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Another long weekend _and_ a general election. Not sure if I will publish weeknotes during the pre-election period but I will continue to write them so if nothing happens here over the next few weeks expect a bumper pile of them on 5th July.

What I’ve been up to

1. With help from our organisational blueprint colleagues we’ve been reviewing current, interim and to be states for Digital. This means looking at the shape, size, structure, skills and plans. What does the future Digital function look like and what do we need to do over the next 1-2-3 years. Great to get some peer review and challenge on the work we have done on our op model and strategy so far. Also really helpful to be thinking about what we might have missed.
2. The Government Transformation Week launch event at the House of Lords went well. The week of events isn’t until November but I encourage everyone to think about the value of attending. I always get a lot out of them.
3. Kicked off a conversation with our parent department and sister ALBs about future collaboration and how we can deliver better value to both our respective organisations and the market.

What I’m doing next

A pre-election period might mean that we can’t communicate more openly over the next few weeks but that doesn’t mean that work stops.

1. Tuesday is Change Portfolio Executive where I will be providing an update on our current priorities and work profile over the next few months.

2. Wednesday there is a digital all hands call. Looking forward to finding out more about what people are up to

3. For those in London on Wednesday, we are having a few drinks with Adrian to say goodbye properly to him.

4. Work continues on the future digital op model work with organisational blueprint colleagues. We have a workshop to agree next steps.

(The? Is this it?) warm weather has finally arrived which has meant a weekend of outdoors – gardening, grass cutting DIY and barbecue. Fantastic. Given my limited manual skills the fact that I still just about have 10 digits attached to my hands is a total bonus.

What I’ve been up to

1. Sharing is good for the soul. Got to meet up with a bunch of other digital leaders at a cross-government product leadership event to share achievements and challenges. A lot of discussion about the implications of the upcoming election.
2. I also saw loads of former Government Digital Service colleagues at Interesting on Wednesday evening. In fact it felt very much like a GDS monthly all hands event from c.2015. Really great to feel the energy in the room and learn something useful about somewhat obscure hobbies.
3. We reviewed our monthly performance metrics to ensure we are on track in relation to budget, people and risk management. I’ve got to hand it to Krystalla and her business management and assurance team. They’ve really got a tight rein on business rigour which is one less thing for me to worry about.
4. We’ve really stretched ourselves in maturing our approach to resourcing and scheduling. Again Krystalla and team have put their metaphorical shoulders to the wheel on this and its really welcome for us to put some structure and process around how we do this.
5. I got step out of the day job for a few hours in my capacity as a trustee of NASEN and participate in their regular strategy and people committee meeting. V helpful to get some perspective on how other organisations are grappling with the return to work / hybrid challenge amongst other things.

What I’m planning next

1. I’m hoping to confirm the start date for Ronald’s successor as Assistant Director of Delivery and Architecture this week. This is a critical role in the digital leadership team and I am delighted we have managed ot attract a strong and experienced candidate to take over the role and lead the architecture, engineering and delivery teams.
2. I’m meeting with DLUHC and Land Registry colleagues for an introductory converstaion about how we can collaborate more.
3. Very excited to be invited to the House of Lords this Tuesday for the launch of Government Transformation Week (5-7 November 2024), organised by Government Transformation magazine. Its always a great series of events to engage on future Government delivery with government and industry peers.
4. I and various other digital colleagues continue to have a raft of regular check ins and workshops with the consultants supporting the organisational blueprint programme. They are helping us to review and refine our current and future digital operating model, strategy and roadmap.

Long may the good weather last!

As ever, there is a lot happening this week. On top of work stuff I am fitting in an evening with Kacey Musgraves and attending Interesting 2024. Not sure which of these I am most excited about.

What Ive been up to

1. We held our kick off workshop with the Deloitte team reviewing our digital future operating model. It was a good session covering a lot of ground but there’s a lot more to do so this will be a real area of focus over the coming weeks both for me and the leadership team.

2. We’ve continued to iterate our resource planning and reporting model, getting to grips with PowerBI to better interrogate the data so it’s more meaningful for us when prioritising new work.

3. I attended a round table discussion organised by Government Transformation Magazine on public trust in digital services. Lots of discussion about what might happen next post-this administration.

4. We (me and the rest of the digital leadership team) have been drafting out individual and collective objectives for the coming year. Good to see the flow from our strategic objectives into the leadership team and into individual. The line of sight is encouraging.

What Im doing next

1. We’ve got our monthly review of performance measures and management information this week to keep us to plan.

2. We’re continuing to quantify (ie actually put numbers to our hypotheses) our future live service support model which will require us procuring some capabilities from the market to supplement our in-house teams. We’re having good engagement with the Evolve team to test our estimates with theirs.

3. I’m attending a cross-gov product leaders community meetup, the first for a very long time that I’ve been to. Looking forward to comparing notes with colleague across the public sector.

4. I’m a trustee of NASEN, the National Association for Special Educational Needs. We’ve got our quarter strategy and people committee meeting on Friday so a chance to context shift and provide support to such a vital organisation.

Yet again a bank holiday weekend has lulled me into a false sense of security and I’ve missed my self imposed deadline of writing my weeknote on Sunday evening. I know I _should_ try and write the note at the end of a working week, not at the start of the next, but I find it useful to gain some perspective by leaving it for a few days. It also helps me to focus on the week ahead. Anyway.

What I’ve been up to

1. A good chunk of the week was invested in attending my first senior leadership awayday(s) in Birmingham. Only the second time I have been in the room with the wider SLT since I started at Homes England so a chance to meet some for the first time. An energy intensive couple of days, really productive and nice to feel part of a wider team of leaders rather than focusing just on my own area for once.
2. Getting better at forecasting money and people availability time has been a bit of a focus for me for the last couple of months. I’ve been keen for us to have better, near real-time, management information to hand so we can make more effective prioritisation calls. We’ve now got a good robust dataset to derive insights from and the digital business and assurance team have really bust a gut to get this work to a good place. We’ve still got lots to do (for example, better data presentation) but they have brought it a long way forward in a short period of time.
3. Related – we held our monthly digital portfolio group on Monday. Better MI is helping this checkpoint run more efficiently – its all connected.
4. We held our pre-market engagement supplier day as we look to the market to support and enhance our service delivery capacity in the future. We’ve now got a much better idea of what we need to source and what we need to do next to move this work forward at pace.

What I’m planning next

A four day week, so less time to do what needs to be done again. And a train strike. Again.

1. We’re having a workshop with the operational blueprint team from Deloitte to review the work we’ve done so far on future digital op model. We want to ensure our thinking is aligned as well as develop a plan to address our legacy estate modernisation plan
2. We’re in end of year reporting / setting objectives for the new financial year mode in the senior leadership team so I’m meeting with direct reports to agree priorities for the next year as individuals and collectively. I’m hoping all the other teams are on track for this work as well.
3. Two regular catch ups: one with the Evolve programme manager, one with my opposite number at DLUHC – both really important so ensure continued alignment of our work with theirs.

Weeknote 21 means that this habit is now officially a grown up, or something. My weekend has been mostly spent grappling with a failing freezer and trying to squeeze a bit more life out of it. After hours of defrosting, deep cleaning and reseating the door seal, nothing was working and it looked like the end. Then I noticed that the bottom hinge was wildly out of position. That screw that a kind member of my family found on the kitchen floor a few weeks back and had placed on the window sill suddenly zoomed into focus. Weeks of scraping ice and plumping up the door seal all for nothing. Two minutes with a screwdriver and the freezer is as good as new. Anyway…

What I’ve been up to

1. A busy week with travel to Leeds for the monthly digital leadership meeting. An over-optimistically crammed agenda but we managed to get through most of it, focusing on our forward plan of meetings and activities for us and the wider directorate over the next year, our financial forecasts, and how we manage the change demand requirements from our colleagues across the agency better.
2. Of course it was also Adrian’s final digital leadership meeting and we got a chance to say goodbye in person before he finished as chief digital officer on Friday. Adrian is completely saying goodbye to Homes England just yet but from Monday I (and therefore Digital) report into Kirsty our COO. Its a small change (only my management reporting line moves in practice) but its a significant change as we join a group that provides a large chunk of the corporate enabling functions for the agency.
3. In preparation for the change I joined the monthly COO senior leadership team on Monday to get some insight into how the group runs. Given the size its unsurprising that there is a large measure of reporting rigour which is reassuring.
4. I got a chance to catch up with Sarah, our head of delivery, whilst in Leeds and debate some of our ways of working. I missed Paul, our new head of user centred design, who is was in Liverpool for a communities of practice meeting. But I did get to meet him via the power of Teams on Friday and discovered we have a few mutual friends and a similar eye on the challenges and opportunities for UCD in Homes England.
5. I managed to meet two former Government Digital Service colleagues this week. Neil is CDO at the BFI, an amazing career move for a confirmed moving picture nut. Dave is CEO of DXW, a brilliant digital agency that specialises in helping public sector organisations deliver better services. Its great to take some time out and get some external perspective. Consensus was that its hard being a digital leadership in and around government right now for a variety of reasons. We need to stick together to help navigate the challenges we mutually face.

What I’m planning next

1. Its my first senior leadership away day in Birmingham on Wednesday and Thursday. I’ve only been in the same room with (most of) them once before so I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with colleagues from across the wider agency away from the day job.
2. We are working hard to nail down our finance forecast for the new financial year. We’re reviewing the revised position tomorrow to give us a bit more clarity on what we can and cannot fund.
3. Steve and the digital outcomes team have been refreshing the emerging digital operating model work that started last autumn and I’m aiming to share that with COO colleagues this week.
4. The monthly digital portfolio group meets on Monday. I’m chairing this one. Its getting better each time we run it.
5. We’re holding a supplier day as part of our pre-market engagement as we look to suppliers to support and enhance our service delivery capacity in the future. This is particularly important for the products and services being developed by our transformation programme as they require some skills that we either don’t have, or don’t have enough of, in-house.

Anything else to note

A few articles that have been making me think in the last week or so, all from the top value John Cutler:

On quarterly delivery cycles: TBM 280: 2-6-4-1

On magical companies not being quite so magical: TBM 281: Stop Chasing Unicorns

On continuous improvement: TBM 284: Why Aren’t We Talking About Continuous Improvement?