Being in the Room

Two days in Leeds this week, each with its own character.

Wednesday was the programme-facing day — an NHS Ambassadors event in the morning, well held together by the service manager and product manager on the team, then the all-hands in the afternoon. Good to see people face to face, particularly some of the newer joiners who were in for the first time.

Thursday was more operational. End-of-sprint review, Show and Tell — and an onboarding process workshop that's probably the most substantive piece of work worth talking about. A room full of people in person and online, working through the PEP onboarding process end to end. There's a lot still to do, and a follow-up session in the pipeline — but the early thinking is about looking at what we can move earlier in the process to make a meaningful impact, and being clearer with people from the very start. That's a different kind of problem to solve than the ones that show up in a sprint review.

The National PIFU end-to-end plan is the other thread running through the week — a good conversation on what it needs to look like. Better understood than it was; not yet resolved.

Reading

Finished Stillness is the Key this week. Leaning into Stoic philosophy more deliberately lately — turns out apatheia (the absence of turbulence, not feeling) is basically a superpower in delivery work.

Also working through Flow. The uncomfortable bit: most people experience more flow at work than anywhere else, yet spend their lives wishing they were somewhere else. Still sitting with that one.

Lesson learned

The process work is the delivery work. Reengineering how onboarding flows doesn't show up as a feature delivered or a milestone closed. But if it works, it shortens everything that comes after it.