Weeknotes: Week 4
To Go Live….or not to Go Live?
Last week was dominated by planning. A few weeks ago I talked about how the team were daunted by the amount of work ahead.
We all know we’re in this for the long haul, we’re working remotely and as the enormity of this work hits home, many of the team have felt daunted by the amount of work ahead.
This work has always had ambitious timelines. Converge quickly as a stepping stone to transformation. In principle a like for like convergence covering Planning, Building Control, Land Charges and GIS. Our second go live of six, was planned for before Christmas. But in testing we hit an issue that would take longer to fix than we’d anticipated.
We knew our timescales were tight and at the end of last week it was touch and go if we’d make it on time (hence the #surviving weeknote). Weeknotes are are great way of reflecting, but I wasn’t ready. I’m used to weeknoting internally, weeknoting publicly feels different.
We made the No Go call. This was followed by a mix of emotions (mine and the team’s) disappointment, relief and a certainty that we were doing the right thing. There was a balance to be had, the team wanting to push on, mentally needing another Go Live under our belt before the end of the year, the drive to deliver the right thing at the right time. That and leaving enough time after a Go Live to ensure dedicated user support before the Christmas break.
The No Go call was supported by the team, the product owner, sponsor and our Member (we’re a member led authority). How great is that?! And a chance to reflect on how far we’ve come as a new authority. Not afraid to make the right call.
A chance also to reflect our multi disciplinary team; dedicated, positive, and working incredibly hard to converge our systems. The team is made up of colleagues from Planning, Building Control, Land Charges, Digital & Change, ICT, GIS, Comms and our suppliers.
This is a new way of working for us and we’re working remotely. So it was great to have this feedback from one of our newer team members:
“In previous jobs I have been a part of a number of projects but none have been ran in such an organised, structured, inclusive and interactive way and feel that I have learnt so much from it already and genuinely has blown me away and it all starts with you!”
We are making a difference, we are encouraging others to think and work differently…..
Other stuff that happened this week….
- meeting with our Corporate Business Partner colleagues to discuss our corporate offer.
- discussing opportunities with ICT and Microsoft, what will ‘hybrid’ meetings look like when some of us return to the office?
- attended another great Insights session, looking at how we interact based on our colour preference. This fascinates me and is great to have in your toolkit when building relationships and engagement.
