Day 39 – 26 February 2014
I got up early this morning to try and stitch together a report that three of the Heads of Service had been trying to write. There are some things that I can’t put in my blog until they are agreed and this was one of them. Hopefully I will come back to it at some point.
I also had no emails overnight which was very rare and so I checked with the Service Desk once they were open. Internal mail was working fine (I checked) but nothing was coming in from the real world. It got sorted soon after we opened.
Today was always going to be the first real test of my paperless venture with two big meetings. It is management Wednesday after all. It was Senior Management Team in the morning which I chaired and had ten reports, followed by Resources Management Team in the afternoon with seventeen different documents to look at.
SMT got off to a good start with a few laughs mostly at the expense one of our own. We pulled his leg when that was the problem in the first place. We had some stories about the training yesterday, process flow in hospitals, contacting social direct and the different service levels depending upon the individual you get hold of and how Travelodge reception staff can make decisions about giving customers their money back while cocking up where they put their disabled accommodation.
It was a heavy meeting with a lot going on. There were a couple of great suggestions from the Senior Project Leads however. People from different teams should spend time with other teams to gain an appreciation of what other people do. The Easter holidays would be a good time when we are a little quieter. Guerrilla working was mentioned (it’s my phrase being quoted back at me) and how we make it easier for people to hot desk within the buildings we occupy.
Before RMT I gave my boss the heads up that I am trying to lose the paper and so would have my machine open. He was fine with that. It worked out quite well. I highlighted the areas in reports I wanted to talk about, added comments where changes were required and kept action points on my daily file. Flicking between documents was fun and I got myself in a knot at times but survived my first significant challenge.
In any other business Kim handed out a report in paper format! Turns out she will email it anyway.
In the evening I had two more Digital Durham presentations at AAP meetings. One was in Consett and the other in Langley Park. Fortunately the first was at six and the second at seven o’clock and they are only ten miles apart. Over the coming months we will be upgrading seven exchanges and forty five cabinets just in these two areas alone and we need help in letting people know as each cabinet goes live. We need boots on the ground!
Learning points for today: It’s all a timing issue; Finance really need to work hard to make it easier to understand their numbers; There is a post box on the lower ground floor of County Hall near the back door and; SharePoint training could be a form of torture.
Today’s enjoyment rating 7/10 – Very heavy at times.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 