Time continues to fly and there is so much going on, its v hard to prioritise at times. I’m trying to keep half an eye on the meaningful noise being generated about the creation of the new Digital Centre design panel in the hope that I might have something to contribute to the debate. Focus, focus, focus…
What I’ve been up to
- We signed off our review of progress we have made against our business plan for quarter two. That’s the first half of the year done and we’re doing pretty well. Some of our initiatives have been paused while the agency organisational blueprint programme communicates future corporate direction but other than that we are largely on track.
- Lots of discussions and negotiations about future live service support for new services being delivered by our change programmes. This is starting to shape up well.
- Related – reviewing our “small g” governance processes to ensure they are optimal and reducing duplication where possible. This is an ongoing task and critical to mode of operation so I am devoting a lot of energy to resolving this as widely as possible.
- As a response to the intro above – some frank conversations with the digital and senior leadership teams about prioritisation and how we make time to deliver the things that really matter rather than the noise and fast balls generated by the business.
- Got to hang out for an evening in the Gherkin for a cross-govt round table discussion about the future for AI and data. Great views from the 38th floor!
What I’m planning next
- Our portfolio assurance board is meeting on Tuesday. Its now got into a good rhythm managing the pipeline and spend approvals which really helps with solidifying our digital governance processes.
- Got to do some work this week confirming our priorities for next quarter and how we will measure performance.
- Looking forward the next few weeks, planning how we can best use in-person time as a senior leadership team to tackle the issues that are priorities and currently slowing us down. We built a backlog of issues and initiatives earlier in the summer but we are all busy people so time together to address these is really important.
- Working on how we better manage the pipeline of change requests generated by the business – how we deal with the enquiries and pull them through our system into live.
- So much more.
Anything else to note
I mentioned the Digital Centre design panel creation above and my interest in what they are do. Both Jukesie and Neil Williams have provided some excellent commentary themselves and links to others already. Hopes and wishes to which I would add:
- A focus on leadership skills for digital leaders, which I often hear is a problem for people stepping up into senior roles. How do we help future digital leaders navigate the likes of the audit committee or the corporate risk register reporting requirements?
- Sensible and proportionate restatement of why the digital spend controls are important and how they work. The loss of this grip at the centre has been a real problem for digital and tech teams for the last few years. But related theres a lot of confusion about what the purpose is, its often seen as another layer of unwanted governance.
- A focus on wider business change. A blind spot for “classical” GDS IMO. We built great products and delivered amazing digital services. But we often forgot the impact on the enduring business functions. Bodies are good at rejecting organs. Can’t do that again.
Whitehall Webby 