2020 02 21 — Weeknotes
2.7 — the one where we launch the alpha of Hounslow.Digital
Deadline week this week for an early draft of the strategy and report as it goes to CLT next week, then Cabinet Briefing the week after… So another hectic week…
A colleague stopped me in the corridor the other day…. “That’s the best Hounslow Leadership Group I’ve ever been to… No one else has made me draw a plane before…..It was really good!”… I think my work here is done. Seriously I was dead chuffed with that feedback. A lot of work and energy went into the making the Leadership Group meeting go well and keeping Digital relevant and interesting for a group of 70 people for 90 minutes isn’t necessarily easy…
Hounslow House is a very nice modern building and the main lifts are those fancy ones where you tell it what floor you want to go to outside and it tells you what lift to go to and whoosh it automatically takes you there. We have a separate lift that just goes between the ground and sixth floor but not as fancy as you have to press the button once you are inside. Other day on the sixth floor got in the lift and…. well just stayed there as I didn’t press the button….at least a couple of minutes passed before I realised that I had to press the button to make it work… 🤦♂️…Digital Strategy is in safe hands….
Most of the week was centred around moving the strategy forwards in some way or another…
Monday
Monday had a great session with the Children’s and education managers. Went through the digital strategy and what they wanted to achieve from technology and data. They have some amazing ambitions and a real thirst for getting things moving, but also really pragmatic about the culture changes that are needed to assist and enable with the changes — was a really good session.
Tuesday
Tuesday I had a workshop session with Niall and the Corporate Leadership Team on the Strategy and we discussed the links to the Culture Change Programme and the work taking place there, how it links to the Digital Strategy and the importance of it. We then did an exercise on prioritisation of the various elements of the Strategy — with a Britain's Got Talent theme — again more information to feed into the delivery of the work.
Wednesday
Met the new Executive Director of Adults and Children’s Service, Steven Forbes, who is now in week two! Went through the Digital Strategy, what we are doing and aiming to do, as well as some of the technology in the Council used on a day to day basis. Was a really good chat and going to be a really interesting working with him to make changes in those areas!
Thursday
Thursday we locked ourselves in darkened rooms to work through the capital programme and think about the resources needed to deliver the Digital Strategy — was a bit getting into the detail — and the team were much better at that than I was — but time well spent as we turn more and more to delivery.
We are also launching as an Alpha site today the Hounslow.Digital site where we will be starting to work in the open more as we undertake Digital Service Design and transformation across the Council as well as #Fixtheplumbing. We will also be in Hounslow House next week on Tuesday and Wednesday talking about the strategy — what is good or anything missing! If you about pop in and see us!
Tune of the Week: Usually this is the hardest part of the weeknotes to write but I had a choice this week — and then I was writing this song came on the radio — and I LOVE this song… The Soup Dragons — I’m Free — https://youtu.be/EVw7fzIP6cQ
