3.09 — weeknotes — been a bread and butter IT week this week (and a potential new fav tune of the week)
Really has been one of ‘those’ weeks this week, but one where I have gone a little bit to my inner geek with some IT challenges that we have had. Don’t panic I haven’t been configuring switches or firewalls — no one wants that!
We have had some performance issues this week. Some of core systems have had their moments this week. Some of this is just the capacity with the numbers at home and some is the fact that elements are due for replacement. Also had another one of those rather nagging gut feelings this where there was something else going on. The team have been great at expediting one of the projects and by the end of the week we had about 200 users migrated over — which is great start as it will be taking load of the existing setup.
Our other project continues to then gather momentum, that is the next thing that really does need sorting. Although we have discovered some other oddities that are in the process of being sorted, that will also help. Nice to test out my inner geek…
Oh and in the mix of this week there was a day 0 vulnerability from Microsoft that was urgently sorted by the team!
On Tuesday afternoon I attended the customer service training that we have been rolling out to everyone in Digital & IT. I think this is so important for us all that every single one of us have attended the training — myself included. It was really good to have some external feedback and challenge around where we are with our approach.
Julie had summarised the most recent feedback we have had from the Socitm survey. It was really powerful seeing that presented back to us from someone outside the organisation and seeing them in black and white on the screen. Some of the feedback was amazing and clearly there are members in the team that really go the extra mile and provide first class customer service. BUT there are some issues, some of the feedback was horrible and really uncomfortable to read! Shows that we really do need to act as a single team to progress stuff and we have some work to do!
The Socitm survey really does help us focus on what we need to do and enables us to compare how we are with others.
We have improved the overall user satisfaction in LBH and are now performing in the top number of comparable local authorities — The figures show an improvement in performance of over 10% from a high score in 2019, despite the challenging times faced providing a continued service to all customers and supporting the Council’s Covid response.
The team have produced a short animation of the Socitm results and the action plan that we are doing as a result — have a look here: https://www.powtoon.com/c/d2WrLdMiXIH/2/m and further info at https://hounslow.digital
Tuesday evening was Council where the new Corporate Plan and Budget was approved — which is great news — but was a challenging evening in terms of some of the technology, got there in the end! https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/156/corporate_plan.pdf
Friday afternoon was the second of the pillar workshops we have been doing as part of One Hounslow and apart from being at 3pm on a Friday afternoon was really good. Always good to get a range of thoughts and ideas to shape the next steps of the transformation programme.
Been pretty good at running and getting outside this week — ran 5k on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — was going to carry on in the week but Gin O’Clock with Claire took priority…
Don’t forget we have some amazing Digital opportunities as well. 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.
Tune of the week: You know how I like random! But this is very on trend!! Honest!!
