Craig is at YOW! West in Perth and has a conversation with James Stewart, formerly Deputy CTO for the UK Government and co-founder of the Government Digital Service. In varying locations they talk about:

• YOW! West keynote “Lessons Learned as a Government CTO“
• UK government had some large IT failures  in the last like the NHS National Program for IT (12 billion pound failure), but now lots of successes like Spine 2
• Agile techniques have been successful in the UK government not just because other approaches have failed so badly but the cost of an IT project is only a fraction of the overall cost of a system
• The Government Design Principles – start with user needs – successful projects start with clearly articulated principles, did not realise how much they would resonate
• Worked around a number of government process early on, support from the…

Craig is at YOW! Conference and spends some time with Emily Webber, Agile Coach and author of “Building Successful Communities of Practice” and “The Agile Team Onion” and they chat about:

• The UK Government Digital Service and gov.uk (and the United States Digital Service and Australian Digital Transformation Agency)
• Government needs to be fast and stable (but dealing with change every four years)
• YOW! 2016 talk “Communities of Practice: The Missing Piece of your Agile Organisation“
• Communities of practice are about building knowledge, giving people support networks they need to give them the confidence to do their jobs well and making that practice better and as good as it can be
• Most communities of practice are organic but they tend to be closed and often lack direction
• Community of Practice Maturity Model
• Having an idea of who the community is for and…