The last two weeks have gone fast for me, I’ve had a few days off to enjoy the Regata Abersoch and now I’m off to Field Maneuvers. But when I’m in work, it feels like things are going slow. That’s absolutely because other people are rightfully on holiday too, and you can’t make as much progress when your capacity is constrained. But that demon of productivity is always whispering behind your left ear in this game. Always there, always haunting.| Harsh Browns
You never know who might be reading your weeknotes, or their experience with digital ways of working, so it’s nice to make your weeknotes educational.| Harsh Browns
There’s a Seneca quote that’s always stuck with me.| Harsh Browns
Last time I wrote one of these I was about to head off into the Spanish mountains. The sharp-minded amongst you will notice that I have returned, safely. Nice to see ya again, hello.| Harsh Browns
Back at the coal face on the planning data service. Been thinking about vision, mission, roadmaps, the North Star, and how to design and build AI products.| Harsh Browns
How teams working on public sector platforms can move beyond maintenance, outshine private alternatives, and adjust their mindset to drive value for users.| Harsh Browns
Steve Messer’s website.| Harsh Browns
Back in February I bought an M4 Mac mini so I could play with generative AI on my computer. It’s stuffed full of RAM, VRAM and CPU cores, meaning it’s a bit of a workhorse for £600.| Harsh Browns
Tomorrow I’m getting a train across France to the foothills of the Pyrenees. Over two weeks and 250 kilometres, I’ll be walking the GR11 trail in Spain, La Senda Pirenaica. So these aren’t weeknotes, really, more of a memento mei in case I die.| Harsh Browns
OK, it’s Sunday, it’s 6.15pm and I haven’t written my weeknotes yet so I’m going to have to dictate them to my phone. My eyes are tired so I don’t really want to sit down and write.| Harsh Browns
A short and restorative week with two days at work and two days at a conference.| Harsh Browns
Given that it was a good week, and it feels like I’m coming out of the recent slump, it’s worth writing about.| Harsh Browns
This is more of a monthnote than a weeknote, given I haven’t written since late March. Just haven’t been feeling it, and that’s fine. (I tend to have a break from weeknoting most years anyway.)| Harsh Browns
In previous weeknotes, I’ve covered how I helped the GOV.UK Design System team design and implement a delivery model to replace the traditional two-week Scrum. It’s now over a year since they introduced it, and it’s still going well.| Harsh Browns
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the technologie du jour. It’s a tool that people might use in their day-to-day work. But if you’re putting AI in tools for professionals, it might not be as easy as to pull off as you think.| Harsh Browns
‘Ello. Been a while. I had a rest from the weeknoting, just needed a break.| Harsh Browns
It’s a sunny morning in West Sussex. The birds are chirping and a bright, warm sun has melted a thick frost that formed overnight. It’s a small space, this caravan, this roulotte. But it’s toasty and roomy enough.| Harsh Browns
This week, I realised that I’m worn out, tired, and don’t have as much oomph as usual. There’s a tinge of sadness to each day, and it’s been hard to get out of bed. On Friday morning I was so exhausted that I had to take the morning off.| Harsh Browns
Another busy week. It feels relentless, but we’re still moving forward which is good.| Harsh Browns
Wowee. What a week.| Harsh Browns
It’s been a while since anyone has uttered the words ‘Large Action Model’. If you’re a normie, you possibly last heard it in the same breath as Rabbit R1, the magic orange box that by most accounts was a flop.| Harsh Browns
The new habit of daily journalling fell apart this week. Several busy days and leaving the office late meant I preferred not to type thoughts up after work. These notes will take longer to write as a result, but let’s see what spills forth from the waterfall of thoughts.| Harsh Browns
Dydd Santes Dwynwen hapus! Oidhche Bhlas Burns! Slàinte Mhath, iechyd da!| Harsh Browns
Two years ago I started taking photographs of signs in railway stations. Not just any signs, only the signs using Rail Alphabet, a typeface designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for signage on the British Rail network.| Harsh Browns
Last week was decent, culminating in my first ever UKGovCamp, #ukgc25.| Harsh Browns
Oi oi. Aer bin ya aer kid? First week back wor it?| Harsh Browns
A disappointing year. Compared to last year and other years, I achieved the least.| Harsh Browns
Resolutions aren’t my style. Problems are only solved temporarily; you have to change tack. Adapt.| Harsh Browns
Every year I put together one of these lists…well, except last year when I had a break. But I’m getting back in the habit and sharing these pieces I read that gave me ideas, crystallised my thinking or changed my mind.| Harsh Browns
So many internet people work on personal projects over the festive break that it’s basically a tradition all of its own. You’ll notice that I’ve joined that throng this year.| Harsh Browns
There you have it, working in 2024 is drawn to a close. We’ve been asked to down tools today until the new year, so it’s holiday time.| Harsh Browns
This took an age to write, started on Saturday and finished on Sunday. I’m wrapped up in blankets on the sofa with a weird illness. It came on Friday afternoon and kept me up in the night, so I’m low energy. Can’t work out if it’s a bug or an autoimmune response, though probably the latter. But I don’t want to let it take the shine off a good week.| Harsh Browns
Given there’s a load of AI snake oil salesmen out there, and more and more people are asking about my opinions on AI, I figured it’d be worthwhile writing up my positions on AI over on the Boring Magic blog.| Harsh Browns
Konnichiwa! After an amazing time in Japan, I’m back at work and back to my weeknotes. How are you? How are things? Nice to see you again.| Harsh Browns
Bookmarks usually appear at the end of my weeknotes, but I spent most of November travelling around Japan. I like to share these bookmarks anyway, as a dated archive for myself but also for anyone else who might find the links interesting.| Harsh Browns
One adverb we may hear used is ‘saintly’. It means someone or something holy, virtuous.| Harsh Browns
Back when I worked in publishing, a colophon was the emblem of the publishing house. It can be used to describe how a publication is made, especially when the book is artfully bound. In blogger circles, people are using their colophon page to describe how the words and pages come into being. It’s like a little recipe for how the blog is made.| Harsh Browns
As the train departs from Penhelyg station, I start writing my last weeknotes for a while. Next week I’m heading off to Japan for November, so this week was all about wrapping up what I’m working on, handing it over for a few weeks.| Harsh Browns
Another good week. A busy one with a couple of late evenings, but I’ve a good long holiday coming up.| Harsh Browns
For some reason I’m awake at 5am and I didn’t write these on the weekend, so it’s time for weeknotes I guess.| Harsh Browns
There’s been a lot of talk about whether departments in UK government should have their own design system recently. I think it’s fine.| Harsh Browns
Heck of a busy week, but one with plenty of rewarding chats and progress.| Harsh Browns
Throughout 2019 and early 2020, I was leading a team looking at personalisation and what that might mean for users of digital public services. Over the 14-month period, we explored a lot of avenues, some times finding dead-ends, but often finding more pathways to unexplored territories.| Harsh Browns
Going to rattle through these weeknotes rather fast as I’d quite like to get back to Sunday. (I’m going to cut down on social media too.)| Harsh Browns
‘There’s just too much content.’ That thought has been on my mind recently.| Harsh Browns
If you’re a new product manager in the public sector, or you’re curious about product management, there’s a new Introduction to Product Management course on FutureLearn.| Harsh Browns
A child is walking down a residential street in Salisbury tapping out a military beat on a small drum. Behind him, four people push an assemblage of cardboard, fabric and a cabinet on casters that looks like a giant knight. It’s weird. It’s odd. I’m not sure what it’s about. It’s as if they’re the only float in a village fête.| Harsh Browns
Rollercoaster week. Started shit but ascended through the levels and ended up good. Will wait and see what’s around the corner before declaring it a success. I do not know how to defeat others. All I know is how to defeat myself.| Harsh Browns
A short work week last week. The majority of the week was spent on an intensive driving course followed by a practical driving test on Friday. Unfortunately I didn’t pass, so I’ve got to book another one – and that’ll probably be in 3–6 months’ time. I wish DVSA would sort their shit out.| Harsh Browns
Last week was a downer. Some personal, some work-related.| Harsh Browns
This easyJet plane is sat at the end of the runway, about to take off as I start writing these weeknotes. We’re going elsewhere, leaving the week behind. And ain’t that what weeknotes are all about?| Harsh Browns
It is absolutely sloshing it down outside, the rain falling heavily, and I’m supposed to be going to Rally festival today. So that’ll be interesting. But it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve written any weeknotes so let’s pass the time with those.| Harsh Browns
Deadline is a dirty word, like estimation.| Harsh Browns
Starting off in Coulsdon, south of Croydon, this 60-mile ride goes west towards Dorking and turns south all the way down to Lancing, on the coast.| Harsh Browns
Easy. Long time no speak.| Harsh Browns
Ian asked for a blog post on my first bikepacking trip, and it’ll be a good thing to read again before future trips. Here it is!| Harsh Browns
No weeknotes last week as I was away with friends all weekend, so consider these two-week notes – or tw’eeknotes. It’s that or fort-notes, take your pick.| Harsh Browns
Feel a bit weird talking about this in the open but let’s see if the vulnerability helps me stick to some goals.| Harsh Browns
Listen, it’s Tuesday. The time I regularly write weeknotes is a weekend, but here’s what I got up to last week – a few days late.| Harsh Browns
For the last two weeks I’ve been on holiday mostly, but I did work two days this week. More on work later.| Harsh Browns
Note: I wrote this way back in October 2022, when I was still working on the Secure Data Environment at NHS England. I’d started thinking about ways we could make the analyses performed inside the environment repeatable and re-usable, speeding up the time it takes for researchers to go from a hypothesis to an answer. Now that I’m working on the planning data platform, I figured I’d get it published as there’s some ideas in here that may work.| Harsh Browns
The UK has entered a pre-election period before an election on 4 July, which means that I have to follow election guidance for civil servants and not talk about work otherwise it might influence people’s voting.| Harsh Browns
Back in February I shared feeds for your RSS reader, a heap of people and websites you can follow instead of scrolling social media all the time.| Harsh Browns
Jukesie wrote about his idea of unproduct people, product managers who don’t chase relentlessly after new frameworks but who grasp and execute the foundational principles. He’s right. Without understanding the rest of the product role, the senseless application of a framework isn’t ’doing product’.| Harsh Browns
Trying something different this week. I’ve written a weeknote on the Digital Land website, so please go and read it there. Usual bookmarks below.| Harsh Browns
What a week.| Harsh Browns
You might have seen Marques Brownlee’s review of the Rabbit R1 but if you haven’t, I’ll break it down:| Harsh Browns
Shoved a week’s worth of tasks inside three-and-a-half days this week. Felt like I was failing the whole time, not getting important things done, and I lamented on this to others. But, after marking things as ‘Progressed’ or ‘Achieved’ in my task tracker, I’m glad to see I’ve got done a lot of what I intended to get done. A little win.| Harsh Browns
Hello there. Didn’t write any weeknotes last week, which feels a bit naughty. To tell the truth, I had a stinking hangover on Saturday thanks to product managers in the public sector (and, in particular, Tom at NHS England) and I had to spend the day spring-cleaning the garden. There really wasn’t much impetus to sit down and note the week.| Harsh Browns
Hello, Monday morning. No doubt I should have written these on Friday evening or Sunday morning when I had time but, honestly, I prioritised other things. Feeling good about that.| Harsh Browns
Over breakfast this morning – which included some rogue bacon & cheddar sausages from Aldi – I told my partner the story of how James Bridle made a chair in collaboration with AI. She’s an intellectual property rights lawyer, so her immediate reply was ‘I wonder what would happen if it included any protected or unprotected designs from real chairs’.| Harsh Browns
Certainty tells us that we’ll achieve what we intend to achieve. Many people want certainty before they act. They don’t want there to be any risk.| Harsh Browns
Gonna whip these weeknotes out quick because we’ve come back to Pen Llŷn to spend time with family, and I want to be outside (despite the incoming storm). Gonna be fun running from Machroes beach to Porth Neigwl around the headland tomorrow!| Harsh Browns
Another heady week of bidirectional information streams travelling into, around, through and out of my brain. By Thursday evening I was feeling rather overwhelmed and drained (according to my state of mind logs). But after a night’s sleep, my sub-conscious had done some work and something clicked: I felt more positive, more comfortable with the uncertainty.| Harsh Browns
Writing this super quick before I go to bed, definitely as a note more than anything else, but it looks like semantic agents are coming down the pipeline.| Harsh Browns
A theory of mine is that we can make the experience of digital government better by iterating and improving the interaction layer more frequently. That job is made easier for teams across government thanks to the GOV.UK Design System.| Harsh Browns
There was a lot of information poured into my brain this week. By Friday morning it was spilling over, like strawberry milkshake dribbling over the lip of the glass. Brain-freeze.| Harsh Browns
‘Hit the ground running.’ It’s a funny phrase.| Harsh Browns
Giles has written what looks to be the canonical resource for doing weeknotes. It covers what weeknotes are, how weeknotes work, and how to start writing weeknotes of your own.| Harsh Browns
New job, new series of weeknotes.| Harsh Browns
Search sucks these days. Social media is getting sucky too. RSS is excellent but how do you find new people, except inside links shared by others?| Harsh Browns
Over a year ago, I took an unexpected step in my career: I became a freelance product manager.| Harsh Browns
This week I finished my time on the GOV.UK Design System and handed the product role back to Trang.| Harsh Browns
As a product manager, a part of my role is thinking about product lifecycles and how to manage the ‘product’1 across the stages of development, growth, maturity and decline. That means you also think about sustaining a team and funding around the product.| Harsh Browns
For ages now, I’ve been meaning to prune the feeds I’m following in my RSS reader. After encountering an issue with NetNewsWire on iOS, as a result of having too many unreads, I’ve gone through and reduced the list of subscriptions from 324 to 265 blogs, magazines and other web curios.| Harsh Browns
This has been on my mind all week, so getting these thoughts into a note will get them out of my brain. It’s a product fiction to play with monetisation strategies that Rabbit might adopt in future for its R1.| Harsh Browns
Over the years I’ve written a lot about starting with solutions. Like when we needed to improve publishing times on GOV.UK, when we thought structured data might help with ‘personalisation’ and early ideas for what ‘personalisation’ features might be, plus the time we saw an opportunity to make GOV.UK Pay available for call centre staff.| Harsh Browns
Getting quicker at delivering software is something that many people working in tech face at some point. This can feel like an uphill struggle, especially when you’re starting out in Agile.| Harsh Browns
Last year we brought in a coach to help the GOV.UK Design System team make improvements – as a team, collectively.| Harsh Browns
After writing about the universal interface last November, I was surprised to see a real product take this idea further this year.| Harsh Browns
Last week I read about how OmniPlan is ready for visionOS, the OS which powers Apple’s Vision Pro gogglesheadset spatial computer. It’s looking like it’ll be one of the first apps ready for the new platform. OmniPlan is a project management tool.| Harsh Browns
This year was a big one for my running, so it’s worth doing a retrospective.| Harsh Browns
2023? Completed it, mate.| Harsh Browns
Didn’t write any weeknotes last week because I went to Paris over the weekend. Almost decided not to write any this week because I’m tired. It’s sure is December, huh?| Harsh Browns
Two weeks ago I ran a session on prototyping at Product for the People in Manchester. I wanted to find out how teams were using prototyping as a practice, and how it fit into their product design and development models.| Harsh Browns
Going to keep these brief as I was off sick yesterday and I’m still not feeling 100%. Don’t really want to spend time writing and thinking about work, I’d rather just convalesce under blankets.| Harsh Browns
There’s a footnote from a blog post about writing that is right on the money about hype cycles in technology. This comes from iA Writer’s Writing with AI post. (It’s their apps I use to write this blog, they’re very good.)| Harsh Browns
Feel depleted today, a likely consequence of travelling to Manchester and back in one day to run an unconference. Worth it though.| Harsh Browns
It’s going to be tough writing weeknotes this week as I didn’t bother tracking all my tasks. Also didn’t set goals at the start of the week, so felt a bit aimless at times, but still got plenty of good work done.| Harsh Browns
The other day I was reading a piece on Stratechery about keynotes and OpenAI’s recent announcements.| Harsh Browns