I know February is a ‘short’ month but bloody hell that flew by.

Just two days in Manchester and three in London this time (and three in our Bristol office including a great product community day I’ll mention later). The new role has been pretty full on I have to say. To some extent my particular area of responsibility has been in the eye of the storm – benefiting from some relative clarity of purpose and approach (relative is carrying a lot of weight here I’ll admit) but we are still catching some strays from the wider weather front and I also found myself feeling a bit thinly spread a time or two as I try to work out how to be effective as possible across our mission.

I’m definitely having to add strings to my bow – this role has facets that I haven’t really been at the sharp end of before (a lot more interaction with Policy colleagues for instance – I’ve seen more correspondence/commissions from Private Offices in two months than in 10 years) and some things I’m just a bit rusty at (i.e. Business Planning – a necessary evil I know but a process I have always struggled with as it asks for certainty where little/none exists).

I also worry I am getting a reputation in some corners as being a bit negative – I’ve inherited a couple of decisions that I really would not have made (or certainly would have tried to push back on) and I am not sure I have communicated that well. I’ve perhaps been a little spiky in my investigations into why the choices were made when I probably should just ‘disagree and commit’.

There is a lot of activity closer to my comfort zone though! I was on the panel for seven interviews and have signed up to help another team with seven more in a couple of weeks. The Kickstarter team gathered and we discussed 26/27 roadmaps and OKRs. I’ve met up with Phil to talk about GDS-Local, Tom and James to learn about CustomerFirst, Catherine to chat Test/Learn/Grow, been to City Hall to meet the GLA’s Data for London team (though I didn’t know it wasn’t in the fancy Norman Foster anymore – shows how much attention I pay!) and been rolled out to ‘bad cop’ in a couple of meetings where expectations had got misaligned.

There has been a lot of working going on around crafting our messaging and getting some shared comms artefacts – and you know Jukesie loves a pitch deck 😀 We are also thinking a lot about what kinds of events we could run + when and where to help tell the stories of the Kickstarters and help us with what comes next.

I really like my team – they are smart, confident and curious but also open to new approaches and interventions. I’ve also probably been out socially with them more already than any team since before Covid. Which is great as the whole human connection thing was a big part of why I decided to return to a proper, perm role in the CS.

On a similar topic like I mentioned before there was a GDS Product Community gathering in Bristol – organised by the brilliant Beth. This was a lot of fun – it is great to see what a broad church product people represent and how differently people approach the role. I definitely feel at times that I belong to a previous generation of product thinking that has gone out of style somewhat (like I said on the day I think of it more of an art than a craft and lean more into the leader element of ‘product leader’ I guess) but I felt less out on a limb than sometimes at this event. I was a participant in a session talking about what it is like to be a ‘Head of..’ with Martin and Isobel. This was fun apart from the ‘fishbowl’ format which made me really edgy! The three of us have had very different journeys and experiences as well as different approaches so I think it ended up being an insightful session. I also facilitated something on the topic of ‘working in the open’ (shocker!) sparked by the commitment in the Digital Blueprint to do more of it. Honestly this ended up mainly being a counselling session about how hard it is, how unsupported it is and how nervous people are to risk it. Then in related news Beep posted that they have been told to stop sharing the GOVUK browser analytics which seems ill judged at best and certainly miles from a commitment to openness. So I guess I will keep fighting the good fight on the topic – I have some time in with senior bods in the weeks to come to discuss it.

I’ve been feeling pretty nostalgic with it being the 10 year anniversary of ‘our’ ONS website launching. I wrote a little about it and it is weird that it feels both like yesterday and a lifetime ago. It is kind of funny though that it looks like this is the year they will also finally retire that version of the site.

I’m actually supposed to be in Belfast on a bit of lads/oldies weekend away for a friends 50th but my always fragile health took a bit of a downturn so I am writing this feeling a little sorry for myself but honestly I suspect I would have struggled with a weekend of cos-playing 25 year old me!

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Listening to J.Coles ‘The Fall-Off’ on repeat. I think, like Jay’s 4:44, it is one for the real fans only. It is introspective and a bit narcissistic at times while some of the word play is showing off rather than hitting the spot. I still love it though.

The return of Scubs – well the first two episodes – is a total joy. I loved the show back in the day and Bill Lawrence has an extremely high hit rate with me (seeing him and Zach Braff interview each other at ATX in a little room was a real moment for me) and this new show has, for now, lost none of its spark.

On the other hand I feel like the only person who did not enjoy ‘Wonder Man’. It felt like a Marvel show for people embarrassed to be watching a Marvel show and who had watched too many episodes of ‘Inside the Actors Studio’.

Dave Bautista, Jason Momoa’s ‘The Wrecking Crew’ on Amazon Prime was an unexpected delight. It is a real throwback of a movie – odd couple, action comedy almost entirely reliant on their chemistry but it was so much fun.