The Explainer
Dydd Santes Dwynwen hapus! Oidhche Bhlas Burns! Slàinte Mhath, iechyd da!
It is both Saint Dwynwen’s Day and Burns Night, a day for lovers in Wales and a night for one poet in Scotland. I’m looking forward to Burns Night at a friend’s this evening, especially as I’ve just spent an hour finding new house insurance deals. What a joy that was.
So, the week. It was OK, less productive than I’d like it to have been. Spent a day and a half preparing an explainer on generative AI for non-technical folk, which took me away from team design and filling in the service handbook. But, on the plus side, I spent one day with a new client and a host of new product managers.
So what happened?
- Joined a meeting on cross-programme progress
- Published a high-level overview of our vision, mission, and how the planning data service works in our service handbook
- Did a fireside talk on what it’s like being a product manager, and 3 key mindset shifts to do it well
- Ran a session to create alignment between two teams on the programme
- Created an explainer on generative AI for non-technical folk
- Chatted with Audree about scaling teams
- Had a great chat with our deputy director about programme strategy
- Read some of the digital blueprint stuff
- Had some good 1-to-1s
- Started planning Product for the People 2025 with Debbie and Jukesie!
I’ll share the AI talk next week after I’ve delivered it to MHCLG folk. There’s a small preview on Bluesky if you’re really curious.
Not many thoughts to share this week.
It’s nice to see Ministers saying the right things about digital in government again, and it was pretty cool to see our planning data service listed as the second good practice example. Looking forward to seeing open roadmaps, strategies, strategy reports, performance dashboards, details of governance frameworks, and all the open, transparent goodness. No bullshit, just walking the walk.
Oh, and weeknotes!
Anyway, I went to see The Brutalist last night. I was worried I wouldn’t get it because it’s about architecture, but it’s not about that at all. It’s quite hard to work out what it is about, or what it’s for. A bit like A Real Pain, it’s about life and how you live it, mostly. But I don’t think it needed to be 3 hours and 35 minutes long, several plot points could be cut out without affecting the story.
Inspired by Chris Fleming’s post about the Newcastle Metro sign, I finally did something with all those photographs of railway signs I’ve been collecting. It’s one for the Margaret Calvert fans.
Finished reading The Wager and started reading Milan Kundera’s The Joke. Enjoying the neuroses.
That’s your lot.
Bookmarks
- Quantum Blockchain mines bitcoin with AI and we have more questions, 8 mins. Since I know everyone’s enamoured with the buzzwords at the moment, here’s a buzzword soup with hints of AI, lashings of blockchain, a light dose of quantum, all drowned in litres and litres of abject bullshit. Quality blogging from FT Alphaville as always.
- How Much Frustration Can You Tolerate?, 5 mins. Handy reframing for anyone setting goals (or holding others accountable to their own). By accepting discomfort as part of the process, you can better achieve your long-term aspirations.
- Competition cured the “British Disease”, 5 mins. Interesting piece I saw posted by some economists, suggesting that putting all your eggs in the Big Company basket might not be a good idea. The ‘British Disease’ refers to Britain’s economic decline from the 1950s to the 1970s, caused by weak competition and poor management practices. Reforms in the 1980s, including deregulation and trade liberalisation, helped Britain recover and improve productivity.
- Has working from home harmed the UK economy?, 7 mins
- Internal AI imbroglio, 4 mins