S2, E15 (Week 08, TSLT blog 10)

AKA the blog that was a little late! Thanks for your patience in waiting for our post, last week was even busier than usual!

Last week we asked for feedback on our weekly blog. We had 8 👍 and 4 comments which (generously) amounts to 6% of the team providing feedback. Generously, as some of the folk commenting also did the 👍…

Getting communication ‘right’ is difficult, especially in a team as large and varied as ours. That means that we need more than one approach to communicating. Whether it be via team meetings (which everyone should have regularly), the monthly TS briefings, one-to-ones, informal chats in the office (or on Teams) — aka gossip! — or this blog. Or even other blogs and the ‘All TS Colleagues’ Team!

I really value communication and feel very strongly that if we just think of communication as ‘cascade’ from TSLT we’re thinking it wrong. There must be reciprocity in our communications. I’m sure this is something we’ll talk about more over the coming months — please do share your thoughts.

Our highlights and reflections from the week (and key decisions that we’ve taken) are:

• We’ve made good progress in creating a set of artefacts for talking about the Technology Roadmap and we’ve published our first Technology Roadmap blog. Thanks to Cath Tuckwood, David Pownceby, Emma Toublic, and Shelley Edwards for their effort on this. We’d like this to be the first in a series of regular blogs about delivery of the Technology Roadmap.
• As part of the lead in to our up and coming co-design sessions we’ve been enjoying the coffee group pairings, making new acquaintances, and getting to know colleagues across ST and TS better.
• Shelley presented an update on a forthcoming cyber security communications project, highlighting some great ideas from the supporting team including Aron Parkings, Cameron Bye, Chris Hewitt, Geoff Thornloe, Julie-Ann Newman, Ruxandra Stuart, Sam Tubridge, Stella Odigbo, Will Chaney, and Will Gilks. Thank you everyone for the work so far and continued commitment.
• We are preparing to give Geoff Madge a wonderful send off as he retires next Thursday after working in Technology in ECC for 36 years. If you would like to come a say good luck to Geoff, we will be in BG01 on Thursday.
• We also say goodbye to Haresh Rane. While Haresh hasn’t been with us for as long as Geoff (!), he has made a significant contribution to our network programme. We wish Haresh the best of luck with his next position.
• A big welcome Robin Chowdhury, Solutions Architect who will be working with Future Highways Programme.

Looking to next week our focus and priorities are going to be:

• To begin the next round of engagement with Functional Leadership teams on our Technology Roadmap.
• Looking for volunteers to get involved in blogging and/ or delivering Show and Tells (particularly about the work we are doing to deliver the Technology Roadmap, but other ideas are very welcome 😊). Comment below or get in touch with Vicki if you can help.
• Meeting with our Cabinet and the Corporate Leadership Team to talk all things AI — more on that in next week’s post!

This week Vicki has been watching:

• The Post Office Scandal documentary by Panorama. There’s no denying that postmasters were failed and with tragic consequences. And my interest was caught by this week’s Co-op blog that describes how user-centred, multi-disciplinary teams work together to design the right solutions and mitigate exactly this risk.
• The new Netflix drama Boy Swallows Universe. If you’re not yet watching this, I’d recommend it — it’s the humorous/ violent/ tragic story of an Australian boy drawn into the family drug dealing business.

Enjoy the rest of the week!