Public Service Product Management – Tom Loosemore on The Product Experience

Over the last decade in the public sector, there’s been a global explosion in citizen and resident-centered design and development, with movements in the UK, Estonia, Australia, Canada, USA, and many more strengthening their approaches. Where it’s been done well, it’s made a huge difference.  At the same time, civil services are always facing budget and recruitment challenges, to say nothing of issues stemming from regulatory requirements, technology, suppliers, and legacy decisions.

If we’re really going to Build Back Better, how can we overcome the challenges in the sector?  We asked Tom Loosemore, partner at Public Digital, to chat with us about doing product work in the public sector.

In this episode, sponsored by Yellowfin, listen to learn about:

• Working in public service tech
• Initiating change in a large organisation
• Whether digital can solve everything!

Quote of the Episode

The real organising job here is to help reinvent and reassert government, not bring your digital shizzle to the table and wow people with it. I would come to the table with enormous humility around those who’ve endured the last 4 years, and also enormous excitement. The organising challenge is rebuilding the institutions, not doing shiny, sexy solution stuff with added AI blockchain nonsense.

Links mentioned in this episode

• Follow Tom on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Tom’s Website
• Public Digital
• UK Government Digital Service
• Tom’s post on internet-era ways of working
• Offscreen interviewed Tom about the human side of technology

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Our Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Head of Innovation at Go Compare and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol (which now has 800+ members!) and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy is a product consultant and coach who has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. A recovering music journalist and editor, he launched Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, and has worked across sectors including museums and arts groups, online education, media and entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. Randy’s book, What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19 is out now, with all profits going to COVID-19 relief efforts.