Weeknotes E11
Hi, I’m Colin a product manager working at the Department of Health and Social Care. Each week I’m going to keep a running update of the work I’ve done & things I’ve learned along the way.
My current priority:
Helping to procure a team capable of delivering the Healthy Start private beta.
Wednesday
- the previous night I tried “possibly the hottest ketchup in the world”. It was also a heatwave this week. No regrets.
- I ran my first retrospective since returning to the department. I followed a modified version of the team health check retro. It went down well I think. Credit: fantastic ex-colleague Victor introduced this to me.
- then off to North London for a beta service assessment
- first time i’ve led a beta service assessment. Found it enjoyable. I hope I put the team at ease and made the environment feel like they could express themselves as openly and freely as possible. Some kind comments after and was lucky that others on the panel were excellent.
- my most recent blog post went live! Got some nice comments, which is very nice. I will try write more in the future.
Thursday
- after the in-person beta service assessment you then need to write the report. As the lead, I made sure I had my comments in there as early as possible for the other assessors benefit.
- we had a flurry of last minute supplier questions. Spent some time answering those with help from colleagues. Trying our best to answer the questions as openly and honestly as we can even if it takes a little extra effort to dig out the info.
- went to the healthy food schemes team meeting (wider than Healthy Start, combines other schemes to do with healthy eating/drinking). I’m co-locating with my new team and I think it’s good to be immersed in the world the team exists in. Everyone is very kind and seem happy to see a new face who is there to help.
- We held our monthly Health Product People event. It was really good. I learned a lot so I would say that. Was about procurement and left with lots of great tips. We invited a supplier in, who I happened to have been assessing the day before. His advice was great. Blog coming soon.
- Credit to colleague Dharmesh again with wonderful compering skills. Ben also for his cracking presentation.
Friday
- added bits and bobs to the assessment report. It’s ticking along.
- going interview panel crazy and now on two next month. Today I read through CVs for a service design job at PHE.
- helped out writing blog post for most recent Health Product People event
- listened to k-pop on my lunch break
- guest blog alert!
- trello work for Healthy Start
- giving input to a few other colleagues work. One very exciting piece for the Secretary of State and the other about calorie labelling.
- 1 to 1 with Nayeema. Now in charge of thinking up the test for product manager interviews next month. Time to research…
Monday
- Finished and sent out our assessment report. It passed with some healthy recommendations. Great panel too, props to them for great questions and excellent write-ups!
- Read through and scored all the job applications for our Product Manager vacancy. 20+ done.
- we are creating a list of interesting tech companies in the health and care space plus a list of good examples of use of digital/technology in health contexts. Fun thing to research.
- I had a quick call about PHE service design job panel coordination.
- Met an intern with colleague Laurence. What a double header.
Tuesday
- helping out connecting a minister’s question to ex-Parliament colleagues.
- 26 complete applications for Healthy Start beta! Exciting. Can’t wait to see who is potentially joining the team.
- Looking at Healthy Start potential risks and setting up a pre-mortem session and a stakeholder map session
- A thorough combing through of our Healthy Start beta trello board. We have a great backlog of tasks and research to do. Ready for a supplier to come join us. Also a whole bunch of tasks to do now!
- Team outing to Flight Club. Good time with the gang :)
What I’ve been reading
- Singapore health care records get hacked. Backlash against Australia’s new online healthcare records. Security and ease of which to opt-out some of the complaints. Finally, do electronic health records save lives?
- Animals are changing their behaviour and evolving in dramatic and surprising ways due to city-living.
- Demanding things to be data-driven ain’t simple. People and input inevitably complicate things more than most assume.
- Every department should all have a transparent list of services that are easy to find like what the Home Office has done. ODI and Democracy Club collab on a guide to registers. What they are and how they are maintained.
- Good things going on at Well and also just came across the Helix Centre that looks really interesting.
- Hospital finds robo-assistant from the 1990s. Can i call it a carebot?
- What does ‘intuitive’ design mean? We should be making consistent things our users understand not creating things we force upon them.
- 5 ideas the health & social care in the UK could nab from other countries.
Shout out to others doing great stuff
Former colleagues in Parliament write updates on the work they are doing. They are fantastic and if you are interested in anything democracy related then check them out: