Dec 2018 – Madebycatemclaur.in

5 great things that happened this week*

Stephen and I put together some slides to explain our approach to improving the way we manage contracts and plan our commissioning longer term. Stephen, Karim and Jacky have done a great job of pulling together the data we need so that we can plan ahead.

We’re working out how we can best support our contract managers so that they can be as effective as possible. Taking the approach of starting with user need we’re asking them some confidence questions – as in, how confident do you feel about:

Good procurement practice — setting yourself up to succeed
Onboarding a supplier — getting the commercial details and relationship set up right
Managing the contractual obligations — securing best value and outcomes
Measuring performance of a contract — building effective supplier relationships/knowing what good looks like
Realising the benefits — knowing what difference we’re making for our users
Planning ahead — knowing what we need in the future

We think that knowing the answers will help us target the right support at the right people to help us become more skilled across the teams.

https://media.giphy.com/media/gbjAtqpO716Hm/giphy.gif

2. We held our first DeliverWeek – it was an MVP to see what value we could generate for ourselves and others. James Arthur Cattell and Rich Blake both held great sessions with us (thankyou both), and as a team we spent time thinking about some key agile ceremonies and how we might improve how we run and use them.

3. I finally realised a long held aim to host a OneTeamGov event in Hackney (Thanks Jenny Vass for the prompt and James Arthur Cattell for the help). I would love to see more local gov participation in OneTeamGov so I’m hoping it’ll be a great discussion.

http://attending.io/events/oneteamgov-breakfast-hackney

4. There’s been quite a focus on our apprentice programme this week. On Tuesday we had a meet up with employers and apprentice providers hosted at Amazon with Hackney’s employment pathways team. We’re looking at how we can develop a network of local apprenticeship opportunities that supports small employers in Hackney and creates opportunities for local people. I facilitated one of the breakout sessions – we had a really interesting discussion from across a range of interests.

Notes from the session. I really want one of these glass boards for our office . . .

Two of our apprentices — Nana and Micah, talked about their experiences with us so far, and the importance of the line manager and buddy roles in supporting them.

The next day Amazon hosted our apprentices for a day of talks, workshops and inspiration. An amazing experience for them all – which focussed on building the skills they need to have a successful digital career.

5. We ran our 5th service assessment – this time on the improvements we’re making to our pay my rent service. Emma and the Orange Maple team had prepped really well, and Ian Ames came to give us an external perspective and challenge. His feedback made my heart sing – everything I’ve been hoping we can achieve in developing our governance as a service by using the local digital service standard and a robust but supportive assessment process.

Some thoughts from my time at #HackIT today.
1/ Having an assessment panel mostly from the same org feels much more supportive than previous assessments I have been to. That's not to say the team weren't scrutinised…

— Ian Ames (@IanAmes) December 12, 2018

In January we’re going to have a team review of all 5 assessments – how can we improve how we’re running them, what are we learning, how is it helping the teams and most importantly – the services we’re building.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0HlvGZXSgzNtY7OU/giphy.gif

What I read this week

I really liked this from David Kershaw – particularly the multi disciplinary approach which is one I’ve been taking with some key contracts.

How to reduce the procurement ‘unknowns’:
1. Use a #multidisciplinaryteam approach. 2. Openness. 3. Discuss the elephant(s) in the room. 4. Promote #nocommentisasillyone. 5. Test things, learn, amend. @cipsnews

— David Kershaw (@Kershaw_MCIPS) December 10, 2018

And this from the ace Rebecca Kemp – on working responsibly

http://attending.io/events/oneteamgov-breakfast-hackney

This from @jukesie on alphas was interesting

http://attending.io/events/oneteamgov-breakfast-hackney

and this from Paul Downey on approaches to roadmaps (I also like this from Eleanor Mollett:

http://attending.io/events/oneteamgov-breakfast-hackney

*technically a fortnight. and this is it from me for 2018, am taking a break from weeknotes now till January.

https://media.giphy.com/media/prcq0JbNs3AaY/giphy.gif

Last week was a very full on week, with new challenges, and lots of thinking about how to do things . . . (and do them well).

So, 5 great things that happened:

I did some public speaking – in front of a lot of people. And it went well*. I was super nervous, but

I’d given myself time to prepare
I got there in time to listen to the previous speakers (it really helps I think to connect what you’re saying to what the audience has been hearing and thinking about beforehand)
I remembered (mostly) to breathe

Importantly though Paul Maltby is always fab to chat with, which also made it fun (once it started)

Last chat of the day – Innovating in Local Government Services w/ @madebycatem from @hackneycouncil & @maltbyps from @mhclg – the #digileaders Public Innovation Conference #GovTech pic.twitter.com/8pNvtj9MPa

— Digital Leaders (@DigiLeaders) November 27, 2018

2. Matthew Cain and I delivered our pilot intro to agile course to 7 key colleagues this week. It was tiring but rewarding – and culminated in a show and tell created in an hour by the participants about what they’d learnt, and what they’re going to do next. The content is open source, and we’ll be iterating and improving it when we run it again in January.

Our fab participants delivering their show and tell to quite the crowd

3. On Tuesday Hackney hosted a Winter Warmer event for older residents – Jasmine had arranged for some of us to spend time there, with users, talking to them about their needs. It was great to meet a range of people, help them with some of their tech problems, and talk to them about if/how they use Hackney services online.

4. I had a great call with Joash and Nicola from Amazon about plans for the event next week. This is with Hackney employers, looking at apprenticeships and growing digital skills in the borough. I’ve volunteered to support the facilitators of the breakout sessions with some ideas and resources — I’m suggesting the 1–1–2–4 all approach from liberating structures as a way to include everyone in the discussion.

5. On Friday we spent the day at Amazon’s new headquarters in Shoreditch with some of the team thinking about what we need to do next to embed, share and improve some of our emerging custom and practice. I’d woken up with a cold, so wasn’t feeling at 100% but the energy and commitment in the room to delivering real value to users was brilliant, and made for a great end to the week.