Richard Barton

Chuffed to see this get a massive boost yesterday. If you haven’t already, please read, sign and share (fellas, the read and share bit applies to you too)

You are one of the reasons I joined a Council a few years ago. Thank you! You’ve had an outsized impact on the sector so far so can’t wait to see what’s next.

No one thinks they slow down delivery. It’s other people that slow it down. Guess how those other people see it.

YouTube video by Hannah Fry Why you should be polite to AI

Might be a practical reason youtube.com/shorts/rVlmb...

I’ve worked on shared services in the commercial world and various flavours of public service. I think pooling the funding and spending authority is the first step to something valuable and sustainable. Maybe the Local Gov restructure can create the conditions for this?

So glad I made the effort to diversify my social media feeds (still too white and male but better than it was). There is so much that the media, and the Supreme Court, have missed. I would too without the posts here, thank you. Now learning about how to repair some of the damage that has been done.

We’ve been trying to do this and being small hasn’t made it easier. A unitary authority is the most complex thing I’ve worked in. Global companies and central government, like DWP, don’t get close.

Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament Information from UK Parliament on written questions & answers, written statements and daily reports.

GDS is back!

Actually it never went away, but the Government Digital Service, Centre Digital and Data Office and Incubator for AI from the Cabinet Office, as well as the Geospatial Commission are now to be known as the Government Digital Service.

questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat...

Just tried Thonny and it seems to play nicely with the microbes.

Nooooo!

Worth chatting to people in the third-sector too as some lessons about scaling, or not, may help. Sometimes the difference between success and failure of an innovation is the passion and energy of the people involved and that can be very hard to repeat, relocate or scale in other ways.

If I had some influence I would go for the design patterns first as they can be shared in a lot of different contexts e.g. what are good patterns for review and approval of generated notes that help people stay alert and engaged and not just tick boxes like they do for website terms and conditions?

I’m anxious about wasting all this energy and water even when we have an overwhelming welfare case to use this tech in public services. We need cigarette-style health warnings on this stuff.

Yes, please and more working in the open. We need to be ready for some of the challenges that come up in measuring things like tech enabled care. Is the research saying important things about the new tools or are we just confirming that a randomised, unresponsive implementation won’t work?

Fighting the urge to make an over engineered version of this (e.g. LLM vs other types of AI) but wonder if we should acknowledge and talk about some of the worrying models too e.g. no public servant in the chain?

Thanks for calling out the local gang. Just put point 5 first and you’ve nailed it.

After some experiments we are starting trials where front line staff think it will make a difference. As a council there is much about the care system we can’t change but better voice to text could be an all round win - assuming the industry can solve the energy consumption and other issues.

Sad that we’re still giving this work special treatment and not helping people find the real change they need to manage. Agile, digital and IT will always be involved but they are never the point. First line should be “if you are reading this you need more help than a guide like this can provide.”

Why does anyone want to scale agile? It is a bit like wanting to scale a kettle.

Weeknote 19th July 2024 - @CIOPortfolio Lots of stuff about team working and a little about the global technology outage.

Latest #weeknote with lots of stuff about team working and a little about the global technology outage. www.cioportfolio.co.uk/2024/07/week...

This

I guess that is like analysing flow for decisions? I might do a bit of “follow the order” observation to see what is going on in our case.

Thank you. I’ve seen this before and then neglected it. Time for a refresh.

We have some higher level flow metrics (how long stuff is left waiting). Should be able to use that as a proxy with a little work.

There might be something about power and trust but could just be too overloaded to change the habits.

The Treasury Green Book is often a missed opportunity. Underlying ideas such as 5-case model are great. Used them for agile, digital work in public and commercial world. Sadly, the more visible side are project stage gates & document templates, often competed without much thought as an admin chore.

Would love to hear more about what “better” looked like for you. I’m struggling the persuade people to try something different e.g. move the decisions out to where the insight is rather than get the insight to central decision makers.

I have now thanks! In one department we evolved something similar by getting report consumers to provide user stories for reporting. Hard to repeat and sustain that kind of engagement elsewhere.

Weeknote 12th July 2024 - @CIOPortfolio A bit about measuring value in an agile way and - oh no - some UK politics

Is it ok to mention our political system in a #weeknote now? www.cioportfolio.co.uk/2024/07/week...

Monthnote June 2024 - @CIOPortfolio Wow! Where did June go? Here is a catch up on the weeknotes I missed over the last few weeks.

Couldn't justify calling this one a #weeknote. I'll try harder this month. www.cioportfolio.co.uk/2024/07/mont...