Weeknotes E17
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
- retro with Pikachu and planning
- help with the tech vision document
- workshop about capability offer inside the department and a little to do with the Fleming Food
- digging into analytics of the current Healthy Start site! Great find, thanks to colleague who found the person responsible. More questions asked. One snippet: 72.63% of people access the current Healthy Start site via mobile.
- front page of the Guardian today.
- went to Product People over at GDS hosted by ever-wonderful Lisa Scott. Nice to see some former colleagues who are fighting the good fight in other departments.
Thursday
- Healthy Start call, chatting supplier interviews and the next meet-up
- updated the survey for retailers after feedback. Step in the right direction.
- applied for a future leaders scheme. Did some online tests. No idea if I did well or not.
- adding next Health Product People event to the intranet
- getting involved with cross-Gov inquiry work
- another mention of Healthy Start in the Guardian. “Talk to families in poverty, and ask them what they need, instead of prescribing it for them. Ask what the barriers are. Ask what would help. And then deliver it.” - you got it.
- delving ever deeper into analytics on the current Healthy Start website & retailer stats. Leads to more and more questions.
- using Google trends to look up Healthy Start. Top related search terms are 1) healthy start vouchers 2) healthy start number 3) healthy start vitamins 4) healthy start contact 5) healthy start contact number.
- blog post writing
Friday
- got the supplier written presentations!
- read through them and hammered out quite a lot of questions. Clearly hard to please.
- PHE measuring success alpha is up and running and i’m back in the mix making comments and suggestions.
- correcting typos on the survey
- blog editing with much needed help. 9 mins reading time down to 7 mins. It’s a long one.
Monday
- chat with Healthy Start colleague who is back from holiday. Exciting week ahead!
- supplier scoring and comments
- received more data from the current Healthy Start site. Created a mini-presentation for the suppliers when the join/for our team. Combined this with trying to upskill colleague with what are the things you can learn from google analytics, what to look for, what to ask from a performance analyst and an assortment of analytics advice.
- work yoga class #2. Could only think about the cheese sandwich awaiting me instead of relaxing.
- emails with another colleague somewhere in building who is having trouble with internal tech so we have a protracted conversation just to send docs to one another.
- added a few things to the backlog as reminders to make the service as inclusive as possible.
- adding more cards to the backlog to make sure we are using appropriate schemas. Want the machines to find and understand us.
- emailed an HMRC colleague about the process of getting a card supplier for the service
- analytics tidbit for today on the current healthy start website: average page load time is 1.56 seconds. Just under the 2 second threshold. We can make this better.
Tuesday
- Healthy Start pre-supplier meetup call
- most of the day reading the Healthy Start report published recently.
- sorting out logistics for supplier interviews
- getting access to more data about the Healthy Start service. On a roll with this one
- also in the news… “obesity and smoking are the two leading risk factors for ill health… People in the richest areas of England enjoy more than 19 years more good health than those in the poorest”
- meet former colleague Iu for lunch. Chat was 98% about an upcoming trip to Mexico.
- more reading then adding any insights into our backlog/materials to be shared with team from the report
- Isaac very helpful in giving advice to supplier plans. Helpful as ever.
- created a small presentation with all the data from the report. Rough but good intro to Healthy Start.
What I’ve been reading
- Vision for a more tech-driven NHS by SoS Matt Hancock. “I don’t want to see any more the automatic knee-jerk response to an IT problem of engaging big consultancies to tell us what the problem is, offer to sell us the solution, and then mark their own homework. Instead we need to build in-house capacity to lead design and delivery, and this will also enable good providers to work more effectively with the NHS, deliver more successfully and operate with less risk.”
- Slate piece on IBM and Watson’s over-hype and why it won’t solve cancer.
- Pictures of NFL stadium grub. None appear the healthiest of choices.
- 6 things that change when your service goes live. Great post on going live being the start.
- Library of methods on facilitating different types of workshop/meeting. 18F library of methods too.
- Loved this accessibility guide for teams. Nice description of what each individual can do in a team.
- Love the NHS service manual. Great work!
- Designing for suicidal users. Excellent post which uses analytical research, empathy, design and passion to create something better.
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: