Am looking into intranets at the moment for a customer. If you have any good stuff to share, please do let me know! Have already heard from Essex County Council and of course Eleanor’s wonderful post⬈ on the topic too. #
Also I’m really interested in stories from local government folk about their experiences trying to implement GOV.UK components like Notify, Pay and so on. Am keen to learn more about what sorts of things are more likely to work than others… #
Kate Tarling has a free email based course called “From silos to services⬈“. Sounds like something you’d be mad not to take advantage of. #
“3 non-tech principles for decommissioning legacy systems⬈”:
Decommissioning and replacing a legacy system is notoriously challenging. You need some serious technical credentials to navigate a complex legacy landscape and create a new solution that is both flexible and future-proof. All while maintaining business as usual for the people that use them.
But technical prowess is not the whole story. Replacing an existing platform is only as successful as the people who will be operating the new solution. And that’s often forgotten.
“Blame culture isn’t what I used to think it is⬈”:
Blame culture exists when people feel like they have to explain their actions, and always their failings, as caused by something outside of themselves. This thing happened because that person didn’t do something, they say. Or some other thing didn’t happen because that’s just how it is around here. None of this was caused by my actions, they suggest. That is a culture of blame.
The opposite of a culture of blame isn’t a culture of accepting mistakes, it’s a culture of accepting responsibility. You can see the absence of a culture of blame in the sense of agency people have. When people show initiative and take risks, when they approach problems with ways they can contribute to solving them, when they take control of things within their influence, that’s when there is no culture of blame.