Sprint18: transformation, collaboration and innovation

Our MD Chris attended Sprint 18 - GDS's end of year public sector transformation review and future gazing event!

 

Last Thursday I was apparently one of the lucky ones to get a supplier invite to the GDS all hands end of year review / new year kick off, called Sprint 18. I attended the last one held (Sprint 16) and the two were very different events.

There were lots of familiar faces and quite a few from the supplier community that were missing as well as only a couple of journos that I recognised. The highlight of the day for me was seeing the ever excellent Emilia Cedeno of the Cloud & Digital team at CCS going through one of her Digital Outcomes & Specialists Buyers workshops. I sat at a table with buyers from Home Office & MOD and we all agreed that this was a worthwhile experience. We run similar (very successful) workshops for suppliers on how the framework works and it was useful to see it from the buyers side. Can’t wait for the supplier community of practice on KHub… Others have made much of the scripted message of the Minister and GDS’ ultimate Grand Fromage John Manzonis speeches so I won’t dwell on these here.

The day took on a surprisingly emotional turn when I dropped by the Open standards presentation hosted by James Findlay & Matt Leat of HM Coastguard… They presented on how the progress of open standards has lead to a system that actually saves lives…  Not a dry eye in the house at the end of the video they showed of someone being pulled out of the water very shortly after the 999 call had been made.

There were also some fascinating presentations from departments that GDS has worked with on inc the UK Hydrographics Office. I finished off the day with Warren Smiths ambitious and clever programme to keep the Digital Marketplace relevant and irreplaceable by making it a crown jewel of the UKs Foreign Trade policy, chaired by Dr Jacqui Taylor of Flying Binary, someone I have much personal admiration for in what she’s achieved.

So, it was a worthwhile day and good to catch up with many old friends and former colleagues as well as getting to know some new people. Thanks very much for the invite GDS, see you again next year! (I hope)