Emily Hector Labram

My tips for inclusive product workshops - new blog post below... In summary: plan ahead, shift power to the team, make it all playful 🥳✨ Thanks to @claragt, @sonia_stevenson & the GOV.UK Verify team 🥰 emilylabram.github.io/blog/posts/202…

Did my first ever Opportunity Tree workshop and I absolutely love this approach to Continuous Discovery @ttorres THANKS, I'm hooked!!

@TheRealNooshu @bandyroos Thanks - glad you're picking it up Matt! Should be easier now AWS has committed to providing data which we didn't have before.

@bandyroos @emilylabram Yes, I remember Emily working on it and the excellent presentation she gave. I think it's time the work was picked up again 🥳🤞

On my todo list for next year when I'm back at work: Start monitoring the sustainability of the services GDS run, using something like ecoping.earth or a similar API, I would love for it to be built into our existing tooling! 😍 #Sustainability

@loft27design @WhichUK As a GDS colleague this is a big loss for us, but as a paying subscriber to Which I'm delighted to know you'll be helping them make their subscriber experience as good as it can be. Happy to share my experience :-)

I’m going to be joining @WhichUK at the start of January as their new Head of Product Design. Which? has a great mission and an important role to play to push us towards safer, fairer and more sustainable consumerism. I’m looking forward to the new challenge.

@craigjbass Agree about hypotheses and experiments perhaps superseding the need for user stories (which are more like training wheels). Also, interested in the best cycle length for experiments. I know @LisaTalia at MOJ chooses 3-weeks to give the team enough time to reflect.

@emilylabram Like, I’ve got thoughts about whether user stories in the connextra format make sense when you’ve got clear hypotheses and experiments. Similarly, do we need acceptance criteria for a team that is fully informed of the goals? Lastly, are fixed length sprints appropriate?

Product Managers in gov: who's out there doing (or trying to do) continuous discovery? What is one experiment your teams tried in the past year that you're proud of? Please retweet, I'm feeling rusty and in need of inspiration...

@craigjbass Oh, that sounds awesome! Can you describe one such experiment or 'lean value tree' in a little more detail?

@emilylabram Still early days for the current team I’m in (where I’m a product manager atm). Over the last 12 months I’ve been experimenting with experiments 😅. What’s the limit of hypothesis led work? also been using lean value trees to visualise investments and the hypotheses in flight.

@JonnyFWilliams @HimalMandalia @myddelton For our roadmap, we care about the "sequence" of the outcomes & benefits we're delivering and expect it to change as we learn. And, we are sometimes expected to commit to deliver things at certain times by stakeholders. We carve out as much agility as we can...

@JonnyFWilliams @HimalMandalia @myddelton My impression is we're a bit more self-organising in our programmes than we used to be. Speaking for Digital Identity, we have OKRs at the 3 year and one-year levels. We work in six-week increments using OKRs (aka missions).

Are GDS still using missions and time boxing delivery phases on their roadmaps? PaaS and GOV.UK don’t seem to be. Sadly the service manual guidance on roadmaps is due an update. gov.uk/service-manual… Timeline roadmaps still don’t sit well with me.

I'm aware that Defra have been doing "trials" in partnership with farmers and land managers. Seems like continuous discovery meets co-design. V interested in how you co-create the measures of success @DefraDigital @JanetHughes

@emilylabram @antlerboy @danhilton @cjforms @HilaryCottam Agree. @HilaryCottam’s Radical Help should be essential reading for everyone working in public service.

@antlerboy @cjforms @danhilton @Emmastace @HilaryCottam @JanetHughes @nevccavendish Yes, I was also going to call out this work as one of my codesign-in-gov inspirations :-)

@cjforms @emilylabram @danhilton @Emmastace @HilaryCottam @JanetHughes @nevccavendish Being a big fan of the way Janet represents public service on twitter, I did have that in mind as an example of 'subject centred working'! Glad to hear you share it too :-)

I've been asked 2 present top issues facing govt when it comes to implementing digital, data and technology strategies - aka delivering value to citizens. I know the list is LONG but I'm attempting to community source the top 3. Will summarise and share responses. Ur TOP 3 pls 😛

@antlerboy @danhilton @cjforms @Emmastace Wow, insightful question. :-) I read @HilaryCottam's Radical Help recently. It made me realise that co-design with communities can produce stunning results, compared with a top-down approach. Can we get there by embedding *both* central & local gov designers with communities?

@danhilton @cjforms @emilylabram @Emmastace but then the work would have to be done *in* the actual service (local government, DWP, NHS), not in the website ('digital') team - and, ultimately, in the community - are you ready for that?

This podcast by my colleagues is honest, brave and thoughtful about how to build services that work for government teams. A worthwhile listen for anyone in government. Props to you @Fearless_T79 and @hptrippe and @myddelton 👏

Codesigning with 3000 people in 8 months: this is the benchmark I aspire to. Amazing work @DefraDigital

Hey! When you make a tweet that is solely an inducement to feel complete despair, remember that folks who struggle, but aren't currently despairing, could have their whole day run into a brick wall of fear when they read it. You're laying your intrusive thoughts like landmines.

@HarryTrimble What I've experienced personally is that confidence *takes less effort* to maintain and grow to the extent we have privilege, and are surrounded by others like us.

Hiring lots recently has made me reflect that 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙜𝙚. And sadly progression at work is often structured around how confident someone feels or others perceived them to be. It's a challenge to making diverse and inclusive workplaces.

@sonia_turcotte I hear you. It is life-giving to face up to the climate crisis and find a way to live that's truer: more aligned with it, less in denial of it... Beautiful that you are surrounded by others doing it too!