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All I can say is, thank goodness none of you read/act on Jukesie’s jobs letter 😜 (if you haven’t signed up, it is a really reliably curated list of good work with not-bad people).

Starting in June, I’m going to be Lead Product Manager for the University of Cambridge. I wanted to talk a bit about what’s coming up with that and briefly go over my reasons for moving.

What Cambridge is doing

I’m going to be working on replacing the disparate and duplicative systems that colleges use to manage undergraduate admissions. This is very much in the vein of the old GDS exemplars in that it is trying to prove that UCD/service design thinking and iterative delivery are the best way to deliver services to staff and students. Internally I see a lot of the canon of blogs from GDS and its practitioners past and present being circulated. In a lot of ways, this is like government: lots of different colleges (departments (who are actually often led by former permanent secretaries)) collaborating by necessity and working together. Admissions processes are by their nature quite “big bang” so a lot more pressure will sit on user research work to understand how things are going, in many ways this is similar to some types of taxation that have deadlines (and so peaks of users) and with some of the work from last year on covid testing. Point is, it translates well.

Why I want to do this

I’ve been struggling with government work for a little while (since a particular point in mid-2016 really) and I want some space from what government is trying to deliver. I’m a social science graduate with a belief in the urgency of tackling systemic discrimination in institutions and addressing the climate crisis. I do not believe that the government wishes to welcome that sort of thinking. I also can’t keep working on “government by essay crisis” where things seem to lack strategic thinking and a long term vision. I have other, bigger, political problems with the policy portfolio that government is aiming for, especially work on voter suppression. I have lived with a foot in two camps for a long time, with my civil society work and the plausible deniability of subcontracting in government. I think this needs to end.

I think making processes and services simple to use is an inherently political act. Lots of bits of the public sector internet are made hard on purpose, to emphasise that only “clever” people should be using them or to frustrate the user and try to make them ragequit and not cost money. I think admission to institutions should be on the quality of the candidate not their proficiency in understanding the software.

Also, practically, I do not like the London commute and so this is going to suit me better. A nice bike ride across town (coincidentally past the good gelato and doughnut shops). I am pretty sure that remote won’t be for ever, so making some plans for easier travel and not feeling like Cambridge is either just somewhere I sleep between train rides to London or that my house is a jail is a real aim.

What I’m going to do

I’ve often held back from weeknoting because as a contractor you are often not in a position to talk about the battles at work because a) actual confidentiality clauses b) you don’t have to deal with the fallout in that team for very long. Coupled with the fact that most of my work for the past four years has been 6 months at a time, I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to take things from discovery to live and talk about that. I’m hoping this job will change that.

There is also a lot of opportunity to build a practice around product management and I’m excited to take what I’ve learned with that and try to build a supportive workplace.

What I’m not going to do

Leave government entirely. I am still on the Open Government Network steering group, I still do things for Democracy Club and I’m still working on the DPhil. I’m still (if you squint) working in the public sector. I have learned a lot of things from some very patient colleagues and friends over the past ten years and I am not giving them up.

I have stopped taking on new clients and have been winding down my existing ones. I do not imagine I will be doing any contracts except in truly exceptional circumstances.

If you’re reading this and you work at Cambridge or in the university sector

Say hi! I’m learning both contexts quickly.