MEETING: Welsh Government offices, Cathays Park, Cardiff

Focusing on developers

  1. Review of minutes from March meeting and sign-off to publish on website. Review of action log.
  2. Review of website and its backend technology including github.com code and potential (Mark Wardle)
  3. Presentation on existing development practices in Wales (Rob Jones / Huw Angle on behalf of Geoff Norton, NWIS software development manager)
  4. Review of current ecosystem developer view and presentation from Paul Howells/Helen Northmore on DHEW/ecosystem.
  5. National Data Resource - overview and initial plans, from a technical standard perspective.

We are discussing software developers. I’m going to make the case that developers and the teams in which they work need to be supported and empowered with the best tools, processes and culture, as they are responsible for performing the magic of delivering valuable technology for health and care in Wales.

So we are going to hear about what’s already good, but we also want to know what’s bad. We need to know what aids productivity for designers and developers, and what impedes it? What does ‘perfect’ look like for software developers, irrespective of the organisation in which they sit, and how can we foster collaboration across organisational boundaries? What about work by developers in other public services in Wales?

Can we envisage a time in which public sector organisations collaborate and cooperate to design and build and improve services, centred on citizens and professionals, instead of services that reveal their organisational-centric roots?

And what can we do, in terms of software development standards, documentation, open-source code repositories, fundamental platform building blocks, off-the-shelf frameworks and design patterns to bring internet-era thinking into public services? What can we do to bring user-centred design into our work?

Invited:

  • WTSB members
  • Helen Northmore, DHEW
  • Catrin Rees, DHEW
  • Paul Howells, DHEW / NDR
  • Huw Angle, DHEW
  • Health board developers (tbc)

If you would like to comment, then please get in contact by email.