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Missed a week because Christmas ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Even so, think I’ll keep the numbering consistent so Weeknote five it is.

Hope you all had a good break. I did, despite the terrible weather.

What I’ve been up to

I’ve started engaging with my wider management team on the draft digital strategy and outcomes roadmap. Had some great feedback – which is even better when I realised that half the directorate was still on extended Christmas leave. Looking forward to some sleeve rolling on this over the next few weeks so we can share with the wider organisation.

I’ve mapped out our key meetings and shared with my management team so we can be clearer about purpose of each business interaction. Trying to be as efficient as possible, make sure we’ve got the right people in the room with the right management information at the right time etc etc etc

Properly been getting my head into funding needs for the next financial year. We’ve got a lot of demands (hence the digital strategy and prioritised roadmap work mentioned above) including how we will support digital products, services and components developed as part of our transformation programme as they become live.

Been working with our digital outcomes and corporate communications team to nail down the design brief for an external business to business website we are launching in the spring.

What I’m planning next

I wrote out to all of Team Digital just before Christmas outlining my initial thoughts and soliciting feedback. I’m conscious that a lot of people were already away on leave to I’m going to follow up the request. It’s really important I understand what works well and not so well for people who have been working here a lot longer than me.

I’m going to ask the wider HE leadership team for some feedback on how they work with us and how we could make that all better.

Now that people are back, getting into more gnarly details about strategy development, roadmap, funding, website etc etc

Meeting up with Karl Hoods from DSIT/DESNZ to get a bit of peer feedback and support on my plans.

Issues and escalations

Well, my car broke down on Friday afternoon which was a huge distraction and annoyance. So if you were expecting a response from me then, that’s why you didn’t!

Well that week went super fast. The holidays are approaching at speed and my mind is racing about how to hit the ground running in the new year and begin to make a positive impact.

What I’ve been up to

• Managed to nail a first draft digital strategy and prioritised roadmap for the digital function. I’ve synthesised what I’ve heard, read and learned over the last few weeks and spent an afternoon with my executive director, surrounded by post-it notes (ah, the memories), to get to an agreed position on our forward direction that we can socialise and stress test early in the new year. I’ll share my thinking here in more detail once I’ve had a chance to introduce it to my leadership team
• Used the quiet time to sit down and properly read in-flight and proposed and superseded business cases relating to our transformation endeavours to give me better context on where we are in our change journey.
• Met up with a couple of former colleagues, both with earlier experience of working with Homes England on their digital transformation, for more perspective on how we’ve got to where we are.
• Spent some time with various digital business partners to understand our information flows and decision points. Spent some time thinking about the different types of meetings and frequencies we need (Death by Meeting) so we can make more efficient use of our face to face time going forward

What I’m planning next

• Immediate: decompressing over the christmas break
• New year: digital strategy, roadmap, governance and reporting, funding.

See you on the other side!

The great / bad thing (delete as appropriate) for me about writing weeknotes is they often remind me what I was supposed to do at the end of a time period, so you curse your lack of productivity and focus. After a time my priorities for the coming period become more and more abstract making it even harder to demonstrate progress but easier to not feel bad about.

I am writing this here because, although I haven’t published much online this last several years, I have been writing weeknotes internally as a method of reporting upwards and as a form of journal. I want to remind myself and commit in public to why they are important, for me and for those I work with. So I’d better make them good.

What I’ve been up to

1. Continued with the introductory meetings with heads of practise and some of the enabling business partners. Really useful discussions about how we might work together better across the functions going forward, especially in a climate of tightening budgets and headcount restrictions.

2. Pulling together existing artefacts to inform work we need to do quickly to prototype a digital strategy and top level outcomes roadmap. A lot of the building blocks already exist, which is reassuring, it needs a better coherence wrapper around it.

3. Doing some thinking about the kinds of regular meetings I need to/ want to hold with my reports – format, frequency etc to inject some pace and make things feel a little bit different (and hopefully better)

4. Learning about our approval for a website exemption from GDS (this takes me back in time), how the proposition will fit in with our GOV.UK presence and why we need to deliver fast on this.

What I’m focusing on next

1. Its going to be a quiet week as all my direct reports are away so it gives me time to run a workshop with the executive director on pulling together a straw man digital strategy and outcomes roadmap that we can test with colleagues immediately after the Christmas break.

2. Finances and headcount planning is in full flow. It doesn’t stop for Christmas so I need to use the quiet time to delve into the detail.

3. Similarly I need to carve out some time to read the business cases funding in flight programmes and projects to understand what we originally committed to.

4. A few more stakeholder intros this week before people slink off for the holidays.

Issues and escalations

1. Mentioned money and people last week and above. It helps to focus the mind on what’s achievable but it’s also a big challenge.

Anything else to note

This was a useful reminder of the imperative behind our organisational mission, regardless of the political flavour of the administration.

First weeks in new roles are always a bit unrepresentative of the actual job and busy with lots of meets and greets. This one has been no different.

This week I have:

1. Met my direct reports, some of the heads of practice in Team Digital, various Homes England senior leadership team (SLT) members and a few key DLUHC (parent department) contacts. I’ve been really impressed with the general professionalism and positivity (I would say that here wouldn’t I? But I mean it).

2. I got my new IT kit. It all went smoothly and everything worked first time, as it should. Followed this up with lots of mandatory training and policies to read. Still got a pile more to get through.

3. Been orientating my head around the business and how it operates. Trying to understand the various challenges and issues, none of which I haven’t seen elsewhere in the public sector before. Principally:

– getting a relentless focus on the link between strategic intent and delivery,

– understanding the procurement processes and

– how to attract and retain talent.

Tried really hard not to start diving into problem spaces. One of the benefits of starting just before christmas is Ive got a bit more time to explore the problem spaces before I start sticking my oar in.

Next week I will be:

1. Continuing intros with various colleagues across Team Digital and the wider organisation.

2. Focusing on our strategic priorities, how we track, measure and communicate progress upwards and outwards.

3. Starting to sketch out our future digital strategy and roadmap. All the constituent parts are already broadly in place. It feels like the task it to cohere it better.

4. Understand better what we need to do for business planning and financial bidding for next year. The horizons are much shorter here than in MOD.

Risk and issues

1. Like the rest of the public sector, there is huge pressure on budgets and headcount. Need to be super focused on what we can realistically deliver with what we’ve got.

2. Talent recruitment. We’ve got some key vacancies that we need to fill quickly so I’ll be working with my leadership team and HR to prioritise and get the work accelerating.

I am really enjoying my former colleague and friend Neil Williams’ return to blogging. Especially his piece on what weeknotes are and why he writes them. To which I will add – I write to share and sense check emerging thinking in the open in the hope that it stimulates debate and radiates intent.

Yesterday was my last day as deputy director of transformation at Defence Digital. I learnt a lot in my almost three years there but it was a really tough gig trying to create direction for change in such a huge organisation. I take a huge amount of positive experience from my time there.

Today I start a new challenge, as Director of Digital (and deputy Chief Digital and Data Officer) at Homes England. It’s a step up, a huge opportunity for me. I can’t wait to get going.

Homes England has a strong social mission which I have a natural affinity for. It’s been doing great work in the digital world over the last few years, so it’s a good time to be joining the organisation and to help lead digital function forward into its next chapter.

The people I have met so far are incredibly positive. People who have worked there in the past have contacted me with advice and anecdotes. It’s clear that people who have been associated with Homes England before have a deep connection with the organisation long after they leave. I cannot wait to get stuck in.

I am going to use this little corner of the internet to work in the open as much as possible. Hopefully it will stimulate a bit of discussion and feedback as I find my feet and develop my approach.