Weeknote 2024.28
Adrian Gorst
Chief Technology Officer (Director of Digital Services) at Enfield Council
Saturday
A fascinating walk around Stepney Green with the Ramblers, an area I thought I knew well, but still found some new sights, including a farmers’ market in Stepney City Farm. I was intrigued to see a spindly morning glory plant offered at ￡5 as they self-sow in my back garden and I conservatively have ￡500 worth.
Sunday
A trip to West London to drop my youngest daughter off on her way back to Bath. Classes don’t start for a while but her shared house is available so she will be staying there for a bit and then back in London for a bit, then back to Bath.
Monday
Little in the diary today, so lots of talking to colleagues, catching up on reading, and some report writing.
Tuesday
A morning spent thinking and talking about the future with colleagues from other services and one of our main partners. The presentation was more relevant to my colleagues than to me, however the discussion helped me frame the questions we need to answer to move forward.
Is there an appetite for change?
How do we sustain momentum in a change programme.
How do we manage the risk arising from the change?
Can we afford it? Or afford not to do it?
Wednesday
Lots of short meetings today. I hope others were as impressed as I was by how well prepared my team was for the discussions, and thus how productive the meetings were.
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Thursday
Highlight of the day was our Town Hall all staff meeting. I said little, and colleagues presented some of our successes and work in progress.
First up, a preview of live chat, which we are introducing in September as another channel for colleagues looking for help. I expect it will sit between calling the service desk and using our self-service portal, however we’ll be watching how it works in practice and looking at feedback to see where we take it.
Then a success story, with one of the team outlining how they challenged a ￡100,000+ charge arising from a licence audit, resulting in a massive reduction in the headline figure. It’s all been amicable, and the supplier said, “well played.”
Followed by an excellent presentation on our recent disk-shredding exercise, with hundreds of old disks reduced to crumbs in the back of a truck parked up beside the Civic Centre. If any Enfield colleagues are reading this, apologies for the noise!
And concluded with the launch of a competition to name our “tech-bar” ahead of its official opening this autumn. The furniture is in place, and we are already helping colleagues, so our agile friends might say it’s a beta release now.
Friday
A couple of tricky discussions, or rather useful discussions on a couple of tricky topics, which I need to follow-up next week. One is a bit of a hydra, every time we resolve one issue, two more appear, the other straightforward, but well embedded.
Track of the week
I listened to a lot of country music this week, in particular artists who’ve broken through in the last few years, and I’ve settled on ghost in my guitar by Alana Springsteen, who I saw at the O2 earlier this year.? A good strategy for gaining listeners and followers is featuring a well-known artist, and Chris Stapleton joins Alana Springsteen here.
Jobs of the week
Sorry, no Digital Services jobs this week, more coming soon.
However, you may be interested in this role managing our property management systems https://careers.enfield.gov.uk/Job/JobDetail?JobId=1354
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