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Its finally warm (and dry – its Ireland) enough to walk outside in t-shirts, go for bike rides and cut the lawn. Got all three done this weekend so son number two cant complain the grass in the field is too long to kick a ball around in. So that was good.

What I’ve been up to

1. We met as a whole digital functional team on Wednesday. The big item was the announcement that Adrian will be leaving at the end of April, a couple of months earlier than expected. That puts the spotlight on me stepping up to be director of digital / chief digital officer. So lots of questions, change is always worrying, and lots to work through as we plan for our future reporting to the chief operating officer, Kirsty.
2. The news actually broke on Tuesday morning, right before our virtual wider leadership team meeting (all those who are managers) so conversation there inevitably focused on “what next”? Few answers as yet other than I’m now the digital lead. We did get time to talk about end of year appraisals and our plans to make meetings run better.
3. We’ve pretty much nailed down our digital delivery roadmap now with a bit of visual tweaking to be done. It follows our business plan closely. Next step is to share it more widely with colleagues across the business.
4. A fair few conversations about how we _practically_ embed user/service orientated thinking into our work with colleagues across the agency. Badly needed, not easy, a priority for the new financial year.
5. A fair few serendipitous conversations about our using the digital leadership team of microsoft Loop to co-create meeting agendas, capture notes and allocate actions. Seeing some real interest in wider adoption.

What I’m up to next

1. We have our monthly digital leadership team on thursday. This month its in Leeds so looking forward to visiting the office there for the first time and meeting digital and other colleagues who work there.
2. Undoubtably the main topic of conversation is going to be “what are we going to do differently as part of the COO area”, and related expectations. Lots to agree as well as one final hard Paddington stare on our roadmap and priorities.
3. Its my first COO senior leadership team meeting on Monday. It will be good to spend time with the other directors in this part of the business and find out what is vexing them.
4. Got a bunch of overdue catch ups this week, including with old friend Neil Williams. Its really helpful to take a step back and reflect on work with colleagues working elsewhere in similar roles.

(forgot to press “Publish” on this last night but better late than never)

A looooong week with travel and and extended stay in London for part of the weekend. Took in a gig with my wife which made a nice change and largely managed to keep her away from the shops!

What I’ve been up to

1. Tuesday and Wednesday was up to Newcastle to participate in the people survey action plan workshop. Its the largest group of colleagues I have been in a room with since joining Homes England and it was a great opportunity to hear from others and experience the energy in the room. Really gratifying to be amongst people with a shared purpose of making things better.
2. While I was in Newcastle, ran a short workshop exploring better ways of working. We used Mark Eddleston’s new ways of working canvas as a guide and, while we weren’t able to cover it all, generated some good ideas on improving working – namely better meeting etiquette and using Microsoft Loop to generate agendas, meeting notes and capture actions.
3. As a management team we ran a session examining the recommendations from our recent digital target operating model work. Not many surprises but good to have hypotheses checked. The hard work is with us now to turn the recommendations into actions and move this work forward.
4. The briefing sessions with executive leadership team members have been an opportunity to get feedback but also pick up some niggles and actions which I now need to follow up. Its really good to hear what is bothering leaders and consider how Digital might be able to help with these problems.

What I’m up to next

The diary looks pretty crazy this week but its a shorter week at least for travel.

1. We’re trying to nail down the roadmap this week so we’ve got absolute clarity on what we _think_ we are doing whilst we engage with the wider Agency to check our assumptions *and* wait for budgets to be confirmed.
2. We have a wider leadership team meeting on Tuesday. Virtual this time, so shorter and more focused on management issues but we will also be covering the roadmap and strategy work that has been going on.
3. Our digital all staff meeting is on Wednesday. An opportunity for us in the leadership team to update everyone about whats going on as well as hear from others about what they are up to.
4. We have our monthly risk review board on Tuesday. These are starting to develop their own rhythm and help us to mature our approach to managing and reporting our risk.
5. Lots of business change sessions filling in the gaps in my diary as we develop business cases for critical work over the next year or so.

Easter’s over, the chocolate eggs are largely eaten, and the run of four day weeks is over until next month. As much as I love a shorter week I tend to find them disruptive to working patterns and end up trying to cram five days work into four. So while its nice to have had a bit of family time just as spring proper arrives I am also glad to get back into the groove.

What I’ve been up to

Last week included:

1. Our monthly digital leadership team meeting. Unusually I was “dialled in” while everyone else was in the room which demanded a bit more concentration than usual. We covered a lot of ground, including facing into the new financial year and arranging better, more regular high value face to face events with teams to encourage stronger team building.
2. Reviewing progress and setting our priorities as a leadership team for April. We have to report to the board and CEO on the progress Digital has made in March so I’m looking forward to going through all the team monthnotes for March for source material in the next few days.
3. Talking with colleagues to think about how we better resource and schedule our workload. Partly so we have a clearer view across the directorate about what we are doing, partly so its easier for us to demonstrate the value we bring to the wider agency.
4. Its coming up to end of reporting year so I’ve been organising my 360 degree feedback as well as ensuring direct reports are ready for the various meetings, forms and reports that will need completing over the next few weeks.

What I’m up to next

1. I’m off to Newcastle on Tuesday and Wednesday. The main reason is to attend a staff engagement event following our annual staff survey, listen to members of my teams’ views about how we improve our working environment and general satisfaction.
2. I’m taking advantage of being in our Newcastle office to run a workshop on new ways of working. We have done a lot of thinking and tweaking of working practises to improve how our meetings run, how we report and decision making authorities. This article by Mark Eddleston about the new ways of working canvas looks like a good opportunity to bring some of that thinking together.
3. I’m starting a series of short briefing sessions with our executive leadership team about our digital strategy to sense check it and ensure we are aligned.
4. Steve is back after another break snowboarding in the alps so there will be a lot of catching up about our future operating model work that has continued in his absence.

Anything else to note

More than a little bit excited to be seeing Novo Amor for the first time at the Roundhouse next Friday evening. His new album is sublime.

Funny how a couple of four day weeks (including a four day weekend) mess with the internal clock. Completely forgot to write and publish my latest weeknote and its Tuesday already. So we made to the end of quarter one, or the end of quarter four if you are following the financial calendar.

What I’ve been up to

1. We finished interviewing shortlisted candidates for the assistant director vacancy and have made a verbal offer. Once the role has been formally offered and accepted I will let you know who the successful applicant is. It was a really strong field with a diversity of skills and experience but the panel was unanimous that there was one stand out candidate. V excited for them to join us as soon as possible.
2. I had a briefing from TPX impact on the research project they have been running about our future target operating model and how we, Digital, set ourselves up for success in the future. I’ll be sharing the output from the work with you soon. There’s lots of recommendations to take forward and thanks to everyone who helped shape the work.
3. As it was year end there was some manic last minute activity to unblock proposed contract extensions and renewals which took up a bit of time.
4. I met with the digital outcomes team for an update on how we are proposing to pilot a service ownership model for digital communications.
5. Had a musical reminiscence session with Vic S around bands we have loved and seen live which lifted the mood a lot at the end of a hard week.

What I’m planning next

1. We have our monthly digital leadership team meeting on Wednesday. We are a little depleted at the moment with Ronald gone and Steve still snowboarding in the alps but still have much business to discuss as it doesn’t ever pause.
2. We will be reporting on our progress against our March priorities and setting our April priorities as a leadership team. A reminder to all team leaders that you should now as a minimum be providing your monthly update for March in the team notes Teams channel.
3. A rake of catch ups with the various heads of practice to check in and ensure I am up to date with their work and they get the chance to quiz me or escalate stuff they need support unblocking.
4. Meeting and briefing our new project manager, Russell, who’s joined us to lead our work around procurement of additional live service support capabilities.

A four day week always looks attractive on paper but the reality always turns out into trying to cram five days of work into the four. And so it proved this week after taking Monday off to spend time with the family.

What I’ve been up to

1. We (Amanda S, Simon S and me) started interviewing candidates for the Assistant Director role (vacated by Ronald on Wednesday). We’ve seen three, all high quality with much to bring to the role, with three more to interview on Monday. We hope to be able to make a decision quickly and minimise the disruption to the team.
2. The work on designing our future operating model is hurtling towards its end. I say end but there will be much work to do once we wrap up the initial scoping and recommendation phase at the end of March. We held a workshop on Wednesday with most of the “heads of” to help drive this phase to its conclusion. Future op model is part of the suite of workstreams that together point to how digital will look and operate in the future. It includes our digital strategy, business planning and options for funding future change work. I’ve spent a lot of time with colleagues this week to ensure we are covering the right areas and driving the progress forwards.
3. I attended the CDDO service assessment ratings training to brush up my service assessors skills and find out more about the changes the centre are bringing in to service assessments (briefly they are moving from either MET or NOT met to a traffic light system).
4. More risk work – we held our monthly risk review meeting. Its only the second one so we are still finding our flow but we are definitely moving this work forward now which is great.
5. I attended our monthly digital portfolio group to check in on delivery progress and hear how work leads are getting on.

What I’m doing next

Its another four day week so I can expect it to be busy.

1. We’re finishing off the interviews for the assistant director role.
2. I’m updating the change executive committee on future digital ways of working.
3. I’m having a readout session with the suppliers who have been leading our future operating model thinking and design.
4. Lots of monthly 121s to check in with colleagues and make sure we are aligned. This soaks up a lot of time in the diary but is critical as we move forward.

Anything else to note

My trip home this weekend resulted in success. The mighty Magpies beat local rivals Salisbury 1-0.