Weeknotes E33
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:
Supporting the Healthy Start private beta and a helping hand in the Healthy Start vitamins discovery
Some interesting and shareable things that happened this week. Other more mundane things also happened…
Pre-paid card work
Lots of this week has been clarifying our trial with card suppliers. With no set path to follow we’ve been incrementally laying the tracks as we progress. It has been working (so much so we are being put forward as models of best practice by procurement colleagues) but it does mean lots of thinking about what needs to be done. Towards that I had a trip out to Bristol. A few objectives, one to share the history and current situation as to our efforts to find a pre-paid card partner. The second was to define what a good trial would look like and the actions we’d need to do to get there. Thirdly was to share the problem more widely and let others take responsibility for certain elements. I ran a few workshops, presented a few things and sorted out some unanswered questions (e.g. we even defined which MCC codes we’d try whitelisting for the trial). Lastly, it was good to be amongst the team, sharing and collaborating (see more on this below).
After the day there were actions & write-ups to do. I got round to finalising an agenda for our 1:1’s with suppliers and organised all the times/days/locations. As I’ve been saying for a while, these initial conversations are only the start of the conversation. All of us have much to learn and lots more to ask and answer so there will be more to do in the next few weeks.
Sitting with team
I am a fan of co-location. There is a different vibe when you are in a room were everyone is focused on working on the same thing. I find it stimulating and it was nice to see people in the flesh. There endeavour won’t be successful if the team can’t work together. Thus investing a bit of time to just sit and be present with them I think is worth it.
I should also point out that the location of the team in Bristol is absolutely insane. It had a submarine room, library room, Alice in Wonderland themed room (with tiny tiny tiny working fire door that a medium sized hound could fit through). Lets just say it was eclectic. Wonderfully, amazingly eclectic.
London Food Strategy event
Beautiful morning out to City Hall to hear more about the London Food Strategy. I heard about all the interesting work that surrounds Healthy Start, mostly about tackling food poverty, obesity and food waste. There are loads of great schemes and much to muse on. Healthy Start got a few mentions and its important we are at these events - not only does it show we are listening and give people an avenue to find us but selfishly we learn lots and meet people we need to talk to. This time round we met someone from Tesco to have more conversations with, more local authority people to learn from and always nice to see familiar faces we’ve already sat down with to hear their updates. One of the best things we’ve done as a team has been becoming more entwined with the third sector and partners helping to deliver Healthy Start outside of these walls.
Planning for upcoming sprint
The team has a nice rhythm and pace to it. Lots going on and that’s something to savour. Things are being built, we are learning and improving.
New map
We recently got hold of data on the 22,000+ retailers registered to accept Healthy Start vouchers. I was interested in are there any areas in the UK that are basically deserts for registered retailers, inspired by work on locating food deserts. Super colleague Isaac diligently worked on a new map to plot the density of where these stores are. So now we have a new map and it has spurred more questions. Which is good. I think I need an analyst to help me with some of the quant questions that are springing to mind.
Pre-mortem advice
Next Monday another colleague in the department is going to copy the pre-mortem event I ran for their project. I spent 30 mins with them to hand over any other tips and tricks for the day. I am very happy and excited to hear about how it goes (i’m also keeping my fingers crossed that they have lots of fun and don’t hate the experience as its out of the norm for them). It’s nice to think that I have helped someone by writing that blog post. New colleague Terrence also provisionally signed up to offer a new perspective for that team which is brilliant! All of this made me happy.
What I’ve been reading
- Top stats of 2018. One for healthy start - 82% of British retail shopping is still in-store rather than online. One worry is retailers are disappearing off the high street.
- Comparing Internet use in 4 different countries. Really inventive design!
- Report on what the upcoming trends in technology will be for 2019. Summary - more ethics, more mindful design, more transparency, be inclusive.
- Health literacy and its effects.
- 60% of the Internet is fake? Don’t trust the analytics, lots of engagement is not real.
- Is there a name for intentionally bad services?
- Healthy Start makes the news in 2 articles. All about interesting related topics of poverty/hunger. Hungry children story & the need of a minister of hunger story
- We should eat more fibre. I know I should do this more and some helpful tips.