Weeknote v2.8
Week beginning: 27 August
Focus for the week: Testing a proposition with colleagues for how we can best support change in the organisation.
Learning for the week: As we develop the ‘apps’ to support our tenants, leaseholders and colleagues in housing, we need to consider how we best re-use components. Our work on ‘report a repair’ and ‘track a repair’ developed design patterns and API queries that can inform the work to maintain new build properties. We’ll need to find out how to equip product teams with the knowledge and tools of what they can use, without avoiding the worst excesses of approaches such as SAFe.
Monday: In preparation for starting back, I read the notes from my team and put some key meetings in the diary.
Tuesday: Began meeting the Head of Planning to check his opinions on the ‘Submit a Planning Application project, as well as what we need to change to ensure the back-end software supports the service effectively. An interesting chat with colleagues in public health about how we can work together to achieve a manifesto commitment to support newborn babies. As ever, Matt and colleagues were already using design thinking and prototyping options.
Wednesday: Started the day meeting Liz in Dalston, either part of my commitment to going around the Borough or hankering after the times I lived there. After catching up on the Hackney Welcome discovery phase, and updating on our efforts to get a new recruitment site live, we reviewed the all-staff survey. We’ll also ask about colleagues’ use of digital tools in their personal life – part of understanding how we continue to narrow the gap between personal and worklife technology experiences. Our team meeting then used framework of ‘skills, knowledge and experiences’ so that we developed personal learning plans, together. . . .Working together on a doc
Thursday: I hold my first ‘Ask me anything’ – a 30 minute slot booked in my diary for members of the team to grab me about things. It was good to get into the detail of a couple of FOIs. I also collaborated on a couple of docs with Jasmeen and Lucy so that we could get there quickly and share each other’s understanding.
Friday: An hour on supporting change, which helped refine our prototype, but also ensure it’s heading in the right direction. It was interesting to grab lunch with Selwyn and learn about what we need to support and challenge in the team. I then met Michelle from InLink, who I met at Future Cities, and understand the user need for their devices. I was really impressed to see the ideas from Rich and the team to support Customer Service Week. Liz, Ruth and I worked together on the HMT report about business Intelligence. It’s in great shape, but we needed to step back from the detail and summarise the key points and clarify what outcome the readers, and us, wanted.
