Weeknotes E16

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

• it was the Healthy Start team ‘away day’. It was in Victoria St so I felt uncomfortable calling it an away day when only 2/5 the team were in a different office. Called in an ‘Extravaganza’ instead.
• I was mostly organising and chairing the day. Here is what followed…
• did the paperclips exercise. Colleague won the game and asked about prize - i didn’t have one, promised to have one by lunch. Reason to do the exercise was to get the creativity juices flowing before launching into our next activity.
• creating an alternate name for the Healthy Start service. A few reasons for this, but most importantly we can create something better for users. I went through why do it, reminder who the users are, what good looks like, examples we had collated, then asked the team to co-create a new one. Then voted. Finished with a new name and 2 alternates that lawyers can muse over. Name still requires testing with users.
• before lunch I went over the benefits of a team canvas and what they look like. We agreed to do one when the rest of the team arrive
• ran out at lunch and found sour watermelon gluten free kitty jelly sweets. Niche i know.
• reviewed the stakeholder map we had already began. Added extras and then prioritised who to contact now
• ran a pre-mortem. Really good. Writing a blog about it. Ended with a great list of risks and mitigations and raft of opportunities to seize.
• discussions on the next round of procurement tasks and what we need to do next
• overall went down really well. So well another ‘Extravaganza’ is to be organised up in Leeds before suppliers arrive. I think everyone enjoyed the progress made and looking at problems from new angles.

Thursday

• morning was taken up writing up notes from team ‘away day’. Actions from pre-mortem added to Trello
• chat with Dharmesh about pre-mortems and stakeholders
• I spent an hour or so thinking of how comms can help us with Healthy Start. I splurged lots of it into a doc and sent over to comms contacts hoping to find someone passionate to help out. Shy bairns get nowt.
• task in Trello to do some research with retailers. I knocked up a quick survey based on some existing unanswered questions. Very rough and asked for feedback.

Friday

• answered questions about security clearances of suppliers and dealing with sifting issues
• great planning session with Healthy Start colleague. Went through everything and sorted out tasks for the next 2 weeks.
• finally wrote up what was said at Healthy Start City Hall event last week. Delayed but some really interesting learnings. Shared with team.
• started writing a blog about my pre-mortem experience. Coming soon!

Monday

• emailing Asda. Yes, Asda. About basket check technology and diving deep into the future of supermarket shopping. I might do an ad hoc presentation about this one day.
• first lesson of yoga at work.
• answered supplier questions about technology blueprints
• helping write questions/answers for user research job interview
• reading old Healthy start research
• chatting with Dharmesh for the future product people event.
• updated survey targeted at retailers of Healthy Start, trying to follow best practices. Major cuts made.

Tuesday

• some of the examples of uses of technology in the world of Health and Social Care went down well. Always much kudos to people leading teams that are generous with praise.
• Stand-up with both teams. Might of unexpectedly hit a gold mind of analytics. Must email to find out more.
• chat about product manager job
• researching how to calculate the carbon footprint of a digital service, one for the future
• planning
• reading assessment reports
• providing input into pilots on bank/flexible working.
• researching about internet use by disadvantaged groups. Trying to gather more insights about our users from other sources. Ofcom proving to be a good source!
• 1 on 1 with Nayeema. Drinking tea and plotting the future.

What I’ve been reading

1. A fictional piece in which large firms have no employees. The gig economy comes to rule all. Maybe it is already here?
2. NFL season starts this week. I am cheering on Efe Obada.
3. Excellent long read on emotions and technology across different cultural contexts, especially voice-related services. Interesting discussion on the Russian version of Alexa and how it deals with those who approach it with emotional needs.
4. US study suggests that teaching parents new tricks to handle their infants and respond to needs could help to tackle childhood obesity. Using alternative tactics than giving food to infants when they appear restless looks to have lowered their BMIs.
5. Only read the exec summary but really interesting look into how to improve bias in policy decision making. We are doing a couple of these soon which is doubly reassuring.
6. Excellent work from Rachel Coldicutt & Doteveryone again. How do we build wider needs into what we build that extends focusing on just user needs. Working for Parliament this was a thought swimming around my brain. Another interesting article on how human-centered design is not changing the world.
7. In defence of using the word users - “User is a perfectly fine, gender-neutral, activity-positive term for the person engaged with your product or service.”
8. The art of interviewing stakeholders. Nice set of questions in there.

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:

• The People team
• The Outputs team
• The Data and Search team
• Utilities team