Weeknotes E06

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

• Trip to Leeds!!
• There to help with an event ran by Hilary. She was brilliant and session went down very well. We did a task which was an example of the game of 35s. Fun event and bravo to tech working as it was held across two sites in London and Leeds.
• my show and tell video was played in London while I was on the train too.
• Met with colleagues working with adult social care data. Heard about plans. Asked the team to think through a few more things and make sure they are talking to a bunch of people that are working in a similar place. Will be back in contact with them to hear updates.
• Great chat with procurement there too. Thinking through constructive next steps and hearing about the purpose of some extra work they want to undertake.
• train got delayed but did hear from A+ grade PM Lisa which was great.

Thursday

• wrote up highlights from yesterdays meeting. I’ve been trialling using a product canvas to record the status of projects and have some thoughts on how to make that better
• since returning to the department i’ve been locked out of most systems so recovering access is a bit of a chore. Also been trying to sort out HR requests to change info on my directory
• signed up to connecting pre-event. Connecting is a scheme in which you get to go visit real health and social care providers. I love the sound of the scheme, experience the challenges and joys of our colleagues delivering on the frontline.
• chatted about flexible working plans with colleagues. Decisions made.
• lots of emailing and updating people about what we know so far from all the discussions i’ve been having
• set up world cup sweepstakes and accidentally made people pick from 2014 contestants. I drew Peru & Croatia in our new version.

Friday

• I’ve signed up to review a big piece of work going on. Had to sort out access to it so more help desk requests flung out.
• wrote 2 blogs. One of my experience of discovery assessments thus far and the other on product canvas work i’ve be trying out.
• agreed on times and dates for future assessments
• looking into my method and resources for when I first go speak to teams > created a checklist. I think basically I want to know what the outcome they are looking to achieve is & do they have the resources to deliver things.

Monday

• Dharmesh and I heard about the ages and stages questionnaire work. Interesting thing and we sent over some recommendations for the person to pursue..
• began reviewing the business case for big piece of work. Many questions asked.
• edited blog.
• moved vision session around for our intranet team. Prepped what I’m doing for it.
• also planning for our last sprint before the end of the quarter.

Tuesday

• Went to event in the morning. NHS England’s ‘Digital Transformation in Urgent and Emergency Care’. Nice to be amongst a different crowd, those who work closer to delivering healthcare. Fun to hear updates about 111 too.
• cycled back to the office and had a sit down chat to decide what thing will be working on next sprint and quarter. Exciting beta to get my teeth into. Some tasks to do first before all locked in.
• planning with team and being a Trello master
• chin wag with Nayeema.
• discussions about when to publish future blog post. It won’t be a showstopper but good to get in the habit of publishing stuff.

Stuff learned at the event (/notes I scribbled down - if not accurate then sorry!)

• we are still world-leading in terms of A&E performance even if we are downbeat about how well we are doing
• as current growth stands need more than 50 new hospitals need to be built
• we spend £600m paying for hotels because of excess bed stays
• feels like we admit 7 days a week but only discharge 5 days a week
• ownership of health records should be with the citizen not the organisation - they shouldn’t need to ask to see info about their health they should own it
• conversation in health needs to go beyond things being just paperless
• 68% of 111 beta are female.
• reassuring to hear that usability is vital to make sure people actually want to use the stuff we create
• 111 beta currently around 86% completion rate, 2 minute journey times, their discovery hypotheses are being proved correct
• 68% of traffic to NHS.uk is from mobile and 10% from tablets.

What I’ve been reading

1. Awful stock photos are the real problem with AI reporting.
2. Apple opening up its health records app to third party apps. Will be fascinating to see how much people are willing to share their data and what interesting products/services will develop.
3. China climbs up the healthy life tables.
4. Inside the Ocado factory. UK online supermarkets ahead of the game apparently.
5. Fund for digital solutions to social care
6. Google Town - re-imagined city and public space by Google-owned Sidewalk Labs
7. Warnings about the use of credibility scores. Basically it’s hard and scoring author’s credibility on the news/content they write may be misleading and not the best approach.
8. The basics of authentication

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