Robin Riley

Information Age Government

Common UK Defence Metonyms

September 14, 2020 / / 1 Comment

I compiled a list of the most common metonyms used in UK Defence, with some help from Twitter.

This list arose from a need to help User Researchers who are new to UK defence to get a quick handle on some of the words we use to describe the main organisations and groupings – and hence users. That’s why it’s specifically a list of metonyms, not general defence abbreviations or jargon – which would be a much, much longer list!

This list is deliberately non-exhaustive (I’ve omitted anything sensitive or derogatory!) so please let me know via Twitter if there’s anything major that I’ve missed or just got wrong.

Metonym General meaning Specific meaning or origin
Abbeywood Defence Equipment and Support; MOD’s procurement arm DE&S at Abbeywood, Bristol
Aldermaston Defence Nuclear Organisation or AWE AWE Aldermaston, near Aldermaston, Berkshire
Andover Army HQ Army Command HQ at Andover, Wiltshire
Base / The Base [typically of IT or equipment] The equipment based in UK, not deployed overseas “New Style of IT” Base programme
Blackpool Veterans services organisation DBS Blackpool
Chilwell “Passing through Chilwell” = being mobilised as a Reservist especially Territorial Army RTMC Chilwell (TA Mobilisation Centre)
Corsham MOD’s IT department, Defence Digital (formerly ISS) Defence Digital main site near Corsham, Wiltshire
Dark Blue The Navy; the Navy contingent within a wider group Uniform colour of the Royal Navy (literally Navy Blue)
Fleet Navy HQ (note “The Fleet” means the Navy’s ships not the HQ) Old name for Navy Command HQ
Glasgow Army Pay or Personnel organisation; army admin processing Army Personnel Centre, Glasgow
High Wycombe RAF HQ RAF Command HQ at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Jack Tar A typical non-specific Sailor (cf. Joe Bloggs) Historic
Khaki or Green The Army; the Army contingent within a wider group Uniform colour of the British Army
Land Army HQ Old name for Army Command HQ
Lichfield Defence Medical Services Defence Medical Services at Lichfield, Staffordshire
Light Blue The RAF; the RAF contingent within a wider group Uniform colour of the Royal Air Force
London The Corporate Headquarters of Defence MOD Main Building, Whitehall, London
Main Building The Corporate Headquarters of Defence MOD Main Building, Whitehall, London
MODNET MOD’s main HQ IT system but sometimes refers to MOD office IT in general MODNET programme
Northwood UKStratcom HQ, or possibly PJHQ or the joint headquarters in general; UKStratCom HQ at Northwood, Middlesex
Porton Down Defence Science and Technology Laboratory as an organisation, sometimes the laboratories specifically DSTL HQ near Porton Down, Wiltshire
Portsmouth Navy HQ Navy Command HQ at Portsmouth, Hampshire
RAF Little Snoring (slang) a non-specific small military establishment, away from the centre Little Snoring in Norfolk (Former RAF site)
Senior Service / The Senior Service The Royal Navy as an organisation or Navy personnel RN was founded before the Army or RAF hence “senior”
Shrivenham The Defence Academy; “at Shrivenham” would usually mean being on a training course Defence Academy at Shrivenham, Oxfordshire
Strike RAF HQ Old name for RAF Command HQ
Sutton Coldfield Estates Management organisation, Defence Infrastructure Organisation DIO HQ at Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham
The Centre MOD Main Building; sometimes specifically the central planning/resourcing function within Main Building Various – No specific meaning
The Sixth Floor Defence Ministers and Service Chiefs; the top brass Floor 6 of Main Building
Tommy Atkins A typical non-specific Soldier (cf. Joe Bloggs) Historic
Town London; the Corporate Headquarters of Defence MOD Main Building, Whitehall, London
Whole-Force / The Whole Force Regulars, Reservists, MOD Civil Servants, Embedded Contractors as a single group Same as general meaning
York [less common] Security Vetting organisation or process UK Security Vetting Organisation in York (formerly part of MOD)

Leading with self: Positive Thinking and Motivation

January 29, 2020 / / 0 Comments

What it was:

A session of positive thinking and planning, from a group exercise and a one-to-one co-coaching session, aimed at drawing up an action plan for achieving some of my professional aims. This was part of the Deputy Director Leadership Programme held in London on 28 January 2020.

What I learned:

In the exercise, imagined ourselves looking back to now from a vantage point of success, two years in the future.

We identified:

Wish – what I hope for in the future
Outcome – the benefits I will see if I achieve this
Obstacles – the obstacles in me I need to overcome to succeed
Plan – what I will do to overcome these obstacles.

For me, these were:

Wish:
* Leading a team ideally at SCS
* Working in the technology, innovation or digital field
* Doing something with impact, profile and influence.

Outcome:
* Feel happier, making a stronger contribution, using my skills, having a positive impact
* Achieving my social motivation of impact and influence

Obstacles:
* Lack of the right role
* Lack of the right networks and contacts
* Lack of career examples / behaviours

Plan:
* See below.

What I will aim to differently as a result

  • Generate examples tactically from the SCS behaviours, then do things that model those behaviours. The material is all publicly available!
  • Gain experience on how to join together a multidisciplinary team, and providing the enabling framework for teams to deliver
  • Be able to give examples where you mobilised people to work collaboratively
  • Learn to feel achievement from enabling others to do stuff (not doing it myself)
  • Understand the wider issues around AI e.g. cognitive biases; How do we engage people e.g. visualisation
  • Understand the benefits of the different factories, platforms etc.
  • Engage with the AI community; get on the GDS data science group; Go to events that help me move towards that skill set
  • Finally – Refresh my development plan to incorporate this.

Leading with Self: Emotional Intelligence

January 29, 2020 / / 0 Comments

What it was

A one-day session on what it means to “lead self” in the context of a changing civil service, through being present and leading with emotional intelligence. Part of the Deputy Director Leadership Programme. Held in London on 28 January 2020.

What I learned

Emotional intelligence

The Emotional intelligence Framework – drawn from (Goldman, D. “Working with emotional intelligence”) – gives ways in which people can be emotionally intelligent and suggests areas to develop.

A similar model is the diagram here: https://hbr.org/2017/02/emotional-intelligence-has-12-elements-which-do-you-need-to-work-on

This model considers Self Vs Others and Awareness Vs Action

  • Awareness / self
    • Self awareness: Emotional self awareness
  • Awareness/ others
    • Social awareness: empathy, organisational awareness
  • Action /self
    • Self management: achievement orientation, adaptability, emotional self control, positive outlook
  • Action / others
    • Relationship management: conflict management, coach and mentor, influence, inspirational leadership, teamwork

Social Motivations

People typically have a combination of three social motivations:

  • Power motive: Primary test: Have an influence or make an impact on others
  • Achievement motive: Primary test: Meeting or exceeding a standard of excellence and or improving ones performance
  • Affiliation motive: Primary test: Maintaining or avoiding disruption of close friendly relations with people

People are often uncomfortable talking about power as a motivation!

Where things can go wrong:

  • Communication problems, including inability to listen or failure to speak up
  • Poor decision making processes, individual and group
  • Experienced experts can make poor choices and commit fundamental decisions making errors, especially under pressure

As a leader you need to be able to see when the team’s emotional engagement is blinding them to reality, for example failing to challenge assumptions, and leading to poor decisions.

Overall reflections on the day:

  • I find this subject hard to “do in the abstract” – I need to revisit this often and see how it can be applied at work.
  • I need to be braver and unafraid to challenge assumptions – especially from senior leadership.

What I will aim to do differently as a result

  • Get closer to the different teams and people – make more visits.
  • Understand what senior leaders want and worry about, talk to them.
  • Think about people’s motivations and how I can help them.
  • I will figure out a way of getting actions from these learning write ups into my task-tracking system
  • I will make time in my diary for leadership and reflection, and for follwing up on the actions from this course
  • Reflect on my social motives (impact and influence) and not to see it as bad, and reflect on the motives of others
  • I will aim to research how to develop greater focus, attention and self control (e.g. Pomodoro technique?)
  • Challenge assumptions and groupthink, have courage

Personal Transparency: Working Hours – Sep 19 to Jan 20

January 14, 2020 / / 1 Comment

About the data:

  • This is the first new data-publish in my personal transparency experiment.
  • This data covers my time in work or work-related activities from 23 Sep 19 to 10 Jan 20.
  • This work is logged against four categories:
    • Working in Office (self-explanatory)
    • Working from home or remote location (e.g. train, cafe, home)
    • Self-directed learning (coding, other learning and time spent writing this blog)
    • Formal learning (Civil Service learning or other organised courses)
  • Data published: Date, timestamp, Start/Begin, End/Leave, Category
  • Format: .csv
  • I have corrected the data, mainly to cover for those entries where I logged after the fact (so the ‘timestamp’ on the log is not the actual time that was logged). Plus also a few errors and omissions.
Work Log – Corrected Data – Sep19-Jan20Download

How I gathered the data:

  • I used a simple Google Form, via a shortcut on my phone’s home screen. The form allows immediate logging of the ‘start’ or ‘end’ of an activity, and the category of activity.
  • The form also allows me to note down an alternative time if I am logging after the event rather than at the time the acivity occured. I needed to do this a lot as I very often forgot to log at the time. In general when I logged after the fact I approximated to the nearest 5 mins.
  • Note that I have not logged any ‘travelling time’ (either routine commuting to work, or longer journeys to meetings at other offices). The only exceptions to this are where I have worked on the train, which I have logged as ‘Working from home or remote location’

Learning, insight and follow-up from this exercise:

  • With a simple form in place, it is not a significant effort for me to record this data.
  • It’s vital to log the work as it happens – logging the times after the fact and then correcting the data later is confusing and time-consuming!
  • I will perform some analysis on this data when I have got better at recording it – and have more of it.

Transparency – an experiment

January 9, 2020 / / 1 Comment

Those of you that know me may have heard me talk about transparency, and how I feel this is important for good public service. I think that civil servants being more transparent about their work could have various potential benefits:

  • Greater accountability
  • Better learning / sharing of best practice
  • Promotes understanding of what civil servants ‘actually do’

Ultimately, the public pay my salary so there’s a reasonable argument they should be able to see what they get for the money.

The experiment

I’ve decided to conduct a personal experiment in transparency and accountability – effectively a form of personal radical transparency. The principal is that I will endeavour to publish as much information about my work as practicable.

The purposes of this experiment are:

  • To examine the value of greater transparency from civil servants – for example, does this give greater insight into what I do, or actively obfuscate that? Which things are useful and which aren’t?
  • To examine the practical considerations around being transparent – what tools / guidance / best practice / rules might help civil servants be more transparent?
  • To identify any other consequencs of transparency – for example, does it affect the way I work and/or the decisions I make, knowing that some of this will be published?

The (initial) ground rules of the experiment are:

  • I can’t give details of anything protectively marked / embargoed.
  • I can’t give details about my work that give away other people’s information (only my own information).
  • I can’t give way details that would otherwise compromise security – for example my personal security.
  • I do not have much time to dedicate to this so it will be on a ‘best endeavours’ basis.
  • Some of this likely won’t work, won’t be practical or won’t be sustainable – hence it is an experiment.

I’ll be adding more information (in this blog’s new “Transparency” category) over the coming weeks and months so stay tuned. Wish me luck!

Solving Kurosu

January 3, 2020 / / 0 Comments

What it was

This Christmas I encountered ‘Kurosu’ – a japanese grid-based logic puzzle in the same vein as Sudoku (albeit a lot simpler than Sudoku).

As a Christmas puzzle – and to top-up my coding skills development over the holiday – I set myself the challenge of writing some code to solve all such puzzles. It took a few hours over several days but I managed it in the end (probably wouldn’t be blogging about it if I hadn’t…)

My code uses simple logical induction to eliminate the puzzle grid’s non-solutions, row-by-row and column-by-column.

You can find it at: https://github.com/rr-coding/kurosu-solver

If you don’t want to run it youself you’ll have to take my word for it that it works!

What I learned

Part of the challenge was that I wasn’t allowed to look at anyone else’s solution to this until after mine was working.

I confess admiration for this (very different) solution, which takes a more combinatorial / number-crunching approach – generating the set of all possible valid solutions then simply testing which one is at a hand. Plus – his taut PERL scripting makes my Python look laughably clunky and byzantine!

But I’m trying not to feel completely inadequate – my approach roughly emulates the process a human would use to solve the grid and needs relatively few (4 or so) iterations to settle on a solution.

What I will aim to do differently as a result

  • Keep brushing up on my coding – still so much to learn
  • Reflect on different approaches to coding and problem solving – think about efficiency not just efficacy of code

Note: I went back and edited this post into my usual learning format after publishing it.

My learning and development plan

November 21, 2019 / / 1 Comment

What it was:

An activity to develop and share my personal learning and development plan.

What I learned:

I wanted to use this as an exercise in planning and discipline, so I adopted the “Goals > Objectives > Tasks” approach to make a logical, structured list

I used these sources:

https://governancemanagement.webauthor.com/develop-goals-objectives-and-tasks

http://thoughtfullearning.com/inquireHSbook/pg356

Finally I used a text editor to write it and then Coggle to visualise it. There a few errors in the conversion, some of which I have fixed by hand, but the end result is close enough!

Here is the result, with the link to the full plan and a plain-text version pasted in for reference:



https://embed.coggle.it/diagram/XdcXwqoAFpimVvxq/299f6ee11baccf54550a570544e375daec72eb31de8cb7adcc386eba65fa6f9b

Personal Development Plan – As at 20 Nov 19
Become more disciplined and effective
Develop discipline as a habit
Develop a routine for removing distractions (eg Phone away etc)
Have a weekly plan and stick to it
Improve on following processes & procedures
Up to date on Leave recording
Performance management cycle
Conduct work pattern recording
Stay current and relevant in technical and professional skills
Grow my techical skills and experience
Complete Python ML Bootcamp course
Take a touch typing course
Maintain Professional PR and Digital skills
Complete CIPR CPD for the year
Compete a course on User Research basics
Be an intelligent customer for AI and ML
Complete real-world data science exercises that improve my life
Complete Python for Data Science learning
Execute and understand a sample ML exercise
Seek out opportunities and challenges and find a new role
Grow my Network
Social Media / LinkedIn / Defence Connect
Cross Govt
MOD Leadership
Find a new job
Update CV and expose it for feedback
Set up jobs monitoring
Complete Private sector applications – at least 50
Complete Public Sector applications – as many as possible
Explore new opportunities
Seek out a project delivery role at work
Take on a corporate challenge / wider activity
Become a senior leader, ready for SCS
Gather and act upon feedback
Gather feedback in one place
FLS feedback
Interview feedback
Psychometric feedback
Address weaknesses and shadows
Identify shadows and make a plan to address them
Develop Emotional Intelligence via training
Develop Commercial Acumen through practice
Develop SCS competences
Develop new competence examples for SCS
Review SCS behaviours and map to ‘how’ of my personal objective
Develop leadership
Practice Open Leadership
Identify an SCS buddy / mentor
Read: “why should anyone be led by you”
Develop personal leadership statement and reflect in my objectives
Keep learning and developing in a concerted way
Deliver this Learning and Development plan
Generate L&D plan
Review the plan at fixed intervals (monthly)
Maintain a log of completed activities
Set up self-coaching and reflection on earlier learning
Capture all learning and actions in a coherent system
Complete the backlog of write-ups
Collect notes from FLS coaching sessions
Set up a system for reviewing / reminding

What I will aim to do differently as a result:

The plan lists all the things I want to do as part of my learning. There’s a lot there so the challenge will be to stick to it and be realistic about how much of this is doable inside one year.

I’ll likely create a Trello board to track my learning actions – but that is for later.

Future Leaders Scheme – End-of-Scheme reflection and discussion

November 11, 2019 / / 0 Comments

What it was

A meeting to reflect on our collective learning with a cohort of people who had completed the Civil Service Future Leaders Scheme in 2017/18/19, chaired by Director-General at MOD and held in February 2019.

In this blog post I have pasted the content of the end-of-scheme learning template that I completed in preparation for the meeting.

What I learned

What was your key learning from the Scheme?

  • Better grounding in commercial considerations
  • Importance of self-organising, planning and review for my learning
  • Preparation and considering my approach before meetings and engagements
  • The value of coaching with my team leaders and as a general approach to conversations
  • The need to ‘bring the outside in’ and harness external perspectives whenever the organisation needs to learn, grow, change or do new things
  • Importance of planning and directing senior conversations
  • Understanding my leadership style, and ensuring that I embody this

What has been your most important learning about yourself during your time on the scheme?

  • I have a distinctive leadership style with helpful and unhelpful elements
  • There is a place for my leadership style in the SCS (previously I had though there was not)
  • I am able to adapt my leadership style to suit
  • I need (and am broadly able) to create structure, context and continuity for myself as well as for the team
  • I need support on project management / team co-ordination tasks
  • My learning and development needs to be planned and managed
  • Reflection is a powerful tool that I am able to use

What has been your greatest challenge over the past 2 years and how have you addressed this?

Aside from on-the-job challenges, the greatest challenge has been finding time/energy to dedicate to learning and development. I have addressed this by:

  • Booking time in diary for learning, booking onto courses and insisting upon attending these even under sever diary pressures;
  • Making my learning public, making a public commitment to act upon learning and therefore more likely to follow through
  • Using some hours every week ‘dead time’ to focus on technical skills development. I have used the time to complete an online Python course (coding skills for data / analytics).

What were your departmental and corporate contributions during your time on the scheme?

  • Arranged and hosted 2 x Action Learning Sets at MOD
  • As part of the Experiment Group work, I developed, executed and analysed a randomised digital survey (analogous to a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT)) of the FLS cohort (80 responses) – which showed that allowing flexible working makes a very significant difference to the number of candidates who will apply for an SCS post.
  • Contributed to early phases of corporate challenge (was not able to participate in later stages)
  • Set up the ‘lift lobby group’ of people involved in defence change programmes.
  • Began publicly sharing (blogging) my learning

Overall comments on your experience of the scheme and what your next steps will be?

  • I feel I have developed tremendously while on the FLS.
  • Some of this development is likely due to my being on temporary promotion to SCS this year – however I feel I have developed much more during this stint on promotion than during my previous stint, with FLS being the key difference.
  • I posit that the FLS has given me a framework and discipline to reflect upon and contextualise, and so truly learn from, my experiences – rather than simply experiencing them!

What I will aim to do differently as a result

Looking to the future:

  • I want to continue learning about leadership and management
  • I will continue to develop my technical skills and pursue becoming an intelligent customer for Machine Learning and AI.
  • I will continue to seek out and apply for SCS1 opportunities
  • I will aim to seek out a delivery role, and leadership roles.
  • I will consider opportunities outside central Govt Departments
  • I wish to stay in the digital/data/information field but would consider opportunities elsewhere that gave me the leadership and delivery opportunities I need.

Deputy Director Leadership Programme – additional reflections

September 26, 2019 / / 0 Comments

What it was:

Some reflections on my overall learning, plus some miscellaneous learning from my notes, derived from the two days of the Deputy Director Leadership Programme held in London on 16 and 17 September 2019.

What I learned:

Focus on personal impact:

  • Focus on the key six or so relationships (boss, close peers, direct reports) where you can make a difference.
  • Where can I take a leadership position? How can I be useful to the wider programme?

Find the bandwidth to be a leader:

  • Carve out time in the diary!
  • Carve out time within the framework you are already operating in… so for example, Use 5 or 10 mins within existing meetings – do some reflection, ask how we are doing, how are people feeling, do we understand what we are doing and why?
  • Just do it!  Stop operating and start leading. Just stop doing the operator or manager work – give it to someone else. You are making the conscious choice to be in a different mode.

Miscellaneous points

  • People watch what you do and how you act, be aware of the shadow you cast.
  • Be a lateral thinker – think of it like a dating agency – how can you join together different unconnected parties to the common good?
  • Like a lobster, it’s good to feel uncomfortable as you grow
  • The importance of being able to manage between ambiguity and clarity

What I will aim to do differently as a result:

  • Re-engage on leadership and learning
  • Get back into coaching and mentoring (myself and others)
  • Carve out leadership time
  • Make the conscious decision to lead not just do work

Some specific actions:

  • Adapt and update my leadership statement
  • Update my learning and development plan
  • Make time for leadership thinking and review
  • Re-engage on networking and stakeholder engagement
  • Put in new learning time (Thursday and Tuesday nights)
  • Get this blog into better shape and be more disciplined in publishing my learning
  • Start gathering shareable data about my work and consider how to publish it
  • Set up some self-coaching – e.g. some automated tweets or a similar tool
  • Complete an exercise to capture my reflections from my time as Hd C&MI
  • Write up the EOY feedback and make this the basis of the next phase of learning

Leading with Self: The personal leadership statement

September 17, 2019 / / 0 Comments

What it was:

A talk, group and individual exercise led by Dionne Corradine. This was part of the Deputy Director Leadership Programme held in London on 16 and 17 September 2019.


What I learned:

A personal leadership statement can help crystallise your leadership style, your aspirations, and what you offer to the people you work with. It can also be used as part of your objectives and to measure your progress.

A personal leadership statement takes time to develop and should be considered a work in progress – it can be a blend of where you are and where you want to be.  It should answer the question “Why should anyone be led by me?”

We conducted a brief exercise to generate a first-draft personal leadership statement.  Here is my draft:

PERSONAL LEADERSHIP STATEMENT – Ten-minute draft

What do I stand for?

  • The power of science, technology and information to do public good
  • The Integrity, impartiality and objectivity of the Civil Service
  • Experimentation and taking decisions based on evidence
  • The importance of collaboration 
  • Development and growth for all

Why follow me? Because I am:

  • Inspiring:
    • Try to see where the future is going and get there early
    • Always work collaboratively, cohering teams into action
    • Work to set a compelling vision and concepts 
    • Work to engage people and stakeholders in that vision
  • Confident:
    • Enjoy communicating, engaging and influencing
    • See and do things differently
    • Practice open leadership, working out loud and being open to feedback 
    • Volunteer and step in when things are going wrong
    • Try to influence thinking outside my area
    • Aim to be aware of myself, my impact and be reflective
  • Empowering:
    • Create a team that’s fun, supportive, loyal to each other
    • Keep myself and my team at the leading edge, by driving change and developing forward-leaning skills
    • Try to help my team achieve their development dreams
    • Encourage and reward reasonable challenge, listen to evidence
    • Enable teams to do new things in new ways

Things I’m trying to be better at:

  • Servant leadership
  • Planning and managing the pipeline of work
  • Staying always a leader, not a manager or operator 
  • Maintain technical skills and being an intelligent customer 
  • Coaching and mentoring my team leaders
  • Maintaining and growing my and my team’s networks

What I will aim to do differently as a result:

  • Develop the statement above and then try to live it!
  • Bake my leadership statement into my personal objectives
  • Build in review / reminder points
  • Consider ways to test my performance against the statement
  • Get hold of the speaker’s slides for this session as they contained lots of useful thinking.
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