3.08 — weeknotes — job klaxon — we are hiring!!

A slightly shorter week this week as have Friday afternoon off, highlight of my afternoon was almost going to the tip and writing weeknotes, but in the sunshine which helps… The ‘almost’ bit of going to the tip was, because of the sunshine, everyone had the same idea and I think life is too short to sit in the queue for the tip for an hour — so we turned around!

It has been another strange old week, there continues to be lots going on and difficult at times for us all to see the wood from the trees. Trying to move things along and bring everyone along at the same time.

Had our Mission Leadership team meeting this week, that’s all the managers in Digital and IT. We meet once a month just for a get together, an update on the hot topics of the moment and to move some of our thinking as a team forwards. We had a couple of colleagues attending the meeting from outside the team to see how we do things in Digital and I was a bit worried as you never know how these meetings are going to go or how engaged the team will be on the day. But it was a great meeting though. We went through a range of stuff going on but then we went through the Start; Stop; Continue exercise that we kicked off last month. This was trying to ensure that we are maximising our time and ensure we have the right behaviours — have to say the work that Hannah and Salma did in distilling the retro board into a really slick presentation was awesome.

At Mission Leadership we also had a chat around having a no email day — we are trialling no email Friday’s for the next few weeks and see how we get on. Will report back.

Wednesday was the second of the design authority meetings for the council. These are really important to ensure that we join things up across the council. As it is still the second meeting we are still getting up to speed, ensuring everyone is on the same page and understanding what we are trying to achieve. Claire (Director of One Hounslow) gave the update on what the programme had been doing over the last month, we then spoke about the levers for change and a great conversation about the Green by Design levers for change we are adopting. Great meeting!

Thursday was our Hounslow Leadership Group meeting, HLG, the top 100 or so managers (I hate that phrase). I help in the hosting and planning of these events and even more so with this one as it was on the topic of our Future World of Work (FWOW). I do actually really enjoy these events, I really like the corporate change and the ‘fun’ of the event itself. The run up to this one was particularly stressful for some reason, no idea why, it was a bit last minute but I pulled it all together in the end. The event itself I think was really good, great conversation, great engagement, a range of people talking and we even managed to present back the pictures that the group work had chosen as best depicting the ‘how we are going to work in the future!’

Friday was the first of our pillar workshops for the One Hounslow programme of work. There are four pillars that support the eight corporate outcomes. Over the next month colleagues from across the Council are coming together on each of the pillars to define, to shape, to challenge, to build and to join up some of the work taking place across the Council. The first one on Friday, apart from me stepping into facilitate last minute and some technical challenges I think went really well. Some great conversations and thinking across the council.

Job Klaxon! We have some amazing Digital opportunities. From service design to data engineering, commercial analysis to project delivery, these are roles that will really make a difference to our communities. Look here https://hounslow.digital/careers/. Message me if you want a chat or more information at all on any of the roles. We’re more than digital. We’re improving lives.

Spring is definitely in the air this week, together with the announcements from the government with the plan for coming out of lockdown there does seem to be some positivity.

Tune of the Week: Bit of another random one…. The Trammps — Disco Inferno (DeeM Remix) — Hell’s Club Version https://youtu.be/4V3c1X23f2M