Weeknotes s01e05
Solidarity
I’ve just got back from a long weekend away in Center Parcs so a late and hastily pulled together four day #weeknotes for episode 5.
I get this voice in my head sometimes it says, “but Ryan, this is different to how things are being done at the minute”. Sometimes it’s mischievous, sometimes it’s cautionary — it is both the angel and devil on my shoulder.
If I have an idea or a concept, especially one which might result in “change” I think about it deeply and intensely, from every angle, possibility and perspective. I obsess about it. The pitfalls, the impacts and the likely naysayers — what they’ll say and why — I find this to be a good test. Mostly I think the possibilities and inter-connections with other things — the combined benefits.
The concept of data product owners — emphasis on data-product — has been one such concept that had that voice shouting at me quite a lot over the last year so I was very pleased to read this blogpost from Trey this week and was pleased with the discussion when I tweeted about it.
This — and also Dan proposing a #weeknote-ers meet-up plus Matt proposing an event on blogging — made me reflect on the importance of people who blog and work and talk in the open. Much respect to everyone who does it.

Week in brief
Monday.
My daughter was poorly so I was slightly late into the office, setting up a bed on the sofa, Matilda on the TV — her go-to ‘poorly movie’, and getting cuddles whilst waiting for my Mam.
First up was a walking meeting with Stuart about Churchill private beta.
Then I had a great conversation with Kevin H (data security and operational control), Iu and Gayll (data scientists) about modelling with encrypted data. I knew this would be right up Kev’s street. I outlined my thoughts on scope and direction. Kev was equally excited about the possibilities and happy to sponsor the work. Iu and Gayll are going to write a scoping document. Genuinely game changing possibilities with this.
I had a very quick chat with Stephen S in my team about the ODI toolbox that Stephen F had presented last week at Government data publishers community.
Becky (Data Product Owner for Manhattan) had a variety of things to chat to me about which had rolled over from last week when I wasn’t in the office.
- Server space and Sidecar: a currently paused data project which Becky is the product owner for and which keeps attracting interest and questions.
- The Manhattan board meeting. On Becky’s advice I decided to join the call in the afternoon.
- Some feedback from the Greyhound/Manhattan show and tell with Charlie last Friday.
Then Stephen B arrived at my desk. Stephen is the new Head of Statistical Services, a Deputy Director within Data and Analytics. I’ve met Stephen a few times previously and I really like him. He was in Newcastle for a couple of days meeting his teams up here and had asked for an overview of what we do in the Data Science Hub. I covered that and our links with his folks.
Then it was our fortnightly comms call. The regular attendees are Charlie, Nicola, Rachel and Rachel. Nicola talked about some DWP Digital events to bring people together. A number of objectives including showcasing and also focusing on the practice model. We also talked about potential hack events.
I grabbed a quick coffee and dialled into the Employer engagement delivery improvement project steering group meeting. Manhattan was the first agenda item. We got the go ahead along with some really insightful and strategic questions, which I liked.
I discussed some Churchill comms stuff with Dave B (business analyst) and then took a call from Max (program manager for Data Science).
Much like in episode 1 a call with Max pretty much obliterated my Tuesday. I had a beautiful looking gap in my calendar which I’d planned to use to review data visualisation training but that quickly disappeared.
I left a little early to see my daughter and so my Man could get away and prepare for her holiday.
I read Louise’s #weeknotes. Louise mentioned DRIs (DirectlyResponsible Individuals) which intrigued me in respect to data product owners as a concept.
I had a quick conversation with Charlie about embedded analytics and stats products and spent quite some time sifting applications.
Tuesday
My daughter was still poorly. I worked from home.
Paula (Head of the Data and Analytics Private Office), Barrie (Data Services) and Nigel (Statistical Services) called me for our — Newcastle based Grade 6 people — meeting about a Data and Analytics leadership initiative. The meeting finished early, we challenged the ask quite bit and Barrie took a couple of actions to clarify some things before we decided how best to proceed.
I chatted to Ash — who was travelling to Leeds — about the call from Max the day before, we spoke about resource, specifically technical architects and data architects.
I dialled into the weekly prioritisation call which Charlie leads with the hubs in Newcastle, London and Sheffield plus the programme team. Charlie had some month end reporting needs, I added a few more things for him to consider. I covered some of our cross-government (#oneteamgov?) data conversations. Billy (Sheffield hub lead) talked about operationalising of natural language processing.
I called Max and Rob (data science programme team) to discuss resourcing and some reformatting of the 17/18 plan.
I called Gayll, a call which began about one thing but ended up being a quick Greyhound strategy/comms chat.
I called Becky, a call which began about one thing but ended up being a quick Manhattan strategy/comms chat plus.
I caught up on some emails form last week and emailed Gayll about some opportunities.
Max called and we talked about technical architects and data architects. Then Rob joined and we spoke further about plans and costs.
More emails. Then a call with Charlie, Max, Kevin D (Data Services), David B (Data Architecture), Paul G (agile delivery manager) about the 17/18 plans. The call finished early. I don’t envy Max and Kev who have a challenging role pulling it all together but are doing a great job.
More emails.
Charlie called. Paul L (Director of Data and Analytics) had asked for our thoughts and ideas on something.
I read Zoe’s blogpost which I really liked but further confused my thoughts in respect to data product owners as a concept.
More emails. More planning. More sifting.
I read Iu’s internal data science newsletter which covered the subject of workflow.
I worked until quite late refining plans and defining risks.
Wednesday
Proper work from home day. My daughter was well enough to return to school so I walked her and my son round the corner.
I phoned Max — more emails had been exchanged late on — I said I’d supply a few more words related to long term vision.
I joined a call about hacks which Nicola and Charlie were on. I contacted John (a statistician at DfT) I’ve worked with John before and wanted to pick his brains about about the DfT Hackathon. John put me in touch with Tom.
I tried — many times! — to Lync into the cross hub show and tell. It was Newcastle’s turn. Stephen was talking about his work on our environments and Becky giving the lifecycle of Manhattan; moving from prototyping using an off the shelf visualisation tool to developing a bespoke desktop application via all the discussions about data access, data security, ethics, memoranda of understanding. Becky has done one hell of a job. Unfortunately I didn’t hear any of it due to technical problems!
I phoned Stephen. We spoke for a little while about.
- authentication layers for the applications — Manhattan being the use case. This was mainly an AWS centred conversation and since Stephen is far more knowledgable in this area than I am, the conversation was mainly me saying things like — try asking this person, this specific question, in this specific way to try and inch the conversation forward. from this angle.
- what appear to be browser related performance type issues with Greyhound. This was a similar chat.
More planning and words conversations. I’m pleased to have Charlie as a boss.
More emails before heading to pick the kids up from after school cricket (son) and guitar (daughter) then a quick turnaround for a Brownies trip (daughter) and school disco (son).
I mentioned in episode 1 that each site holds monthly Directorate level ‘stand ups’ lead by a Grade 6 — to give some updates and to get some feedback. It was my turn on Thursday morning so I did some prep. Charlie sent through something I needed.
I read this article about wheat plots (possibly aka stripograms) and then saw an example in the wild from John.
More emails. There were still lots of fiddly ones hanging around and thats what I do on Wednesdays.
Thursday
It was lashing down!
I had a chat with Gayll about communities of practice and also about our upcoming cross gov meetings.
I went for a chat with Paula about the G6 stand up to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Its always good to chat to Paula.
Tom (Statistical Services) was joining the Newcastle stand up to give a Sheffield perspective and I caught up with him beforehand. Catherine appeared with the certificate and trophy from the GSS award.
I did the stand up. Lots of comms talk, communities of practice and Tom gave an overview of his areas and some of his work on interactive statistics dashboards — which went down well — then Catherine talked about the award. Barrie caught Tom and I for a chat related to dashboards. I then spoke to Tom about my thoughts on open data, collaboration and the Government data publishers community.
I sat with Sree who gave me an update on her R&D work on sequential consensus pattern mining. We started simple but the power of this methodology will be for more complex state based data.
Then I joined Catherine, Stephen, Adam, Paul and Mark to talk about the data visualisation training. Some great progress but also highlighting the challenges of what we are trying to do, it’ll be worth it though.
That was my week.
