. . .tried this week?
I’m trying a new weeknotes style to see if it inspires me/works well (and because change is good. )
. . . noticed this week?
It’s been a very short week for me this week, just 3 days. Two of them were days on the move, with meetings in various places. But the meetings days felt manageable because on Friday I knew I had the space to think and do.
We’ve had some really good conversations this week about things we’re trying to improve – open, engaged and useful.
been proud of this week?
HackIT has been listed in apolitical’s new government learning directory, as a team teaching others the skills needed for the future. It’s a great recognition of how, by working in the open, we’re sharing our knowledge and learning with others.
I’m really proud of the manage arrears beta team – they’ve now used Gov.notify to send their first 1000 letters, saving us both time and money.
We’ve got three people going to the @OneTeamGov #wellbeing camp next week – it’s great to see people from our teams engaging across government.
It’s also been brilliant watching all the project weeknotes being published on our HackIT blog over the past few weeks – working in the open
. . . learnt this week?
I had a great coaching session this week, where I mapped out what I was proud of in my first year in Hackney*, what skills I’ve used and developed, and what the overarching themes might be. It was a really useful exercise – guided by Sarah who is very very good at not letting me off the hook. As a result I’ve got something I can use to frame my thinking about the coming year.
Jane Fallon from the West Mids combined authority spent the day with us this week – we learnt loads from her on how OPG have built a product management community and developed people into the role. Having visitors from other orgs is always a brilliant way to learn more about how other people are thinking about similar problems.
Steve and Karim came up with a good solution to our procurement challenge – one that gets us the outcome we’re looking for but simplifies things for us. They’ve worked really hard to finalise the documentation and we’re all hopeful we can publish the tender next week.
. . . read this week?
Rose wrote a great blog post about hiring – framing another problem for #bureaucracyhack to tackle.
Nour signposted to this great Harvard Business Review article on the importance of teams
*my brother sent over some treats in a little care package. Somebody on twitter suggested that they were ‘just’ crunchies. They are not. Nor do they taste of violets.
**towards the end of June I’ll have been at Hackney a year. A year! It’s been the most brilliant year.
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