Week #124 at the Digital Service: Notes for 9–13 September 2024

The next version of the German government’s Service Standard is slowly emerging. Peer reviews are continuing and opening up to peers from other public sector organisations. And salary ranges and the underlying salary system are now well documented in a detailed blog post. Martin recaps his week 124 at Digital Service.

Week #123 at the Digital Service: Notes for 2–6 September 2024

Photograph: Sandra Kühnapfel

Martin welcomed the new Work4Germany fellowship cohort. He also co-ran a cross-public sector user-centred design community gathering on designing good forms and welcomed the second content designer in his week 123 at Digital Service.

Week #122 at the Digital Service: Notes for 26–30 August 2024

Week 122 was thoughtful. Martin joined a session on defensive democracy and how public servants can protect and uphold the Basic Law if the far-right gets into government. He did some practical work and some thought work linked to the principle of ‘Open by Default’. Martin also saw some accessibility formats developing a life of their own.

Meetup: Creating better policies

‘Creating better policies’ was the topic of the 6th meetup in the ‘Öffentliches Gestalten – shaping public sector’s future’ series. Three speakers, a lawyer, a service designer and a software engineer, shared how they support lawmakers and policy drafters to create better policies.

Week #119 at the Digital Service: Notes for 5–9 August 2024

Photograph: Sandra Pieper

Martin joined his second session as a member of the Digital Council of the Minister for Infrastructure and Digital of the State of Saxony-Anhalt. He learnt more about the state’s challenges and leverage points. Martin saw another justice service launch, gave an inspirational service design talk and worked with the small Service Standard team on objectives, metrics and a first internal draft of a new version.

Week #117 at the Digital Service: Notes for 22–26 July 2024

In week 117 at Digital Service, Martin started promoting new content design roles for 2 service areas, participated in a workshop on a more disability-inclusive recruitment process, and supported further accessibility work. The media have picked up his work on updating the German Service Standard.

Week #116 at the Digital Service: Notes for 15–19 July 2024

The UK government’s former Head of User Research and Analysis at GDS, Stephanie Marsh (centre), together with colleagues from Springer Nature in the office of Digital Service

Week 116 at Digital Service was short for Martin as he only returned from holidays on Friday. He welcomed a former GDS colleague to the office. He also started reflecting on a book on managing people he started reading this week.