#Weeknotes S01E24
Shorter week this week due to a last minute days annual leave on Friday for half term which resulted a trip to 10 pin bowling with the kids. My eldest takes after my stubbornness and at 6 years old refused to use the ramp and wanted to use the heaviest ball he could manage despite getting more and more frustrated at not getting any strikes. Thankfully no broken toes.

Week started off with monthly Digital Senior Leaders Team meeting. Bulk of the agenda was mainly planning for next year reviewing service roadmaps and submissions for 20/21 to 22/23 financial years. Anyone working in Public Services will appreciate how complicated financial planning can become, with multiple different funding streams as well as the ongoing capital and revenue debate. As the NHSBSA provides services to multiple different stakeholders each with varying approached to funding submissions this becomes especially complex. Having said that as we’ve put a lot of work in over the past 12 months to getting to a rolling roadmap with quarterly investment submissions we find ourselves in a very good position, with the main question being one of affordability.
We also covered the usual KPI’s and directorate performance which along with the usual measures (releases, service availability, user research etc) now includes a newly refreshed section on people, this in itself is great as it provides a more detailed overview of some of the people measures for each directorate and the overall organisation. Something which stuck out for me was the diversity of the directorate specifically the gender splits with 44% of the directorate women which in a STEM directorate is very good, this increases at highier grades which is really pleasing. Additionally as a result I was also reflecting personally on the diversity of the team for example the age range and the backgrounds of each of us are all very different, this in itself helps when designing services which need to meet a wider range of user groups as we all bring different perspectives and view points and are all comfortable challenging one another.
I’ve read a number of ‘leadership’ books over the years or listened to podcasts or talks, and in the main my usual take away is that a lot of its common sense. Provide the environment for people to do what they do, communicate a clear vision and purpose, be open to challenge, treat people as you would expect to be (people are people not resources), speak to people, dont disappear when the going gets tough or the message isn’t a great one……etc.
Anyway, one of the things which Michael Brodie our Chief Executive has shared recently are some leadership behaviours, which I think sum a lot up about leadership, and resonate really well with me and other colleagues. I am going to try and keep a note of examples of displaying these behaviours and also times where I may have missed an opportunity to do so as a reflection.
What matters :
- First, align what you say and do. People notice everything and watch out for this.
- Second, keep your promises. Small or large. People expect this.
- Third, be good to be around when things go wrong. This is when you get truly measured.
- Fourth, disagree. But don’t be disagreeable. There’s a world of difference and this defines how safe people feel to speak up.
- Fifth, speak well of people in public and in private. There are no secrets that do not get shared.
- Finally, be grateful. Say thank you. Recognise good work, excellent delivery and great behaviours. It matters.
Middle of the week and down to London for some discussions with Google. Major disappointment was the lack of slide in the google offices and also no spinner hat, there was however a Horse, Lava Lamps and a full size London Bus (why who knows). Although as the offices meant a trip over to Victoria I managed a quick lunch in Shake and Shack (awesome burgers).

This is the first discussions we’ve had with Google Cloud Services. I think it’s fair to say that Microsoft and AWS have stolen a bit of a march on them in terms of the cloud players in public sector at the moment, so it was good to see some different services and how these may or may not help us at the NHSBSA.
As an aside and as we are talking cloud services this was shared on twitter.
I’m really not sure why this is an approach, it will likely costs millions if not billions to do in any way which remotely competes with the domination of current cloud players such as Microsoft, AWS and Google, if we are talking true cloud (elastic, scalable, highly available). This effort would be much better served on putting in place the frameworks such as buying arrangements and standards such as security to leverage these services. The focus should be on enabling more useful work to happen highier up the stack.
Did my first podcast this week, not sure I will be asked to do another and cant bring myself to listen to it back to evaluate the damage. So when (if) it’s released I apologies profusely. Sure I used the word ‘vision’ in every sentence, and whilst having a clear vision is important that may well be over kill. Anyway another one to chalk up to experience and comfort zone pushed, its fine to try things and not do great just need to learn for future.
This twitter thread is one of the best I have caught for a long while and the ever inspiring Matt Edgar absolutely nails it with his response.
Ended my short week with a little bit of office fun celebrating Halloween, a few of team (well done Chris, Gary and Amanda) got into the spirit (boom boom) to don fancy dress and hold a bake sale to raise some cash for our organisations chosen charity Samaritans. They team raised over £200 from this so a great effort.
