One of the teams I am working with at GOVUK published the new Government Missions pages at 11.46 today (officially the Plan for Change pages.)

If you are a regular reader you could possibly work out who [redacted] has been in previous weeks 🤣. You might think that but I couldn’t possibly comment.

I’m very proud of the team who have worked of this and of the many features that have been developed for GOVUK in recent weeks that in the end were not included in the initial release. It has been hard and frustrating work at times but the team have really been impressive throughout – rising to challenge after challenge as goalposts moved all over the pitch.

It has been an interesting experience working on something so close to the centre of Government and definitely one for the CV (though my contributions were minimal really) but not something I’d really want to repeat.

What else? Well a new Lead Delivery Manager joined our Web Group so we’ve been chatting and I’ve been trying not to scare her off. She seems great and I’m sure will make a real impact – we’ve definitely missed Jane the last month or two since she moved to a new part of GOVUK and will benefit from having somebody to keep us on track I think (well I will!).

It is OKR season again so there have been conversations about what that looks like in Q4. My feelings about OKRs really hasn’t changed. I’m all for Objectives but the industry around them, the theatre of KRs and even the quarterly cadence all irritate the heck out of me. I suspect they will be the thing that brings my product career to a close.

Next week is the GOVUK GIFT week (it is an acronym that I cannot remember but is basically a ‘firebreak’ elsewhere). I attended the pitch session this afternoon and there are some really great ideas – though a lot of AI which I still don’t really chime with.

Just three days of work left in 2024 now. Christmas (and Nashville) is calling.

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Thanks to Frankie R I found out there was an InterRail sale so jumped in and bought myself a ticket for a months travel for 2025. I had an amazing time a couple of years ago so am excited to experience it again – probably Easter/May ish. The plan at the moment is Brussels > Paris > Marseille > Barcelona > Madrid (maybe sneaking in a day or two in Toulouse to visit a friend). As ever this itinerary is heavily influenced by street art neighbourhoods and museums.

I’m back to doing a different Christmas jumper every day for a couple of weeks as well as review the new streamer Christmas movies. Come find me on Bluesky if you want that dubious festive experience.