The Bach Wen

Last week was the end of my first full working week on the Innovation & Analysis team in Digital Prevention Services at NHS England, working on Managing my health.

The week started with a bit of imposter syndrome. Everyone on the team is so good at what they do that it was hard to see why they needed me. But by the end of the week, it was starting to become clear how I could be useful.

The first thing for me to do is live by the foundational principle for product managers. Shaping the conditions necessary for the team to make the vision a reality.

Next is sowing a golden thread between our work and the wider strategy. What we’re doing sits within wider ambitions, and everyone needs to know how it fits in and how it contributes towards those. It’s part narrative, part goal-setting.

Next is joining up with collaborators, partners and other stakeholders who can support or be part of the mission. As a ‘cross-cutting’ team, it’s essential that we join people already on a journey instead of wholly altering their course. Breaking silos comes with an overhead and we need to own that. Being part of a federated organisation means we’ve got to join up with folks in other layers of the NHS, especially those working on the frontlines. We depend on the ‘hearts and minds’ of the local population; without popular support, our mission is quickly isolated and loses ground.

That’s not all I’m here to do, but those are the most important aspects right now. Especially as we transition from discovery into alpha.

Those realisations were enabled by good chats with Rose, Ralph, Richard, Jeannie, Alistair and others. It was lovely to catch up with Giles and play that back to him, as he helped me see how I could be useful outside the immediate team too.

Other things

  • Went to Interesting 2026, which was excellent, and it was lovely to chat to so many people. Didn’t expect to catch heat for being called Steve though!
  • Did a talk on pragmatic approaches to AI for the folks at Zaizi, an updated version of the talk I gave for dxw a few weeks back. Let me know if your folks might find it useful to hear too.
  • Started reading The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar, which contains some of the tropes you might expect of a DeepMind co-founder. I’ve been reading it with a critical lens.
  • Went to a friends’ wedding near Trefor, North Wales. Had fun camping, dancing, celebrating and soaking up the sun.
  • Had a lovely dip on Machroes beach on bank holiday Monday, an old haunt from when we lived here in North Wales a few years back. It’s not uncommon for people to accidentally park their cards underwater here.

Bookmarks

· Weeknotes

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