We are moving the cheese talk

2015 - Calum Shepherd

Our learnings so far building something from nothing, through empowerment, agile and responsive methods.

I was delighted to share our journey of building something from nothing - using empowerment, agile practices, and responsive methods - towards better public services.

With information scattered across 160+ organisations and 480+ websites, and over 6 million content items in total, the scale of the challenge is genuinely staggering.

With over 6 million content items, we actually have more content items than people.

Now put yourself in a user’s shoes. What does that landscape look like to navigate? For many, it starts at Google and quickly turns into a murky, overwhelming experience.

Our push to create a single point of access is grounded in user research and performance analysis. It hasn’t been without its challenges.

Key learnings so far

• Embrace multigenerational organisations. Understand the benefits, explore the tensions, and focus on building bridges. Diverse teams bring perspectives you’d otherwise miss.
• Tailor principles to fit your team. Agile practices aren’t one-size-fits-all - adapt them to your team and environment rather than following them by the book.
• Meet regularly, in person. Face-to-face collaboration improves visibility, reduces tension, builds connection, and produces better solutions.
• Empowerment isn’t the absence of direction. Empower teams to make decisions, but still remove blockers and give clear guidance on the direction of travel.
• Beware the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion). It can unintentionally sway decisions - and it might even be your own opinion doing the swaying.
• Leverage online feedback. Transparent processes attract free, valuable feedback from smart people. Embrace the criticism and learn from it.

A unique opportunity in public services

We’re on the edge of something genuinely transformative in the public sector - a real chance to reshape how services get delivered.

Books I mentioned

For anyone wanting to dig deeper, here are the books I referenced in the talk:

• Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead - a fascinating look at Google’s approach to leadership and innovation.
• Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play - using collaborative play to foster creativity and innovation.
• Becoming the Boss: New Rules for the Next Generation of Leaders - practical insight on navigating leadership roles.