GOV.UK
5 strategies to build digital capability
Building digital capability in the public sector is not that easy. Gary Tucker, Head of digital for the apprenticeship service, shares 5 strategies for meeting this challenge
Agile
What’s it like to do user testing with employers?
An insight from ESFA user researcher Ayiesha Russell into how we conduct user research and testing to help inform and improve the apprenticeship service from a user-centric perspective
The apprenticeship service – our current roadmap
Following on from my last blog and some of the feedback I received, I wanted to share the current delivery roadmap for the apprenticeship service with you. This starts to outline the most significant developments we are currently planning to …
Better, quicker, effortless – building an industrial scale apprenticeship service
ESFA's Eileen Logie gives her insight into transforming digital services.
From Funding Manager to Product Manager: building digital capability at the ESFA
My name’s Andy and I’ve worked for the Education and Skills Funding Agency for nearly eight years. For the past year, I have been helping to lead the delivery of the new apprenticeship service in my role as product manager. …
The apprenticeship service and one team government
This is a two-parter: it follows Don’t bring policy and delivery closer together- make them the same thing, a great post by DfE policy advisor James Reeve. James is right to argue that policy (the plans and rules made by …
Learning lessons the hard way
CDS was a challenging project, in terms of the scale of the work, its technically complexity, and the number of contractor organisations involved. We take a look at what we delivered and what we learned.
Testing in Agile: Security
Barely a week goes by without a news report of hackers stealing customer data, taking a website or network offline or even remotely hacking and controlling cars.News of vulnerabilities are published online and exploited very quickly
Running a giant retrospective
Recently I was asked to facilitate a giant departmental retrospective. Retrospectives are a key part of agile development - they're a special meeting where a team gathers following the completion of an increment of work.
It’s worse than that…It’s an Alpha, Jim!
My colleagues know that I’m a bit of a Star Trek fan. People who remember the show will tell you that you could usually tell who was going to have something nasty happen them in that particular episode. You would notice a man in a red shirt, who you didn’t recognise, beaming down to the planet and within five minutes he had been vapourised by an alien death ray or poisoned by an innocuous looking plant.