I am currently working for NHS England in the prevention services programme. I write a note at the end of every working week to help me reflect and take stock.
Started the week (and "sprint 0") with a smattering of one on ones with the team. I hope we can embrace H’s service design nous and G’s policy experience to good effect. Both are so curious. Sc (delivery manager) took the time to calmly take the team through Jira and was game enough to bend what was there for the team to try doing. We promised we’d start filling the backlog. It’s helpful for us all to know what we are doing.
I had an intro to Imogen and Lucy at the First Contact team. (Mark Ford will be disappointed I didn’t make the obvious Star Trek reference.) We need to find more time with our wider team to look into the First Contact work.
E lead a useful half hour catch up with the wider team. Good leadership.
Tuesday, Sc and I planned our team day (which was the next day). I spent the rest of the day in impromptu chats with team members, assembling some spreadsheets to capture who we’ve been talking to, and preparing some sessions for the team time.
Wednesday was a 5am start to get the 6:10am train from Saltaire (the Northern Time Tax as some call it). The team got together for an afternoon session to try to share our understanding of where we are at. This included ways of working as well as our actual mission. It was good to see everyone together in the same space, openly sharing and discussing. I hope we can do this every month. The DLR is like a sombre rollercoaster. I had a bourbon at St Pancs while I waited for the train back to Leeds, in the shadow of The Meeting Place.
Thursday, the team has a very informative session with colleagues looking after diabetes services. These sessions are for the most part us listening. I will never take for granted the generosity of people wanting to share their work, their successes and — maybe the things not to take candour for granted — their failures. Kate and I talked about her team’s work and my team’s work. Kate’s team have been looking into incentivising people for eating better and moving more. They ran a pilot. I am keen they and us talk more so Kate has added some time to our diary for next week (Thursday I think).
So had a chat with B and myself about the “front door”. Pre-discovery is problematic as a phrase, it suggests to be the people doing pre-discovery are setting themselves up to do the discovery.
I found some time to open some docs I’d read already. Re-reading helped me join dots more.
Friday I continued that. I also started an exercise to understand where I think the team should be digging. Ir (head of product) and I had a good catch up; It’s good to be working somewhere I can talk to a peer in my role. (Last couple of jobs I have been left to it.)
I am looking forward the first few days of next week. Sprint planning will be a good opportunity for us all to come together and start dividing what we do. H’s hypothesis session will be productive. B getting us thinking about users is progressive too. G’s service owner role is a promising opportunity to show the value of that role in a gov/public programme/area. And Sc: Your efforts don’t go unnoticed.
Other notes
I need to keep reminded myself this is a sprint 0 (zero). This reminder makes me remind others in the team let’s get ourselves to a similar-ish place by the middle of next week so we can start proper. It’s better for us to trundle along together than have some people feeling left behind or gasping to grasp what’s going on.
I keep telling people to try not to project their own personal issues — which it is oh-so-easy to do with one’s health — we are here to discover potential service users’ motivations.
To carry that on, I am currently going through a wobble in my type 2 diabetes (my blood sugar levels have been elevated again for the last few months). I found the time with the diabetes people really interested. At least once I had to resist saying “but I…”
B has some excellent shirts.