What's stopping the trojan mice?

After ‘Wishes’, I’m sharing reflections about January's UKEduCamp (a further and higher education un-conference) and questions prompted by conversations I've had across higher education. It's not a based on one place, situation or person though is related to UK campus based universities.

Before that though….

The day had an excellent and joyful start. Within minutes of arriving, I spotted Leah Lockhart - first time in person. We’d got to know each other online a few years ago, shared messages and ran a UKGovCamp digital session back in #UKGC21. Knowing she’d be there, helped swing my choosing to travel to Edinburgh and enjoy a long weekend too.  

Many first-timers pitched to host sessions, spoke about their experiences and found people to learn with. I saw people I’d initially met at the first UKEduCamp at the University of Sheffield and it was great to see some of my old team from there too.  

There were common themes across previous camps and conferences for HE and the public sector - procurement, digital transformation, product and change management, user research, service design, co-design to name a few. There was chat about ‘managing-up’, collaborating and improving iteratively and openly within traditional formal hierarchies, governance structures and funding rounds. I hosted a session to provide space to pause and share what UKEduCamp may mean for us next and learnt about trojan mice.

I found a collective frustration from some people (including me), a desire to more quickly shift organisations practices and principles and push back on the resilience many felt is expected within further and higher education. A need to ensure digital products and services are designed and delivered to support a broader range of people - driven by evidence, knowledge and care and not ‘Highest Paid Person’s Opinions’ (hippos). That’s recurring at other events and discussions I've had which, (if I’m really honest), makes me impatient and disappointed for lost opportunities. 

Are people and events too timid? Should more hippos attend? How can frustrated trojan mice move to courageous and bolder action? What can hippos do differently? I’ve moved some of my impatience and disappointment into prompts and questions - and I'd love to turn this into conversations and actions with you.

If you’re the trojan mouse

Ask yourself: What’s ‘starting’ for you?  

Cliched and true: Nothing will change until something (you) changes. Unless you start, you’ll never start. Initially focus on what you can control and begin where you are - your tasks, colleagues or priorities. Otherwise it’s frustrating and potentially exhausting. Keep going at the right pace - that’s your accountability to yourself at first. 

Ask yourself: What’s blocking you? 

Start small. Saying and doing ‘new’ in your organisation is a new habit to form, a new muscle to develop. I’m also acknowledging trojan mice have different privileges, expectations and protections placed upon them - recognise and use yours and others wisely.

Don’t strive for perfection and, if that’s tricky for you, try framing differently what you’re doing. You want to do end user research and can’t prioritise the time to do that in the role you’re in?  You’d love to try co-design and know you haven’t the skills, space or support to do that?  Think about what you can do instead. You can have conversations with people, right? Meet your end users (students) where they are? Be honest to yourself and others about what you’re doing - and not currently able to do yet. Gather, use and share what you learn wisely from your conversations but show the value of what you’ve started to do.

Ask yourself: What stops you talking about underlying tensions, differences of opinions, challenges or knowledge gaps? 

You don’t need to have all the answers and it’s not negative to take people into the weeds.  Your starting point may be to facilitate a first conversation and provide opportunities for people to listen and respect each other. It may be scary and isolating. You may find you’re the only one doing this but you certainly won’t be the only one thinking about it. If your organisation structure doesn't easily align with the conversations you want to have - maybe you can ask a hippo for help?