I’ve been working in DWP Corporate IT (CIT) for about 6 months now. I’m based at our Warrington office. So far I have been involved in stakeholder relationship assessments, been trained in ITIL, parliamentary procedure and department finance, and developed a system for identifying risky technical changes. It’s been challenging but most importantly I’ve found it fun! My work is already very varied but I thought I’d tell you about an event that was even more out the ordinary that normal.
A few months ago the DWP TiB Fast Streamers (TiBs) were invited to present to the monthly Corporate IT Executive meeting. A meeting chaired by Joe Harley, the Government and DWP CIO and attended by several very senior civil servants, who I knew only by name and reputation. In DWP we talk a lot about adding value, the TiBs decided that the best way for us to add value was to make some suggestions based on our experiences, for improving how CIT works.
My fellow first year Fast Streamer and I weren’t sure what we could possibly contribute as we had only just started to understand our own jobs and teams, let alone all of CIT! But we had noticed that our intranet pages weren’t as good as they could be. So we decided to point out the weaknesses of our intranet and make some suggestions for how improvements could help everyone do their jobs. We had barely finished our presentation slide when Joe Harley and one of the IT directors interrupted us. (I will admit at this moment I think I saw my very short career at DWP flash before my eyes). The interruption however was to express some very enthusiastic support for our views.
A few days later we were invited to an incredibly productive meeting about improving the intranet by one of the Communications teams. It felt amazing to know that our opinions mattered and were taken seriously. I knew that my team and line manager were always willing to spend time helping and advising me but it was re-assuring to know that the support and belief in the scheme runs all the way through DWP Corporate IT.