Weeknote 10th to 21st May

I’m back with public weeknotes after the pre election period and some very welcome leave.

Some of the things I was involved in
- Cross organisation health inequalities and digital inclusion knowledge sharing
- Attended our women’s network session with our CEO Sarah Wilkinson who spoke about her career and experience.
- I attended my favourite day of every quarter — the user research community away day. It had a packed agenda which included thought provoking talks from both Helen Petrie relating to research methods and also Matt, Micol, Tom, Lucy and Tanja who reflected on their experience and lessons learnt from working on covid related products.
- Worked with George and Tero to continue to develop the vision, strategy and objectives for the central user centred design team.
- Watched George deliver her masterclass in service design-led approach to health and care to our product development directorate.
- Met with Jim and Andy to work on joining the 3 product development strategy maturity strands together
- I spent 5 days in the middle of a forest in Northumberland, next to a lake, with no phone signal or wifi. It was bliss.

What made me think
One of the things Sarah said in her session about the power of people’s confidence in you and being given opportunities to show what you can do.

A random linkedin encounter that made me realise that even when it doesn’t feel like it, what you do is valued and noticed more widely than you can ever know.

Some of my plans for next week

• Debrief from Sonia and Clara on the equality and inclusion work they have been doing for us
• Annual performance development reviews with people that I line manage
• A question and answer session with people finishing their graduate scheme ahead of their end of scheme assessment.