Monthnotes - February 2020

February might have an extra day this leap year, but it feels like a lot’s been squeezed into the first four weeks already.

At Deeson we’ve been recruiting for a number of new roles as we grow the business in 2020. We welcomed a new lead developer last week, with new hires in user research, development and finance joining us over the next few weeks.

We also welcomed a new client too – a global sustainability organisation – who we’re looking forward to working with over the coming years to help them share sustainability best practice. There’s a really strong alignment between their mission and the shared values we have as a team at Deeson.

We’ve continued to see strong demand for our strategy consultancy services this month. There’s a clear need for evidence-based and pragmatic consultancy to help organisations understand how they need to change and to help them through the bumpy road of change.

We’ve also completed the first four strategic business reviews of the year with some key Deeson clients. Most of our clients are with us for long term digital partnerships. We help them with building, managing and optimising complex digital platforms, but the strategic business reviews are designed to take a step back from the day-to-day and build long term digital roadmaps that span several years.

And the end of our own financial year next month means we spent time this month as a leadership team planning for the next 12 months at Deeson. We’ve set out a plan that covers a number of new initiatives, building on the success of the past year.

One of the things I’m particularly proud of at Deeson is that we’re very good at organising ourselves for delivery – both on client projects but also in the way we manage our own operations day-to-day. We use external accreditations like ISO9001 and ISO27001 to make sure we’re really on top of things and get an external perspective to help us improve.

We feel the benefits of how well organised we are every day in the way we get stuff done, but this week the spread of Coronavirus meant we really saw the benefits of our business continuity planning.

Within three hours of taking the decision to escalate our continuity planning we had circulated a Coronavirus-specific business continuity plan among the agency leadership team for review.

Within 16 hours, all staff had been briefed about our contingency plans, we’d tested that those plans worked and we’d communicated with all clients about how we will deal with any challenges that an escalation of the situation might bring.

As ever, we’re open and transparent with our plans. You can read about our preparedness – and everything else about how we manage Deeson – in our company handbook.

Earlier this week we announced some big news about Deeson leadership too.

In April I’ll be moving away from the role of Managing Director at Deeson. After four years in the role, it’s time for me to find some new challenges and hand over the reins.

While I’m sad to be stepping away from the team I work with and the running of the business, I’m immensely proud of the team we have at Deeson, the business we’ve built and the work we’ve done with our clients during my time as Managing Director.

I’m also really pleased that Sarah Harris – our current Head of Client Services – is being promoted to take on the role of Managing Director from April onwards. Since she joined us two years ago she’s successfully introduced a client services team into Deeson, helped us grow our relationships with clients and taken on numerous other responsibilities too.

I know Sarah will be a great Managing Director and that she’ll do a superb job for our clients and our team.

On a personal note this month I was lucky enough to be able to take a week off with my family during February. We headed to the French Alps and enjoyed a mostly sunny week on the ski slopes, away from the UK’s rain, wind and storms.

Over the next couple of months we’re still hiring at Deeson and in our sister company GreenShoot Labs. If you’re interested in working with us, drop me a line at [email protected].