September 2025

All policy constrains good action, as well as bad

“Organisational policy is an important tool. It can help organisations be compliant, teams to behave consistently, and employees to understand what’s expected of them. But it’s also fundamentally limiting in character: all policy acts to constrain people’s actions in some…

A simple user centred design workshop

Here’s the low down on how to run a quick (45 – 60 mins) face to face workshop, introducing user centred design concepts to people new to it. It aims to keep the teaching to a minimum and very much…

Build a digital advocates network

What is this recipe? A Digital Advocates Network (sometimes called Digital Champions) is a group of volunteer staff from all parts of the council who are enthusiastic about improving ways of working. They are not necessarily technical experts. They are…

Creating better acceptance criteria for user stories

“Acceptance criteria (ACs) are a key part of user stories. They set the boundaries of what should be achieved – telling the developer when to stop, the QA how to test, and the product owner what to expect. Because they’re…

What a digital organisation looks like

“There’s been a lot of work to define what a good digital service looks like (see for example the government’s Digital Service Standard). It’s less obvious what to do if you want to make your whole organisation digital, and there…

What’s wrong with business cases

Business cases are lies. Not wilful lies usually, but they end up with the same results: misleading, misinforming and hiding reality. An archived PDF of this page can be downloaded if the original is inaccessible.

INVEST in Good Stories, and SMART Tasks

“A pidgin language is a simplified language, usually used for trade, that allows people who can’t communicate in their native language to nonetheless work together. User stories act like this. We don’t expect customers or users to view the system…

Digital is something you are

“If you’re a leader or a manager of people, part of your job is telling them that they’re allowed to think and behave that way. Most people, in most organisations, will be nervous of doing so unless they have permission…

The Importance of Product Management in Government

“…the approach taken to build and deliver digital products needs to evolve to take advantage of modern software development methods including agile iterative development, human centered design, and continuous delivery.” An archived PDF of this page can be downloaded if…