I’ve joined Made Tech!

I’m really pleased to be able to say that since last week, I have been working at Made Tech!

For the last decade or so I have been working with local government to modernise the way things get done: from early experiments with social media, to improving the user experience on websites, to getting to grips with the back office IT and all that entails.

Sometimes I have worked directly in councils, in Head of Service roles at places like Adur & Worthing or Croydon; sometimes as an interim, such as at Horsham or Reading. Just recently I have been a freelance consultant, working across a number of local authorities.

What I haven’t done before is work for a company that can support public sector change and modernisation at scale. Being a freelancer is all well and good, but there was only ever one of me and my own skill set has its limitations.

Joining Made Tech gives me the opportunity to keep talking to local government about how it can make best use of digital design, data and technology; only with the backing of an incredibly strong team of designers and technologists to actually make things happen.

What’s more, the cultural fit with the company is a perfect one. The commitment to capability building by sharing knowledge and experience and up-skilling client teams really speaks to me.

There are a whole bunch of people I have known and respected for a long time at Made Tech. Getting to spend time with Glen, Lorna, David, Matt, Emma, and others is going to be a fab experience. The new people I am meeting are also an incredible lot, and I am really excited about what we can make happen together.

I need to figure out what I am going to do with the SensibleTech website in the future, but for now it’ll stay where it is and the content won’t be disappearing. I dare say, though, that I will be blogging a bit more here than previously, as well as appearing now and then on more official channels.

If anyone in my network is interested in how Made Tech could help them make things better, please do get in touch.

Getting started with user research workshop recording

The workshop that Lizzie and I delivered went down pretty well, I think. You can find out for yourself by watching it back.

It’s a quick canter through different methods of undertaking user research, aimed at those new to the whole idea. I think user research is a super-important thing for digital teams to get involved with as quickly as possible, because it’s a cultural game changer. If you want to be more user-centric in your work, there’s no better way of doing it than actually speaking to, and understanding, your users.

As well as watching the video, you can:

  1. Download the slides
  2. Read the questions and answers that didn’t get looked at in the workshop
  3. Read the chat notes from the session
  4. Listen to the audio

Lizzie also has some fab stuff that will help you on your user-centred design journey:

Digital age operating models, with Eddie Copeland

One of the elements of the Loosemore definition of digital that doesn’t get as much coverage as the rest is the bit about business, or operating, models. That’s probably because it’s really hard.

So I loved having this chat with LOTI‘s Eddie Copeland about his 6 ideas for future operating models for local public services, which he wrote about a few years ago when he was at Nesta.

I think it is fair to say that this really is just the start of this conversation, but I really hope that folk can take inspiration from what Eddie shares in terms of thinking about how certain services could be completely transformed from the ground up.

As I explained in this post, it isn’t always going to be possible to be truly transformative, and sometimes less ambitious approaches are more suitable. But I think every council needs to have this kind of thinking in their lockers, ready to take the opportunities as they arise.

FREE online workshop: getting started with user research

Photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash

This workshop is free for public sector people. Please use your work email address to make it easy to recognise you!

It’s happening on Thursday 16 December, 12pm on Zoom.

Book now!

User research is one of the most important stages of any successful digital project. However it often gets missed, and that’s often because people just aren’t used to doing it.

Involving service users in research and testing is a big cultural change for organisations, and takes a fair bit of confidence to start doing for the first time.

In this workshop, Lizzie Bruce from Cake Consultancy joins me to introduce common user research methods, as well as some less well known ones.

We will also talk through how to arrange user research sessions for the first time – where to host them, how to recruit users, how to record sessions and turn them into actionable insights.

At the end of the workshop you will feel more confident about:

  1. Including user research activities as part of your digital project
  2. Choosing the best user research methods to meet your objectives
  3. Setting up your user research sessions, in terms of location, equipment and practicalities
  4. Finding and recruiting users for your research
  5. Turning your research into actionable insights

Don’t delay, book today!

Book now!


5 videos to help leaders understand digital

Following on from the workshop I ran with LGiU last week on digital for leaders (which went very well, thank you for asking), I shared a few bits with the delegates – further reading, if you will.

Part of that was a set of videos on YouTube that cover some of the important areas that folk in senior positions really need to understand, delivered by people with far greater expertise than me.

Here they are – try and get them in front of your senior leadership team, if you can, and book in a chat with them shortly afterwards to help them apply it to your organisational context!

1. Digital Government: Not Complicated, Just Hard – Tom Loosemore

2. Applying digital to everything – Janet Hughes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy8jgRLej0U

3. Situation Normal, Everything Must Change – Simon Wardley

4. Human-Centered Data Transformation – Kit Collingwood

5. Designing government services that meet user needs – Martin Jordan

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