Week(ish) notes S01E09

gemma rogers
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read

Hello. This is my penultimate week(ish) notes working for UK Parliament and I’m going to make them short and sweet as I hold back from howling out Total Eclipse of the Heart sitting at my desk (did you know this was originally written for Meatloaf?)

I am still a product manager working on creating a new website for Parliament and I’m currently in the process of wrapping up my work before moving on to a new job! Start date 24 September.. eek! Not long. Trip to Girona in Spain first next week though. Ok lets get on with it, this is meant to be short and sweet.

Highlight: Back with the old team for an afternoon of ceremonies

This week I covered the ceremonies for the team I used to be in because their PM is sunning it up elsewhere. This was great because it meant I got to hang with the old gang and have lots of laughs (and some sighs).

Best bit was doing a sprint review with them where they all showed things they’ve been working on either for the team or other projects. Got to see some work my wonderful colleague Jake has done on the restoration and renewal site and a totally rubbish new thing I won’t go on about, Franny, the user researcher has been checking out.

The intention then was to close of their sprint and start a new one. But I didn’t have permissions anymore, so I laid back and made one of them do it!

Challenge: I’m getting rather sad

I keep thinking about leaving and how I’m sad and all the things I’ll miss and all the fun things I’ve done here. So I’ve started to write those down and next week(ish) notes will be a homage to Parliament and my great colleagues.

Took this photo of the crumbling old lovable Parliament. I’ll miss this piece of scaffolding and history.

Highlight: I went to a product people meet up and learnt stuff

Cycled over to GDS and went to the September product meet up. Learnt a fair amount about being a product manager in a policy team, something I knew nothing about. Also wrote notes because insider tip about me — if I’m not writing notes I’m probably not listening. Writing notes or doodling keeps me focused. Also got to say hi to the other product people from my new job at the Care Quality Commission and get excited about how we’re going to do a product meet up in November before I bugger off to Mexico for 2.5 weeks — any travel recommendations? (great segway Gemma).


Enough is enough. Time to drink a smoothie.


Gem’s Gem: I went to see The Jungle. This is exceptional and you can get cheap seats to sit on the stage in the action. I highly recommend it.

gemma rogers

Written by

Product manager at the Care Quality Commission

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