5.01 — weeknotes — Kicking off the new year…eventually…
Better late than never! I was, tongue in cheek, suggested by a member of the team yesterday that I rename my weeknotes, monthnotes — so it has inspired me to get cracking this week.
Is it too late to be saying Happy New Year? Probably…anyway — Happy New Year.
It has certainly a positive start to 2023. Challenging to say the least but as we all do, I came back after the Christmas break feeling rested and rejuvenated and ready to take on the challenges of the new year!
For me one of my biggest New Year resolutions was to end the procrastination — I am especially bad / good at it! So trying and mostly succeeding to be much more organised and driven to get through things and not let the ‘do to’ list grow. So far so good and actually there is something quite satisfying about getting through things.
The activity levels at work at the moment are huge, so much taking place at the moment and so much change and transformation across the Council. Working to ensure that we have the right and appropriate governance and resources in place to ensure that we are able to both deliver what we have taking place at the moment and ensuring that we are set up to deliver for the future.
It definitely feels like the last 12 months or so of planning and work are starting to pay off, things slowly coming into place in a number of areas. But the flip side is that a number of things are needing extra attention, a couple of projects are not quite where they need to be so extra focus is needed to get on top of these. The energy in these will be worth it in the longer term and small signs of positivity starting to show through on a couple of them.
I have enjoyed getting into the building more over the last couple of weeks and in three times next week — it is certainly getting busier and more and more colleagues appear to be coming in. We have kicked off the work to review the building with a firm of architects who are starting to look at the ground floor and the experience that we provide our customers. This is connecting into the Transforming the Community Experience work. So many opportunities to do things differently!
Over the last couple of weeks, have been undertaking a review of the governance of Digital and what we need to be in terms of shape, skills and approach for the future, so this has been taking a chunk of my thinking recently. We are adopting a more formal Design Authority approach with the establishment of a Business DA and Technical DA (elements of these exist already but the organisation is maturing so we are developing the thinking).
Also been working with LOTI and had a great planning day with them the other week to think about the approach and the various work packages for 2023. Always a good and committed group of people really aiming to drive change across London Boroughs.
And finally, 2023/24 is the year of my Presidency with Socitm, which I can’t believe is here already, but really looking forward to it. Going to be a great year. Have started to plan the President Week conference which is in Brighton in June this year.
Tune of the week:
