ai

šŸ“… Daily Note: September 9, 2025

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The hidden fundamentals of digital transformation in healthcare: how to roll out nationally in a local system – by Jane Maber on the dxw blog:

Thereā€™s no question that the technical challenge is real. Designing digital services that work for a national screening programme in a local environment isnā€™t easy.Ā  You have to integrate with diverse existing systems, handle local variation and consider patient safety.Ā  Not to mention managing, and often decommissioning, legacy systems alongside.

But whatā€™s become increasingly clear is that technology alone doesnā€™t drive transformation. As more decision-making power is devolved to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), national teams canā€™t assume one-size-fits-all delivery. Success is really all about the people impacted by the new product ā€“ the admin and clinical staff who use it, and the screening participants who experience it.

Change doesnā€™t land just because itā€™s technically sound. Or even operationally sound for that matter.Ā  It lands because people trust it, understand it, and feel part of it.Ā  So development needs to be done in partnership, and the quality of the relationship with those partners is critical.

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I stopped sending out my email newsletter this year – it lost its place on my todo list in the madness of moving house and so on.

However, am minded to kick it off again, but wanted to move away from Substack for a variety of reasons including nazi-friendliness and increasingly user hostile behaviour.

So, taking some advice Steph gave me a while ago, I’ve moved to Email Octopus, who seem very friendly and the system is easy enough to use. I’ve also changed it to be Localise branded – I’m terrible about marketing my company so thought this might be an easy way of reminding people how I earn a living.

If you’re curious, you can sign up on the landing page.

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Have updated my about page which was very long in the tooth!

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šŸ“… Daily Note: September 3, 2025

Brentā€™s Innovation Journey: Building a ā€˜Baseā€™ for Local Government Innovation by Ryan Hamilton on the LOTI blog:

At Brent, weā€™ve been trying to rethink how we tackle problems in a way that makes ā€˜innovationā€™ not just a buzzword, but a practical, everyday reality in local government.

That journey led us to something exciting: We will soon be launching ā€˜The Baseā€™ , a dedicated space at the Civic Centre (both physical and cultural) where bold ideas, agile working and collaborative experimentation come to life.

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What makes a good outcome? by Jamie Arnold:

In the world of digital and organisational change, being able to define and communicate a strong outcome is a leadership superpower. Whether youā€™re working on a product, service, or internal shift, a well-crafted outcome sets direction, aligns teams, and builds momentum. Hereā€™s how to make your outcomes truly effective.

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New book to improve accessibility of Welsh digital public services ā€“ from the Centre for Digital Public Services.

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I like the idea of ā€œdigital everywhereā€ ā€“ amongst a whole range of brilliant ideas and reflections from Catherine Howe:

Digital everywhere: The embedding of digital practitioners within services alongside a digital skills development program is something I feel weā€™ve tested in a limited way but clearly it works when done right and Iā€™m really looking forward to having the capacity to develop this approach. This requires a really strong approach to making sure those digital roles are properly designed and also wired into the core digital team as well as clear guide rails that need to be context sensitive.

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Product strategy, prioritisation frameworks and responding to change by Alan Wright:

Product teams often face more opportunities than they can act on, with new ones arising all the time. This post explores the link between strategy and priorities, when prioritisation frameworks help or hinder, and how to empower teams to make smart, timely decisions as new opportunities emerge.

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From Strategy to Strolls: A Few Weeks of Progress and Pauses, by Atika:

One of the standout achievements in the last few weeks was securing approval for our new strategic framework and governance model. This marks a significant step forward in aligning our digital ambitions with the Councilā€™s broader priorities. The framework, shaped through collaboration and challenge, is now the backbone of how weā€™ll deliver impactā€”anchored in transparency, agility, and accountability. Weā€™re also making good progress on the TOM work to make sure we have the culture and capability to deliver this.

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The courage to digitally transform with the Digital Layer and AI ā€“ interesting talk from Mark Thompson.

 

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šŸ“… Daily Note: August 7, 2025

AI in Adult Social Care – guidance for adult care providers on the use of AI.

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Giles shares “examples and links about working in the open and agile communication”.

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Service mapping: building transparency, trust and transformation together on the Public Digital blog.

Service maps arenā€™t just tools – theyā€™re catalysts for transformation. They clarify complexity, foster collaboration and enable informed decision-making. They help organisations navigate the challenges of transforming and continuously improving their services. We worked with Defraā€™s Farming and Countryside Programme (FCP) to develop a service map and a set of service outcomes.

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Blood, Sweat and Roadmaps by Maarten Dalmijn:

Your roadmap is like an indicator species that reveals all the organizational dysfunctions in your organization. The roadmap is where business and tech meet, where your vision and strategy collide with your execution and teams. The roadmap is where departments and business units compete with your teams and other organizational priorities.

via Steve.

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Steve Messer: Donā€™t just keep the lights on, shine bright:

Platform products, built by government for public sector organisations, are intended to be better, cheaper and preferable to competitors. If an arms-length body or small government organisation has to choose between a private-sector platform or a platform built by government, both of those platforms are in a market. The arms-length body will choose which platform to use based on the features offered, the price, the complexity of integration, design, accessibility, and loads of other factors.

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Alan Wright – Jobs to be Done surveys:

As a product manager, one of my favourite ways to prioritise problems to solve for users is to understand their Jobs to be Done (JTBD). The best way to get this data is by having conversations with many users, but this is not always something users have time for. Surveys are a great complimentary method to gather this data quantitatively and quickly. In this post, I share the thinking behind the Jobs to be Done survey I have been running with users in my current role.

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šŸ“… Daily Note: July 25, 2025

I *thought* I had settled on Devonthink as my everything bucket, but now I am falling down an Obsidian shaped rabbit hole thanks to Steve Messer linking to this monster:

Every few months I set aside time for a ā€œrandom revisitā€. I use the random note hotkey to quickly travel randomly through my vault. I often use the local graph at shallow depth to see related notes. This helps me revisit old ideas, create missing links, and find inspiration in past thoughts. Itā€™s also an opportunity to do maintenance, like fix formatting based on new rules in my personal style guide.

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Local Government Association Cyber Incident Grab Bag for Local Authorities – Public Digital.

Along with other public services and businesses, cyber threats pose a significant risk for local authorities. The LGA wanted to provide practical support that could assist councils needing to respond to a serious cyber incident. They also wanted to make sure that the product clearly articulates how cyber security is a team sport, emphasising how a strong response hinges on collective strength.

 

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Is it just me or are other people still putting ‘please’ in their AI prompts?

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šŸ“… Daily Note: July 11, 2025

Digital and mission-driven government: digital, burdens and networks – Richard Pope’s first essay of three looking at how his Platformland thinking “can provide a unifying role in the successful delivery of the governmentā€™s missions”.

In the digital age the answer is more subtle: using technology and digital-age design to systematically eliminate ā€˜administrative burdensā€™, one by one.

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How is it that I keep seeing these posts where people have made all these cool things with image generation AI, and I only ever get absolutely terrible results?!

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Is it worth bothering with LinkedIn articles any more? Seems easier and more engaging to just whack even longer form content into posts, as long as it fits into the character limit (3,000 or 500 words or so).

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James Plunkett: How to save bureaucracy from itself

Iā€™m struck by how common it is these days to hear people working in government say some version of ā€˜bureaucracy is brokenā€™, ranging from senior civil servants to political appointees.

These are thoughtful people, so their point isnā€™t that everything in government is broken. Theyā€™re just saying that the problem runs deep ā€” that itā€™s not enough to try harder, or to run things better, because at least part of the problem relates to the logic by which bureaucracy functions.

If thatā€™s right, what do we do about it? A principle I find helpful is the idea from systems theory that when a system fails we need to work at the level of the problem.

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Tom Loosemore: behind the scenes of the Universal Credit Reset – really interesting podcast episode.

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