We want to work better with other content designers across government working on GOV.UK, so we're inviting content designers from across government to come and work with us. We’d also like some invitations to come and work in departments.
In our research on publishing, we found that closer working has really benefited both the central team and our content colleagues across government.
We also thought it would be useful to share how we manage work, what we prioritise and why.
How it’ll work
We’ve found exchanges work best when they’re project-based. So if you have an area of your content that you know needs work, get in touch with us. We can work with you on a plan to look at the content, figure out what we can fix quickly and then do the work with you, either at GDS or where you are.
If you don’t have a project in mind, get in touch and we’ll talk about planning a week-long visit, where we can show you how we work and send you back with agile techniques to feed into your own content team.
We’ve found that a day tends to be too short - if we’re working together on a project, we recommend 3 to 5 days. If you want to learn how we approach work and agile techniques, 2 or 3 days is generally enough.
What you’ll do when you’re at GOV.UK
You’re likely to do some or all of the following. If there’s anything that you’d really like to cover, let us know.
You’ll:
- attend our team stand ups and meetings
- learn how we manage high volumes of work with agile techniques
- do some pair writing
- participate in a session on how we can work better together
- work on mainstream content, pairing with a GOV.UK content designer
- see how we deal with incoming content requests, which will help you write clearer requests
We’d like to work with you too
It’s not just a one way thing - we’d like to go out and work with your teams in departments and agencies. It’s particularly useful for us to do project-based work when we go out and work with departments, so if there’s some content you’d like to improve, get in touch.
How to get involved
If you’d like to come and work with the GOV.UK content team or would like to invite us to come and work with you, please contact your GOV.UK lead. If you don’t know who that is, get in touch with our content community training team at: gov.uk-training@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.
Trisha is the Head of Content at GDS. You should follow her on Twitter.
