Weeknotes E40
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 & assisting the formation of NHSX
Some interesting and shareable things that happened this week. Other more mundane things also happened…
Away day
Week got started in a cafe on the Southbank as we gathered for our retro. It was really fun to have it in new space, we huddled around a table and stuck a bunch of post-its all over the place while drinking coffee and listening to light jazz (with some power ballads mixed in for good measure).
Then we moved over to another South London venue for a directorate away day. Colleagues from Leeds and London converged and I had a role to play. I was first up with colleague Sophie to share some of our work around Healthy Start and vitamins. That was fun, I didn’t rock their world as much as I always try but it was solid. Solid is not terrible.
Lunch was fun. 4 of us struck an accord. We hashed out an idea that will likely not come to pass but we continue to throw hats into rings.
The rest of the day was workshops and chats. We also ended up having to do planning in the pub. Fun to be out the office.
Pension credit
Turns out Healthy Start also counts Pension credit as a qualifying benefit. So if your partner or yourself is a pensioner and cares for a child under 4 then you could be in receipt of Healthy Start.
I made a prediction how many people in the UK would sign up for it. I bet a crunchie. I can confirm I got the number wrong. I went out and bought crunchie for victorious colleague.
Show and tell with Scotland
Scotland is replacing Health Start with an alternative scheme called Best Start. It has some similarities and some different features.
One thing I’m very proud of is that we are sharing research across borders. It took some persistence but we are regularing taking turns to share back our findings. We are both learning from each other which is absolutely fantastic. I spoke at the most recent sharing event. Some talk of our researchers shadowing each other when we conduct future research and maybe even a joint piece of research on how the services will work in border regions. Sharing is caring.
ACS video
I went to Manchester to see the Association of Convenience Stores a while back. They are a good group and cared about helping the Healthy Start cause.
Well they’ve gone and produced a nifty new video to try get more retailers signed up.
Copy editing
I have been copy editing blog posts. It hasn’t been released yet.
Side hustlin’
Attended a show and tell a week or so ago. Met a new contact. We got together and have considered a rewarding side hustle together. Bringing a few bits and bobs of health, local authorities, government, City Hall and third sector. Who knows where this will go but I explore all the many ways one can make things happen that might make people healthier and happier.
Service assessment
A few of us did a discovery assessment for a team in PHE working Health checks. Was really fun to see a smart passionate team.
Some things I loved:
- commitment to making the service better, not just create a digital product
- refreshingly diverse team
- representative sample of users
- embedded subject matter expert in the team
- talking with charities and third sector
What I’ve been reading
- Great list of tips to run inclusive events!
- Experience of Waymo’s self-driving taxi service. I like transport and the future of transport seems an exciting area to be in.
- I saw this talk live and agreed with a lot of it, teams need to be empowered and do not overlook competence and character in teams.
- Worst design crimes of 2018.
- Trends in UX for 2019. I like the “prototype the most radical idea first” ethos.
- Police do some good quick thinking to pull over a sleeping Tesla driver
- I like these 6 steps to a healthier city. Seem sound. Love the design for kids one, seems like a fun design challenge to be a part of.
- Why we should encourage engineers to participate in discovery phases.