Weeknotes E04

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:

Talk to teams who have requested help & see which is the most valuable and viable to help first.

Wednesday

• Retro and sprint planning. Themed as always!
• more meet-ups with individuals and teams were planned
• more 1 to 1’s
• helped prep for our next product community event
• Dharmesh and I sat down with a colleague working on flexible working for nurses. Interesting to hear the updates and seeing how/when we can help.

Thursday

• read some background reading about a dementia project
• then I visited Skipton House for the first time since being back. Was attending a workshop all day for the team I’ve been attempting to support.
• Interesting day with some scenarios to contribute to. I was working with academics/clinicians mostly and really fascinating to see how we both approach the scenarios from different but often similar angles.
• Lots of my input stems from working in delivery teams, feels like I add most value there.
• enjoyed thinking through knotty problems with a bunch of extremely smart and receptive people.

Friday

• Met with the team looking after the intranet, heard about where they are upto so far. Think I can help them out with a short session.
• prepped for the session straight after so it’s in the bag.
• thought about some questions for an upcoming event. Some absolute bangers.
• In a chat to do with a knowledge hub in our team. Basically helping people find and reuse some of the great outputs our team is producing. Some practical steps forward have been put forward.
• chatted about a toolkit for policymakers. Basically making their lives as easy as possible when they are looking for some advice on some classic issues/gaps in knowledge they may encounter. We shall not duplicate the service manual.

Monday

• Reviewed service assessment must-do’s and some other materials
• went over to Wellington House and did the assessment about the dementia tool mentioned earlier. This means I missed the great events of day 1 of digital week.
• I think I really enjoy talking to teams trying to solve problems and helping to give advice in whatever way possible. Our team got some feedback too about some of the materials we sent over in advance of assessment. Must take on board.
• Sat down with colleague straight after in pret and wrote our hopes, fears and recommendations for the team.
• Had a quick lunch then back in Wellington House to sit on the advisory board for the measuring success of public health interventions discovery I am supporting. Powered through and wrote some extra jobs to be done just to add more from the perspective of those in delivery teams.

Tuesday

• More HR hassling
• Met up with colleague from HTA. Attended our product people community event & had extra questions. Think I was helpful and gave honest insights into the teams I’ve been in and challenges faced.
• DIGITAL WEEK HELP!!
• excellent panel and our team has done a sterling job with all organisation and enthusiasm. Mucho applause!
• Fed into an event Hilary is giving on prioritisation which will be on Weds. I’m being a helping hand. Helped create materials for it too.
• chats with Nayeema and planning
• show and tell prep and show and tell creation. I got lots and lots of help. The video is a mad 5 minute blast about my time in Parliament. Created as Wednesday I go on my first work trip up to Leeds.

What I’ve been reading

1. The history and importance of the pdf
2. How to harness inertia and make sure teams doing good things can persist
3. New report asserts that we need more robots and AI in the NHS to save $$$. Some nice quotes in there from people working in different trusts.
4. The dangers of fixating too much on measuring success and the misuse of metrics
5. Diligence and legibility are important in design
6. Open Data Charter measurement guide - can review how well you are doing!
7. Alexa listens to conversation and sends to friend on their contact list. Naughty.
8. Open data on STI’s reveals the rise of syphilis.

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