Weeknote 2024.34

A week of good progress.

Saturday

A brisk walk through the beautiful countryside around Theydon Bois on a sunny day with the Redbridge Ramblers. We saw a horse disguised as a zebra.

Sunday

A second weekend walk, this time around Wanstead with the West Essex Ramblers, including a sighting of two of the long-horn cattle that graze freely in Wanstead Park. Onward to Wanstead Festival, which was excellent.

Monday

A quick update on one of our larger programmes, feedback calls with two of the unsuccessful interview candidates from last week, kept in touch with HR on the successful candidates, and caught up with colleagues. Very pleased to report on the improving budget position in my service, thanks to the fantastic efforts across my teams.

Then in the evening, the AGM of the Woodford and Wanstead Photographic Society. Luckily, I was reminded it was on Teams rather than in person as I left work, so headed home rather than to Wanstead House.

Tuesday

Up and at it early today, mainly catching up on my task list, and a couple of meeting cancellations, so I attended my first CAB in Enfield. I know true agilistas dislike change advisory boards, however in a large, complicated, inter-connected environment it’s invaluable to know who is changing what, when and why. Not least so we can undo the change if it has unexpected consequences.

Wednesday

Excited to have start dates agreed for our new Head of Operations and Architecture and Head of Project Delivery and Governance, both 1 October, just a couple of weeks away. Time to ramp up my induction preparation. Both our search partners Starfish and our internal recruitment team have been stellar.

More meetings to gather information for my next round of reports, I’ve got five in various stages of readiness and need to get most of them completed this week. And good 121s, supplier catchups, project catchups and time to chat with colleagues.

Thursday

Make that six reports in progress, seven if I count a particularly important one that’s due in December.? In the morning, an excellent briefing for senior managers and leaders, highlighting some of our most important strategic work. And in the afternoon, I chaired corporate security board. We made decisions and got things done.

Friday

Lots of writing, three reports finished and two more well underway. One saga brought to an end and another one progressed to the next step. My team are wonderfully persistent in resolving issues, and very pleasant about it too.

Track of the week

Talk talk featuring troye sivan by Charli xcx and Troye Sivan. It’s a bit racier than normal for my track of the week. https://open.spotify.com/track/2LUD3874dlzeRa34Hi7ohW?si=8416803045fd4275

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