Day 97 – 30 May 2014
I’ve started to read ‘Accelerating Health Care Transformation with Lean and Innovation’ by Paul Plsek, a snappy title if ever there was one. It is the follow up book to ‘Transforming Health Care’ about the Virginia Mason approach to serving patients and has reminded me that we still haven’t done anything from the first book. That’s still with Neil (A rather than M) and I must ask him about it when I see him.
Today was the first day in what seems like ages that I had a normal day in the office, if there is such a thing, with six meetings and a telephone conference. Three of the meetings were one-to-ones with my team however.
During my first with Neil M we talked about visualisation and how we used to have a mega-board which showed all of the projects that we were running with, how they were spread across the year and their pinch points. I often pull up the team when we talk about how one set of priorities clashes with another. We should only have one set of priorities and so we need to dust of the mega-board. It was one of those plates that fell to the ground.
The theme for this morning was definitely Digital Durham. Our seventeenth cabinet went live yesterday (out of 500) and our eighteenth went live today. We’re going to have one a day for the next week to come. Tony took me through the progress we are making and how we are handling the additional Superfast Extension (SEP) money that we are pitching for. He showed me the new brochures that we will be using to improve awareness and take up. They’re going to be put through everyone’s door as their cabinet becomes live. Karen joined us to talk about the pipeline of cabinets that lies ahead of us. They are like dominoes waiting to be tipped and we’re really motoring now.
Tony’s also turning his attention to mobile coverage which at times is just as pitiful.
Lastly for the morning we were joined by Ian from North Tyneside. They are the only Council area in the North East which is so far not part of the Broadband Delivery UK programme. What could he possibly want to talk to us about? In the region of twelve local authorities there is Northumberland, Newcastle and then the Digital Durham programme. It was a useful meeting but too early to say where this will take us.
In the afternoon I made my way to County Hall for a chat with Bob and a meeting on Payment Card Industry compliance. I hope this weekend is better than last.
Learning points for today: Barbara has also gone paperless, in fact she may have been there before me; Tony will never go paperless; it is always about the people and we should maintain our focus on outcomes; communications is key and; you can have too much spinach.
Today’s enjoyment rating 10/10 – Digital Durham reminds me what it is all about.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 