Our Objectives
1. Connect development teams across government
The primary aim of the group is to connect teams through a series of mechanisms:-
- Lean Coffee
- Facilitated Events
- Mailing List
- X-Gov Slack
2. Learning and development
One aim of the group is to understand and faciliate Learning and development within teams and understand and share what are we doing to progress our careers.
Addressing questions and sharing information such as
What Learning resources are being used ?
e.g. we know
Several teams have Pluralsight accounts
O’Reilly Online Learning is also a popular subscription
What Learning techniques are adopted ?
e.g.
- Learning techniques
- Pair programming
- Hack days
- Code retreats
How are Apprenticeships used ?
e.g. Some departments have used an apprenticeship scheme
How are we Finding time for learning ?
Finding enough time to keep skills up to date is an issue. Developers are sometimes allocated a percentage of time from their working week for self-learning. Others are too busy and learn during evenings and weekends.
3. Championing standards
An aim of the group is to champion x-government standards to do this we aim to understand
What standards are in place within government software engineering communities?
For
- Technology choices
- Techniques
What Developer standards are there ?
Like
Defra’s developer standards
How are standards communicated within departments?
4. Promoting diversity and inclusion
An aim of the group is to understand
how can we improve diversity and inclusion within our government software engineering community? and promote greater diversity and understand :-
What are departments already doing?
An aim of the group is to understand what departments and bodies are doing in this area.
Sharing recruitment experience
An aim of the group is to understand and share recruitment experience.
5. Represent the software engineering community in DDAT conversations
An aim of the group is to discuss and represent the community in relation to the DDAT Framework