This week, User  Researcher and Designer, Bobby King talks to Tremis Skeete about sketch noting. Tremis asks him:

• What is sketch noting and why does he use it?
• How does sketch noting help clients?

• And how can we learn a bit more about doing it ourselves? 
  
  

We hope you enjoy it, and if you'd like to connect with Bobby King, click on his name to go to his Linkedin profile, or find him at Scottish Design Agency - Haver.

If you have any suggestions for future Three at Threes, or would like to take part in one, we'd love to hear from you -email us. 

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:  hello@thisismilk.co.uk

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! 
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​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?

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.
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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:

• Arm's length leadership - why is this bad for transformation?
  
• Theory over practice - do the certificates really help?
  
• Scaling - when is it right to do this?

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:

• Communication is just one of many facets of a digital transformation journey. How important is it?
• What are the common pitfalls and barriers to effective communication in change management?
• What can organisations do to get it right and what are the tangible benefits of doing so?

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. 

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.

• Why do so many digital/technology driven transformations fail?

• How can you deliver an aggressive change agenda without being aggressive?

• ​How do you know when your culture has been 'transformed?

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 hello@thisismilk.co.uk.
Also feel free to comment and question the video - which will always be on Vimeo, and shared across our social channels.