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128 changes: 128 additions & 0 deletions presentations/2025-12-04_whose_application/index.qmd
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---
title: "Whose application is it anyway?"
subtitle: "Building products for everyone in the UK health and care system"
author:
- "[Chris Beeley](mailto:[email protected])"
date: 2025-12-04
date-format: "D MMMM YYYY"
format:
revealjs:
theme: [default, ../su_presentation.scss]
transition: none
chalkboard:
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auto-animate: true
footer: |
Learn more about [The Strategy Unit](https://www.strategyunitwm.nhs.uk/)
---

## Introduction

* I want to tell a story
* It's about ending up in the middle of two things- data science and digital
* I naively launched in the wrong direction and have beeen redirecting since
* I'm not an expert in anything I talk about today- if you're doing something big ask an expert

## The story

* I lead a team that built a demand and capacity model for the New Hospital Programme
* It's a simulation model that predicts demand for acute care in c. 2041
* There's a huge amount of analytical work on and around the model
* We have produced lots of whizzy reports and dashboards to assist with parameter setting and results interpretation

## The problem

* We did everything we were supposed to and people were happy with the model. But there were issues
* User feedback and prioritisation of developments were ad-hoc
* Programmes of work were siloed
* The needs of different bugfixes and improvements were considered in isolation
* The connection between different deliverables was poorly understood

## Where next?

* I wanted somebody to work across all of the different streams of work
* They would consider the work programme as a whole and help to prioritise
* We started to think, **really think** of individuals interacting with our model, inside and outside the unit, as users

## Another story

* This is someone else's story
* It has a real resonance with an age old problem in analytics- nobody uses our dashboards!
* The results that the intervention produced were profound but come from a world I knew nothing about two years ago

## The solution - product

![Source: [Oscar G Torres](https://oscargt.com/)](what_is_product_management.png)

## What is product?

* Pro*ject* management is all about delivering a thing
* You can be agile and iterate on the thing
* You can do waterfall and spec a thing and then do it
* Pro*duct* management is about *Why* and *What*

## Back to the other person's story

* They introduced the disciplines of product into their team building PowerBI stuff
* Specifically:
* Product management; Product design; Developer; User researcher; Delivery manager
* Excellent results on engagement with outputs was immediate

## Next steps

* Staff found their roles were too broad
* It was challenging from a skills and workload point of view
* Root and branch change of job roles and JDs with the willing participation of all staff

## End result

* Their work is transformed- roughly a third of the staff are involved in:
* Product management
* Design
* User research
* And they could do more given time and resources- this work is not "one and done"

## Back to my story

* We've been working on adding product roles for the last year
* Two full time roles (and me chipping in)
* Many things have worked really well
* Some things we are still working on

## Product versus delivery

* Separating the *why* from the *how*
* It's a really specific and clear example of "Involve us at the start"
* People work better with clear roles and clear responsibilities
* Build a group of people who know why and a group who know how

## Agile

* Customers talk waterfall but behave agile
* Agility is a mindset, a mode of practice
* Being agile is all about being able to review and make decisions frequently
* But it isn't about changing what you're doing all the time
* Good code and good teams are ready to change direction- whether they change or not

## Money for old rope

* This is old news to digital people
* Data science and analytics are expanding
* We're reinventing the wheel
* But these methods are being looked at by other teams
* And I think we really do need to reinvent the wheel

## Data science and analytics is entering its Max Power stage

![The wrong way... But faster!](https://media1.tenor.com/m/X8smvfU4WTMAAAAd/simpsons-max-power.gif)

## Tying threads

* We need to listen and learn from agile and product colleagues in digital
* But I also think we need to make these methods our own
* Let's do it together 🙂



66 changes: 66 additions & 0 deletions presentations/2025-12-04_whose_application/renv.lock
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