Jun 20
There are challenges to running an agile approach to delivery inside a larger organisation where agile is not yet fully understood. We are frequently asked how we approach these challenges and manage them here at GDS, so here Mike Beaven explains how we are riding the paradigm and the lessons we have learned along the way.
Last week Jordan Hatch, Developer with Government Digital Service met Francis Maude, Minister for Cabinet Office for a quick chat. Read more
On May 18th, the new and improved Cloudstore was released. With added functionality and more interaction between government and supplier possible, Mark O’Neill, Proposition Director – Services, explains why there has never been a better time to apply to join the GCloud.
May 29
Pete Herlihy, product owner for e-petitions talks about recent developments, sharing the code base and opening up the data.
This week we delivered on earlier commitments to share e-petitions data and to release the code base. Whilst not as visible as other recent changes we have made, these are two very important developments. Read more about e-petitions getting trendy
GDS was pleased to welcome a group visit from the Norwegian Government last week. The following is a guest post from Heather Broomfield, Open Data manager at Difi - the Norwegian agency for Public Management and eGovernment.
Last week a delegation from Norway visited GDS to see how they are realising their goal of ‘delivering their digital products that meet peoples needs’. Prior to travelling we were all familiar with Martha Lane Fox’s DirectGov 2010 report and particularly liked the ‘Revolution not Evolution’ motto. We wondered to what extent this was being realised. In GDS change is in the air from the second you walk in the door, it didn’t take us long to realise that something really different was happening here. A few hours in the building made it clear that this revolution is actually taking place. ‘Revolution not evolution’ is not just a fancy line in a public document. Read more about Norway’s visit to GDS
This week I spent a few days visiting Estonia with Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, Liam Maxwell, the new Deputy CIO and colleagues with Cyber Security responsibilities. We came to see how a small country of 1.3 million has developed a culture and system of Governance and public service provision using the Internet and transparency as core principles.
Read more about Estonia’s technology economy
I spent Saturday at Ravensbourne College in North Greenwich as one of the judges at Interactivism – a hack event organised by Google, FutureGov, Livity and the RSA looking at innovative ways of using the web to help young people get into the job they want, or onto the training or education that will help them get there in the future.
Read more about the interactivism hack weekend
I invited David Gigg and Ian Sears from Stephen Allott’s team along to the 3rd Agile Teacamp late last month. Stephen (pictured), in his role as Government Crown Representative for SMEs, is committed to giving emerging suppliers a stronger voice at the top table. He is currently working with SME’s and across Government to ‘level the playing field’ by challenging preconceptions about the value, innovation and flexibility that smaller companies can deliver.
Read more about SMEs & procurement at Agile teacamp
Back in April last year the Alpha.gov.uk team talked about Google being the homepage*:
“Since for the vast majority of people their web journeys (finding out the date of the next bank-holiday, or reporting a lost passport) start with a search engine rather than a direct visit we should think of Google as the homepage and we should also feed Google, Bing and other search engines nice friendly urls.”
Read more about Google as homepage
I really enjoyed being able to get to UKGovCamp 2012 last Friday where I had a chance to outline some of our thinking around GOV.UK.
Read more about UKGovcamp12
