What did you enjoy?
The London leg of our “welcome to Product & Platforms” events. I was pleased that colleagues came into the office for this informal event, with special thanks to the people who baked cakes and cookies to share. We welcomed one new team member who is joining Digital Urgent & Emergency Care (UEC), and also discussed our work with colleagues who work on other portrfolio areas.
Also, seeing teams’ progress in a couple of show and tell sessions this week:
- On Tuesday, the “transforming first contact” discovery team did an initial show & tell for a small group of colleagues from the team, ahead of their first proper stakeholder sesson planned for the week after next.
- On Friday, the team working on the new technology platform for the UEC directory of services shared their approach to designing a new data model, by considering the multi-step process needed to find the right service for a patient who needs urgent care.
What do you wish you could have changed?
On one important piece of work, we have more to do to plan and manage stakeholder communications. I had previously spent time with the team thinking through who the most important stakeholders are, but something that happened this week made me worry that we had not turned that thinking into action.
What did you learn?
I was struck by this short post by David Marquet: Short early conversation eliminate long rework. I shared the link in the chat during my leadership team’s weekly meeting because several of us were struggling with problems for which that simple advice might come in handy.
What would you have liked to do more of?
A call to discuss issues highlighted by a staff survey earlier in the year. I’m one of 3 directors who agreed to work with colleagues on some of the key themes that came out of the survey. It’s taking longer than I’d like to get this work moving.
Who did you talk to outside of your organisation?
A call with team members from the Central Digital and Data Office about their ambitious system reform mission.
What are you looking forward to next week?
The opening of the accessibility lab in the Leeds Hub on Thursday. We’re lucky to have this facility and I hope all our teams will make use of it.
Matt Edgar writes here 