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Been a while since the last weeknotes, its been pretty busy we’ve been getting going on a new Discovery which has been filling my brain up as Disco’s always do. I’m going to use this weeknotes to capture what I understand so far, quick reminder that weeknotes are for me to reflect what I know, this doesn’t mean that this is exactly correct, there are holes in my knowledge, the NHS is a vast complex system, I probably understand about 1% of it, writing stuff down helps my understanding though....

Time is really flying, I found myself introducing myself and saying I was on my 3rd week last week (I was on my 4th) I’m genuinely not sure where those 4 weeks have gone, thats a good sign! Writing these weeknotes is taking longer too as I’m not in a space where I fully know what I’m talking about yet, the act of doing it is helping me understand where I don’t know stuff yet and I go and find out more to add detail, but its making publishing slow....

I haven’t weeknoted in public for a couple of years now for various reasons but starting a new phase of my work-life feels like a good time to get back into it. I have recently taken the plunge into contracting and have started at NHS Digital with the 111 online teams. I’ve always done weeknotes primarily for myself to reflect on what I’ve learnt and I am learning LOADS at the moment, not just about how NHS digital works but what contracting life involves and how that differs from being a full time member of staff....

User Manual of Ian Ames I’ve used Cassie Robinson’s User Manual of me template a number of times when starting projects with new teams, its a great way to quickly introduce a team to how everyone likes to work and to discuss how best to work together. It also works well in remote organisations as a way to quickly learn about colleagues you may not see on a day to day basis....

I’ve never really seen the appeal of tandems, the poor old stoker sat at the back not able to see anything other than the pilot’s back, that was until we got a Hase Pino, quite possibly the strangest looking but most well-designed tandem there is. The Pino is a semi-recumbent tandem, the stoker sits at the front on a recumbent seat, whilst the pilot is just behind in a standard bike configuration, the beauty of this design is that you share the same view, and your heads are close together, its easy to have a conversation even at speed....