.
In this week's edition of our weekly 3@3 series, Al and Steve discuss the Agile method and DT best practice with Agile coach Paul Mathers. Paul was a business architect for 10 years before becoming an Agile coach with Arabica Transformation consultants.
The 3 questions covered in this episode:
In this weeks 3@3 conversation, we speak with John Hatfield from Second City Communications.
John joins us in week number 15 of the series, to give us his take on the following hot topic questions:
In this weeks 3@3, we are joined by CIO Keith Laidlaw.
IT is part of the team and is an essential part of the strategic leadership team along with operations, change management and HR. Keith suggested that years ago IT was considered a citadel department, too busy with other IT related projects to spearhead any organisational change programmes. Over time organisations developed 'IT islands', external to the IT department, which they invariably knew nothing about, which was fine to an extent, however, IT islands affected the holistic nature of the organisations IT systems. Suddenly marketing systems couldn't talk to sales, sales systems couldn't talk to finance, the island effect had created technology 'silos'. Had IT been involved in these change decisions, they would have had a more holistic view of the technology. 
Has working from home killed the command & control manager or indeed the validity of this style of organisational culture? This is 'the big pointy question' Angela and Steve discuss in this edition of our 3@3 video blog.
Angela suggests that while managerial approaches need to change, we're not quite there yet. We are still seeing some organisations encouraging their middle management to push employees down the 9-5 route with little appreciation of those working with children in the house or partners that work shifts. Some organisations consider getting their employees to work their usual 9-5 working patterns as a return 'to normal', and are not yet in the place of looking at deliverable and accountability rather than the proverbial 'bums on seats' approach. These are the organisations that will struggle as this 'new way of working culture', embeds in society. However, Angela suggests that it's never too late to build relationships with your team based on trust, deliverable's and shared organisational goals.
In this week's 3@3 Al and Steve discuss the role of skills development in the successful delivery of transformational projects.
Al talks about his own eclectic learning journey that incorporated further, higher, mature, online learning and everything in between. Having experienced the full spectrum of learning pedagogy's, Al suggests that the most important aspect of up-skilling is to find a learning approach that works for your circumstances and your preferred style of learning.
Within digital evolution projects, do the IT team lead or support? This issue (not surprisingly) comes up a lot. However, given the core driver for all these conversations are around people, their employees, clients, stakeholders etc, the process is ultimately a people-first approach rather than technology first. IT (of course) has its place at the table as evolution programmes are discussed and planned, due to their inherent knowledge about the business and current systems therein. IT departments understand how these systems currently work and how they can be developed and used to greater effect. Digital evolution projects run parallel with BAU activities and the BAU environment is a core part of that evolution discussion, as it is ultimately about improving on what you currently do.
WES came to This is Milk at the tail end of 2019, to support in the development of their proposition but also to help create an online resource to support the female business start-up community. Whether owning your own business is a dream in your head, or you are already set in motion, this website is a library of knowledge to guide you in this journey. When it comes to this website, content is paramount, so it was crucial that we identified user groups and created useable persona’s that would allow WES to create content suited to their needs. 
In our Three@Three web series this week, Al and Steve are joined by Kerry Freeman, the owner of Free Human. Kerry is an expert in FS culture change. Today we are discussing the 3 factors for success in delivering a change road-map.
Al kicks off by asking, what does a healthy culture look like. Kerry suggests that it's important to recognise that there is no one 'cookie-cutter' answer to the question of what makes a great culture. However, Kerry's favourite definition comes from Carolyn Taylor's 'Walking the Talk'. 
In this week's 3@3, Al and Steve discuss the things individuals and organisations should consider before embarking on a transformation programme.
Al kicks off with a hotly debated question in our sector, the definition of 'Digital'. What does digital mean to your business? The answer to this question is usually...it depends. Steve stresses that the best way to tackle this deceptively tricky question is to first assess your organisation's digital purpose. Steve uses an example of a community trust organisation, where a client board or senior stakeholders defined the brief surrounding the DT programme, they believed that the organisation should be using the latest technology in the most advanced way to deliver the most compelling service for their clients.
In this weeks Three@Three discussion, Al and Steve are joined by Jo McCallum, Chief Experience Officer at iDisrupt Digital. With a career in FMCG, drinks and the software industry, Jo has years of experience in leading culture change as part of digital transformation programmes.
We asked Jo three questions on the subject of Cultural Change.
Prior to a number of weeks ago, it was found that 70% of working professionals spent at least 1 day a week working remotely (IWG), with 53% working at least half of the week out of the office.
Remote working is not a new term, however it has been thrust into spotlight in recent weeks with many now forced into their homes for an unknown length of period trying to make the best out of this difficult situation. Make no mistake, for many, working from home (remotely) is not an easy transition or something that they are even set up for. Many have no desks at which to sit, poor lighting maybe, potentially children running around mad, not to even mention the isolation from colleagues and friends. It is understandable that this challenge for many, has been nothing if not, well challenging. (Click 'Read More' to watch video recording of our 'Remote Working & Facilitation' session) 
Over the the past 2-3 years This is Milk has become heavily involved in the world of upskilling & reskilling, with the creation of an award winning training programme, multiple client run training programmes (conducted around the world), and an in-depth research project looking at international best practice to direct Scottish Government in ongoing activities.
It has been a journey born from our want and desire as a business to solve problems, initially to tackle the issue of the digital skills gap in Scotland, swifty moving on and thinking larger to see us traveling the world and growing a community of experts that both advises and drives everything we do. One of these experts is local business transformation expert, Steve Plummer, who since meeting not much longer than 2 years ago, is now not just one of our trusted trainers, mentors and consultants, but a member of the This is Milk family. 
What is Three@Three?
Three@Three, is a weekly video chat, between Steve Plummer (One Pebble Consulting), Angela Prentner-Smith (MD This is Milk) and Al Morris (Transformation lead for This is Milk). Each week they tackle 3 questions topical to today. Sometimes they will invite further collaborators. Why we launched Three@Three? The crisis we face globally is forcing change that hasn’t been seen in our lifetimes. It is demanding a change of approach, a pivoting in thinking and needs to accept being challenged in order to move at the speed we all now need to. Curious minds and challenge are now the norm. Our leaders of the future will be curious, will invite and welcome challenge and want to be provoked into rethinking their received positions. This series of conversations look to raise questions, offer viewpoints and invite challenge to take the conversations forward into new areas. Join the conversation. Everything we discuss, is a topic of debate and conversation - and we'd love you to join that conversation. If you would like to join us in a Three@Three conversation, or would like to submit a topic, just email us at [email protected]. Also feel free to comment and question the video - which will always be on Youtube, and shared across our social channels. The Project This is Milk was contracted by a high street bank who had undertaken a huge organisational transformation to reorganise themselves around their customers. In order to become more customer centric the high street bank saw job role changes, organisational restructures and a huge culture change as being at the heart of the transformation. The remit for the project was to understand the employee experience and design interventions to shift the organisation towards the desired culture, manifested through behaviours.   Al MorrisTransformation Lead, This is Milk Digital Transformation pullout from The Times newspaper (26.09.18)On Wednesday the 26th of September, The Times newspaper had a fantastic pull out supplement on Digital Transformation created by Raconteur. This supplement contains 16 pages of articles, columns, opinions and facts from some of the top minds in Digital Transformation. This really is a fantastic wealth of information and just because you didn't buy the paper doesn't mean you should miss out. Below you will find a link to download a PDF version of this supplement and really we hope you enjoy. (Blog first published 28/09/2018)
 Al MorrisTransformation Lead, This is Milk Increasingly we are seeing and hearing that digital facilitators do not have the right skills in organisations to do the job both now and in the future.
So in typical This is Milk fashion we did something about it and created the Digital Transformation Programme, shortlisted for a BIMA innovation award 2018. |
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Registered Addresses:
Baltic Chambers, Suite 116-119, 50 Wellington Street, Glasgow, G2 6HJ