Bob and I have been thinking about self-organising work environments again. Let’s face it, who hasn’t? Ever since I saw Sugata Mitra’s work at the first Dynamo conference I’ve been wondering how to get individuals and teams to come together and deliver what is required with the minimal amount of management intervention. Sugata is interested … Continue reading Self-organising work environment
Art versus Science
Did I say how good the FutureGov event was in York last week? I think I did but just in case, it was very good. So good we want to run one closer to home. The speakers were good, the venue was good (anything to do with railways is fine by me), the topics were … Continue reading Art versus Science
How do we buy things that haven’t been invented?
Procurement is one of those things I struggle with. It puts me in a dilemma. I understand the need to be fair to the market and be transparent with your process, especially when you are spending public money. What I don’t get is that I have the suspicion that it doesn’t work. My feeling is, … Continue reading How do we buy things that haven’t been invented?
A beautiful train journey
It was a beautiful day for a train journey. I was off to London for my very first Local CIO Council meeting with Socitm. Despite the length of the journey and the lack of sleep (I can never sleep if I need to get up early) I was looking forward to my trip. There is … Continue reading A beautiful train journey
Get out of the way
There was a bit of the wisdom of Solomon about the conversation I had with Lee. I’m trying to let go. I’m trying to get operational decisions made as close to their point of impact as possible and this means that I don’t want to make operational decisions. I don’t want the Leadership Team too … Continue reading Get out of the way
A meeting culture
The other question that I got to ask at the extended management team meeting was ‘how much of a meetings culture do you think we have?’ There must be some irony there. The point was to see how people felt about meetings, were there too many, were they any good and that this would naturally … Continue reading A meeting culture
An interim position
I’ve just been given some additional services to look after, on a temporary basis that is. We use the word interim in such circumstances. I am a stop gap and how long for I have no idea. It may even be a permanent arrangement, in as much as anything can be permanent these days. I’m … Continue reading An interim position
Is our data good enough to give away?
When we bring people together to look at the issues we have, they come up with all sorts of crackpot ideas. Why is that? Perhaps they are working blind. Perhaps they don’t know the scale and complexity because they don’t have access to the underlying data and information. They simply don’t know. Perhaps we overcomplicate … Continue reading Is our data good enough to give away?
From a crown to a pale blue dot
Dawn showed us some picture or rather she didn’t. She handed them out to us face down. It was all part of a warm up exercise for our day talking about elephants, the ones we all know are there yet somehow can’t get round to talking about. The rules were quite simple. You were not … Continue reading From a crown to a pale blue dot
Let’s become a craicocratic organisation
I owe this one to a Twitter conversation. I get involved in them from time to time. This one was with Mark and Steve and Mark and Peter and of course, me. It started with a response to one of my blogs on report writing though it is a subject that has come up before. … Continue reading Let’s become a craicocratic organisation
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 