You should have received a link which will take you to your personalised webapp page. If you’ve received that email but you want to access the webapp on a different device, simply forward or copy and paste the original link in any messaging or email service. The webapp is optimised for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, but will work on a computer.

After you’ve clicked that link on a device, just going to www.fsconference17.co.uk will take you to your page again.

The conference will be paperless and you’ll need the webapp to navigate through the day, so you might want to make a shortcut to the page on your homescreen. This is normally done by opening the page, pressing the menu button and then selecting something like ‘add to home screen’. If that doesn’t work for you, check out more detailed instructions here. We’ve also noticed that some email apps open links in a preview page. If that happens, you should be able to select ‘open in browser’ then make the shortcut.

Before the day, you might want to look at the sessions and speakers we’ve lined up. You can use our bookmarking feature to save the ones you particularly like the look of. However, we should say that capacity for all the breakaway sessions is limited and there is no sign-up. It will be first come first served, except for delegates with mobility requirements. So if there’s something you really don’t want to miss, make sure you get there on time. The webapp also has all the info you need for planning your day or travel.

During the conference, you’ll be able to use the webapp to navigate from session to session and ask questions of the speakers. You can also use it to contact the organisational team if you have any issues or questions. Of course, there will be in-person help for any technical issues if you can’t get online. (If you’re coming on Friday, don’t worry, your pages won’t fill up with Thursday’s stuff. It’s separated.)

And afterwards, we hope you will evaluate the conference through our feedback questions. We’ve carefully designed them and user tested them so they’re as quick and easy as possible for you and as useful as possible for us. You’ll still be able to see the market stalls, speaker and session information, in case you want to check back on something. And best of all you don’t have to think about whether to delete the app, as it’s just a site!

*a webapp is a type of website that opens in an internet browser but is designed for mobile/tablet and behaves likes an app. The pages are personalised and remember your settings. You don’t have to download anything.

In our last blog, we explained roughly how the conference agenda will work; in this edition we’ll go into more detail about the four core themes (or ‘tracks’) that will run through the conference day.

AGILE

What does it mean to be ‘agile’? How is it used inside Government? When is it most (and least) appropriate? Our sessions on the theme of agile will answer these questions, and those posed by the audience, helping attendees to develop an understanding of the culture of agile and how to incorporate it into everyday working environments.

Sessions will be run by the Trade Design Lab, a product manager, and the Government Digital Service’s User Research Team, among others.

SECURITY

Digital security is an issue of national importance as cyber-attacks and social media enable secure information to be leaked and radical ideas to spread quickly. How can the Government protect its citizens without spying on their every move?

Sessions on our security track will help conference attendees understand how the changing digital and political landscape affects national security, and how the Government approaches and tackles cyber security. Attendees will hear from a range of speakers, including security world leaders BAE Systems and the Ministry of Defence.

POLICY

Digital is much more than computers and coding — its philosophy of openness and flexibility carry important learnings for policy makers too. Attendees will have the chance to join the Cabinet Office’s Policy Lab and leading design consultants Uscreates for two interactive workshops on open policymaking and prototyping.

In a digital context, policy can also cover the use of technology to increase efficiency in operations or improve accessibility in design. These are themes that our other policy track speakers will demonstrate, with DfID showcasing their work on frontier technologies and Robin Christopherson — who was recently awarded an MBE for Services to Digital Inclusion — challenging preconceptions about inclusivity in design.

DATA

Banks, supermarkets, advertising agencies, dating apps… data is as vital to them as it is to government number-crunchers. All that information can be overwhelming, however, so our data sessions will give attendees a better understanding of how to make effective use of data. In addition, our speakers will explain the importance of Open Data, and how best to publish it.

Look out for the launch of our webapp with full agenda and speaker details in the coming days!

Our extraordinary developer Tom has been working tirelessly to get our web-based app* ready for launch, which will be a week or so before the conference. Once it’s up and running, you’ll be able to use it to (among other things) browse the agenda we’ve got planned, read more about the sessions on offer and the speakers who will be delivering them, and have a look at the personalised features we’ve built.

But before all that, we just wanted to give you a bit more information about what to expect from the agenda, how it’s organised and how we hope you, as attendees, will approach the day.

The day is structured around three plenary sessions, starting with a high-level introduction to the conference and the concept of digital from our headline speaker, Kevin Cunnington, who runs the Government Digital Service. Just before lunch, we’ll get back together for an exploration of how digital developments are transforming the way we work, both in the civil service and beyond. Rounding off the day, panelists from a range of sectors and backgrounds will seek to draw together the learning from throughout the day.

In between the plenaries, you’ll have the choice of a number of interest and interactive breakout sessions. If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll know that we shaped what to cover in the conference based on a survey of the users — you. (You might not know it yet, but that’s a very ‘agile’ thing to do). That research pointed us towards our four key themes: agile, data, policy and security.

It’s your day, so it’s your choice, but we hope that you’ll attend breakout sessions covering a mix of the above themes. Obviously, you will have your existing interests that you want to cultivate, but we’d also like this Conference to be an opportunity for attendees to think about what digital means for the civil service as a whole, to branch out in new areas, and learn about things you’ve never considered before.

So stay tuned here for more blogs about what will be covered under each of the themes, and once the webapp is live, have a look at the session blurbs, give some thought to what you want to get out of the Conference, and start to build your day!

If you’d like to see more of what we’ve been up to, join us at BEIS (1 Victoria Street) for our weekly sprint reviews on Tuesdays from 5.30pm!

*Sorry if this terminology is confusing — all it means is that we’ve made a website that functions more-or-less like an app. Easy to use on your mobile devices, but we’re not going to ask you to download anything! All you need is the link and a working internet connection to get started from any device.

Going, going, gone

The time has finally come — ticket applications for the Fast Stream Conference 2017 are now closed and we’ll be letting everyone know whether they’ve got a place over the next few days, so keep an eye on your inbox! For those who’ve been allocated a ticket — welcome on board, we’re happy to have you. For those who weren’t quite so lucky, don’t despair — we’ve put you on our reserve list to give you every chance of securing a place should more tickets become available.

The response to this year’s conference has been fantastic. All of us would admit to a touch of nervousness when we hit the button to make tickets available. But then came an initial trickle of applications, followed by a flood, and by the time we closed for new applications over 700 of you had entered the ballot.

We’ve received applications from Fast Streamers across every scheme, department and part of the UK (and beyond!). This year was the first time we’ve opened the conference to non-CSR Fast Streamers and Fast Track apprentices, and we’re delighted that over a fifth of those who applied come from one of those two groups.

Crunching the numbers

Given the incredible response, our biggest challenge as a team has been to figure out a method of allocating tickets quickly and fairly across all those who applied. Luckily our agile coach Jonathan had already thought of this and has developed an algorithm that will allow us to allocate tickets evenly across Fast Streamers from all parts of the country.

On the agenda

While the logistics team have been focussed on all things ticketing over the past couple of weeks, our content team hasn’t been slacking off either, and they’ve been hard at work firming up an agenda of seriously exciting speakers for the conference itself.

The core aim is to bring together a broad range of speakers and interactive sessions to reflect the massive impact that digital technologies are having on the way we work and deliver services to the public. We’ll be looking at a whole range of topics, from cyber security to big data and how we can use digital technologies to improve policy making. If you fancy a sneak peek at what’s on offer, check out this teaser for some of the highlights.

We really couldn’t be more excited to have as many of you as possible joining us in February.

What went well

The past two sprints have had a pretty relentless focus on getting people into the ballot. We want to share with you how that’s going.

Thanks to our user testing, we’ve only had 13 queries about the form from over 700 applicants. The deadline to enter the ballot is Friday 9 December. There’s still time to enter!

We’ve been more effective than ever with our Trello boards. So good, in fact, that there was a prize.

We’ve moved further ahead with the app — we’ll be approaching users to test it on this sprint, so keep your eye on your inbox if you volunteered to help with user research!

We’ve also confirmed even more speakers, and had a huge workshopping session to figure out who would speak where and when.

What didn’t go well

• We’re still struggling with attendance at stand-ups
• We found that we were sometimes duplicating things in both teams
• We struggled to find breathing space to organise a social — we’ve got to get better at self-care
• Cards that hadn’t moved forwards because of external blockers really slowed us down and sapped morale

What we’ll do differently

• We’re going to add a “blocked” label to alert our scrum-master to issues we need fixed
• We’re going to get more people involved in user testing. This way we’ll get more users testing out our things!

Sprint 8 is our final sprint before we take a well-earned break. We’ll be back in the new year to give you our finalised agenda. We’re so excited to tell you about it, so keep your eyes on Facebook and Twitter for the latest news.

Here’s what we did

• This was the ticketing sprint! We kicked off applications, and focussed on getting the word out.
• We’ve continued getting our speakers confirmed, and have identified a need for a moderator for our plenary sessions.
• We’ve got even more market stalls confirmed.
• Our brilliant developer and his excellent support team have started developing the webapp for the conference, which will be the one-stop shop for all the information attendees will need.

• We learnt some cool new Trello tricks :thumbsup:!

What’s next?

• We need more targeted communications to the fast streamers we haven’t quite reached yet.
• Our stand-ups have got so slick that they’re clocking in at around 8 minutes per day. With the extra time that affords us, we’re going to try a slightly different approach — where we look at our objectives that are in progress in turn, rather than going person to person. We’re hoping this will mean everyone stays more up-to-date with where we’re up to with each objective.

It’s Sprint 7.

We’ve developed a conference based on user needs, and hundreds of people on both Early Talent schemes have registered for the ballot.

If you needed any more convincing, here’s a sneak peek at the agenda. Our aim is to give you a starting point to develop your own definition of what digital means for the Civil Service. Remember that this is just a sneak peek — there are more sessions coming! Keep an eye on our Facebook, blog, and Twitter to get the latest updates.

Plenaries

We’re hugely excited to welcome the Director-General of GDS to our conference. He’ll be kicking us off by talking about his vision for digital in government. Kevin has had a long career in both the private and public sector, and will offer a fascinating insight into government and digital.

Data

There will be sessions on open data, local government, registers, big data, and how to store all of those things in a way that’s secure and accessible. We’ll learn about how it can be used to improve the services we design and how we deliver them.

Policy

Our most interactive track, we’ll be rapidly prototyping (testing/developing) ideas all day in a bid to learn by doing. There will also be opportunities to understand how we can ensure our digital services are inclusive, and how DfID are using digital means to improve policy-making.

Agile

Agile is a way of managing projects that’s being seen more and more in government. Leaders of the future, whether they think they’re digital or not, have to understand the roles, rules, and responsibilities of this new way of working. There’ll be talks from Product Owners and user researchers, and we’re excited to hear Tracy Williams from the MoJ talk about scaling agile working from one team to the whole department.

Security

We’ve got a huge cross-section of content in this track, but we’re really excited to announce that we’ll have speakers from the National Cyber Security Centre. They’ll be talking about the work they’re doing to help protect the UK from attacks in cyber-space.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be diving into more detail about the conference, including the many organisations who’ll be “showing the thing” over lunchtime networking. If this has piqued your interest, you can apply here and stay up to date by following us here, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Here’s what we did

• We finalised our ticket ballot process, which opened on Monday. You can read about it or, if you’re in a hurry, you can enter the ballot directly.
• We’ve secured almost all of our speakers — we’ve got great sessions lined up from GDS, BEIS, UsCreates and others.
• We’ve started working on our web-based application — it’s going to be a great way to communicate the agenda, location, and other important information to you. Rachel, the Product Owner, will be here to talk about her vision soon.
• We worked incredibly well as a cross-functional team to deliver a ticketing system that works, although we have identified a bug when using very old versions of Internet Explorer. If you can’t find the “Register” button on Eventbrite, try again with a different browser if possible.
• We got team members who’ve never done user research before to experience it up-close, and it’s changed how they feel about it completely.

What’s next?

• We’re using Google Drive to share what we’re working on with each other, but it’s become quite messy. We’ve tasked a member of the team to give it a thorough tidy-up to ensure we’re not accidentally duplicating work
• Our product owner, Eve, is going to focus more on horizon-scanning and less on the day-to-day delivery. This will ensure she keeps us on the right track to achieve the vision.

• Finally, we’re going to try to get better at sharing our workload and being open about where we need help and support.

So now it’s live. Enter the ballot for a ticket now!

This year, we’re opening applications to Fast Track Apprentices, as well as Fast Streamers, because we believe that the future of the Civil Service lies in leaders at every level being able to deliver digitally.

For centrally managed Fast Streamers, the Conference is free to attend. For non-centrally managed Fast Streamers and Fast Track Apprentices, the cost of a ticket is £30.

What’s it about?

We’ve been working hard to produce a conference that’s going to meet the user needs you told us about at the beginning of this process. You told us you wanted to know more about the way digital worked with security, data, policy and being Agile. More recently, you told us you wanted to know about expenses, about the agenda, and whether it would be interesting and/or fun.

We can tell you about the first two, but we’d like you to tell us about the last one!

We’re running a one day conference twice: held from 09:30–16:30 on 02 February 2017 and again on 03 February 2017 at the BEIS Conference Centre, London. Both days will have the same agenda, and the same content.

For centrally managed Fast Streamers, travel and subsistence costs will be covered for those based outside London, in line with HMRC policies. Since this is just the ballot stage, please don’t book anything yet — you are not guaranteed a ticket! For non-centrally-managed Fast Streamers, your Department is expected to cover any T&S incurred.

You said, we did

We’re really excited about the speakers we’ve got so far to run sessions on those topics. Among others, we have:

• Kevin Cunnington, Director General at GDS, to talk about his vision for the future
• An ethical hacker, to talk about what we can do to make digital services secure
• as well as speakers on open data, local government, useable security and lots more.

We’re continually developing our agenda, and we’ll keep updating you here. If you want to be the first to know, follow this blog or like us on Facebook.

Doing the hard stuff to make it easy

We’ve written a business case to help you convince your managers to let you take the time off, and, if you’re a non-centrally managed Fast Streamer of Fast Track apprentice, to secure the cost of a ticket (£30). If you haven’t got it, email fsconference2017@gmail.com with the subject line “Please send me the business case”.

What’s next?

If you apply for a ticket, you will be entered into a ballot. The ballot will ensure a representative range of attendees. You’ll find out whether or not you have been successful in early December 2016. We’ll email you on the address you submit, so keep an eye on it!

For us, Sprint 6 is underway, and you can see what the Content and Logistics team are up to on our Trello boards. We’ve got loads more planned, and we’re incredibly excited to bring it to you. If you want to keep up to date with what we’re doing, check out our Facebook or Twitter, or like and follow this blog.

We’re the agile team delivering content for the Fast Stream Conference 2017, Digital: Definition Unknown. We’re working in the open in 2-week sprints, and we’re using a Trello board to track our work.

Agile is all about ensuring that a policy or product meets the needs of its users. At the core of Agile working is the philosophy that it is the user who knows best.

That’s why, in preparation for the Fast Stream Conference 2017, Digital: Definition Unknown, we’ve been inviting potential attendees to engage as much as possible. As well as keeping you up to date with our blogs, and on Facebook and Twitter, we’ve recently invited a number of you to participate in some user testing sessions to help form the process of applying for a ticket.

Applications to attend the Conference will open next week and we’re really excited about this! Keep your eyes on social media, and look out for emails from the Fast Stream Forum, for details on how to apply.

We’re involving centrally managed, non-centrally managed, and Fast Track apprentices. That means over 3,000 people will be eligible to apply, and that’s why it’s so important that we thoroughly test our ticketing system beforehand. We’ve had a diverse range of users, from a variety of Departments and locations, representing the corporate fast streams, the non-corporate fast streams and the Fast Track Apprenticeship, go through the process of applying whilst feeding back to us about how clear and easy (or not) they found the process.

We’ve picked up some vital lessons from this approach, like the need to clarify what we mean by ‘corporate’ and ‘non-corporate’ and the importance of explaining how the ballot for tickets will decide who is successful. We’re aiming to deliver a diverse Conference with representative attendance from across the country, and you can read more about that ambition here.

This week we’ll sit down as a team, surrounded by the most important tool in the Agile toolbox — post-it notes. On each post-it will be a piece of feedback we’ve received from our user testers, and from there we’ll agree what amendments to make to the online system. The result will be a clear, easy to use, user friendly system that has benefitted from your input: proof that the user really does know best.