10 April 2017
Recently, the National Audit Office (NAO) released a report on the Digital Transformation of government. In it, they devote a section to the approach and results of the government’s control of technology spend. As always happens, the focus is on “savings”. After all, what’s the point of controlling spend if you don’t make savings? People […]
27 March 2017
When building and running services it’s important get into the habit of releasing updates to users on a regular basis. This applies to all phases of a product lifecycle – whether you’re prototyping something new, or maintaining a service that’s already in use. Deliver value early When you’re building something, find the smallest thing you […]
10 March 2017
Building good services takes a lot of effort. Whether it’s gaining a deep understanding of user needs, or changing policy and laws to remove complexity, or piecing together technology to make it all work, there are many things that need to be done. The most successful teams and services are those that have the space […]
9 March 2017
For the last 5 years, I’ve been at the heart of efforts to bring government into the digital age. I’ve worked with teams across departments to introduce new ways of doing things, to build new services and transform organisations. Along the way, I’ve learnt a huge amount about how to do it, and also what […]
18 October 2016. 1 Comment
Digital transformation is a phrase that gets thrown about a lot in government circles at the moment. It means different things to different people. This makes it impossible for people to really understand what you mean when you say it. I’m not the first to write something about this. Simon recently wrote about how the […]
13 October 2016
A few weeks ago was my fifth anniversary at the Government Digital Service. I’ve had the opportunity to work on a huge number of important projects in various roles including software developer, technical lead, product owner, delivery manager, troubleshooter and technical architect. From building GOV.UK to travelling to DVLA in Swansea every week creating new […]
16 August 2015. 1 Comment
It’s been a fortnight of big announcements. Mike has announced he’s leaving. Leisa is going home. Tom, Ben & Russell have decided to move on. We’ve also said goodbye to some others – Andy, Lindsey, Sam and Mark. There’s been lots of noise about what this means for GDS, for ongoing digital transformation, for the […]
14 June 2015
Last week I spent a day in Manchester with my team’s user researcher. She’s visiting people all over the country to help us better understand how people interact with government services. Taking part in research like this gives you a great opportunity to meet people outside of your normal circle. As a civil servant, I […]
2 February 2015
January is usually a fairly quiet month. It normally takes people a while to get back into things following the Christmas break. This year however, everything seemed to have hit the ground running. Lots of projects have moved forward quickly and it looks like the first half of this year is going to be rather […]
9 September 2014. 1 Comment
When you’re deep in the day to day detail of projects, it’s quite easy to lose sight of the big picture. If you’re making lots of small, incremental changes, you can quickly forget what things were like when you started. I’m currently taking a couple of weeks away from my DVLA projects, partly because it’s […]