Week 5

Week beginning 3 October

This week felt predictable. I began expecting to focus on three things and I did. I didn’t have a generic discovery meeting. There were few TLAs that I encountered for the first time. The interactions I had with people roughly went as expected. That’s basically a good thing.

The week began with my second Playback and Feedback session, talking to the team about what I’ve observed and learnt so far at the CPS and asking for feedback about where I can make the most impact for the team. There was more time for discussion as a result of having a dedicated session and despite being early on a Monday morning, I was energised by the discussion

The main feature of my week was some work around robotics process automation (RPA). The executive group discussed the opportunity a couple of weeks ago so now we need to identify a partner to help us begin our RPA journey. It’s urgent because it’s a contribution to helping alleviate the pressures caused by the significant and growing backlog of cases in the criminal justice system. But there are some reasonable questions from colleagues about whether we know enough about our requirements to go and buy the right solution. I don’t know if we do, but promised to work with the team to take my knowledge and their experiences and see if that was sufficient that we could explain what we were doing and what we needed from suppliers. We meet on Monday for a peer challenge and to work out what that means next.

Work continued to develop our technology roadmap. I met our Digital Transformation Leaders to introduce myself and learn what they needed from the roadmap. The key message was: how to influence it. The DTLs seems like a really good group and I was pleased to hear they want to help us develop it.

The week ended with a workshop with our technical architecture team to explore how we might develop the goals (the ‘destination’ for our roadmap). We got some thought provoking questions and useful feedback that will help us iterate the goals workshop. There’s a question hanging in my mind as to whether we need a bit more detail on the vision and strategy before we can articulate the roadmap. But I also know that isn’t what lots of stakeholders are asking for. I also met colleagues in our communications team to work through proposals for a technology blog that will provide a focal point for people who are interested in following (and potentially contributing to) the development  of the roadmap.

One of my personal commitments on joining the CPS was to re-establish some of the habits and behaviours associated with being a responsible leader / a nice human being, which took a back-seat in the crises in Hackney. I’m not yet in a habit but there are a couple of areas where I’ve used the absence of pressure and smaller team to ‘do better’. I haven’t got a habit yet, though, and generally think I scored less well this week than last.

The theme of next week look like it’ll be supplier relationships. We’ve got a big strategic session to review 360 feedback with one of our larger suppliers which should be challenging but constructive. And I’ve been asked to review our initiation process to understand what we can make better. Then on Friday I’ve got a visit to the ‘frontline’, which I’m really looking forward to.