Improving 'Find' for the Find Property Information Service

Find Property Information is a GOV.UK service being developed by HM Land Registry which aims to provide a simple summary of property information. Recently we have improved our ‘postcode search’ functionality. Why did we do this? Our first iteration of searching was developed over a year ago, we knew the limitations of it, but it was ‘good enough’ for the early stages of the service. This allowed us to move onto developing other features....

<span title='2018-01-31 00:00:00 +0000 UTC'>January 31, 2018</span>&nbsp;·&nbsp;8 min&nbsp;·&nbsp;Ian Ames

Hidden Plymouth, Route 2 - Millbay Mini

I’m slightly overwhelmed by how well Route 1 has been received I have had some lovely feedback and suggestions for future routes. One such suggestion is to do something shorter that children can take part in, so where better than around Millbay. I can test it with my own kids as they go to Plymouth School of Creative Arts which is the starting point for this route. There are loads of quirky little features in and around Millbay, its relatively flat and the route is only 2km....

<span title='2018-01-26 00:00:00 +0000 UTC'>January 26, 2018</span>&nbsp;·&nbsp;10 min&nbsp;·&nbsp;Ian Ames

Hidden Plymouth, Route 1 - Stoke to Mutton Cove

This route starts at Stoke Village Car Park, which is free to park. It then climbs to what was once the highest point in Plymouth, before descending to sea level and back again. I have mapped the route on Strava so you can download it to a GPS, or print out the map. I have also run the route so you can see a fly through below: Points of interest Blockhouse Park Before the city expanded toward Roborough this was the highest point in Plymouth and the 360˚ view from the Redoubt is one of the best in the city....

<span title='2018-01-15 00:00:00 +0000 UTC'>January 15, 2018</span>&nbsp;·&nbsp;8 min&nbsp;·&nbsp;Ian Ames

How Our Digital Team Works

I’m the Delivery Team Lead for a small multi-disciplinary team in government. We are developing the service in an agile way following the digital service standards developed by our colleagues at the Government Digital Service (GDS). We recently added the ability to keep a copy of the title summary (basic information about a property). It’s a great example of what this way of working looks like in practice. Because we can continually develop the service, we aim to deliver the features that deliver most value quickly, rather than waiting for the whole service to be finished....

<span title='2017-10-06 00:00:00 +0000 UTC'>October 6, 2017</span>&nbsp;·&nbsp;5 min&nbsp;·&nbsp;Ian Ames

5 Reasons Open Plan Offices Suck for Agile Teams

I recently gave a presentation at the inaugural Tech Exeter conference called Practical agile: Lessons learned the hard way on our journey delivering digital products. In that presentation I claimed open plan offices are terrible team spaces, but didn’t really elaborate on why. Since then Neil Parker asked on twitter to explain why I thought open plan offices are bad team environments. So here is my totally unscientific personal listicle to explain why!...

<span title='2016-10-13 00:00:00 +0000 UTC'>October 13, 2016</span>&nbsp;·&nbsp;4 min&nbsp;·&nbsp;Ian Ames