Pete Jones has recently taken up the new role of Head of Technology (HoT) for MSD. In this Sixty Seconds interview, we hear from Pete about his career to date, this new role and its implications for the Division and about his love for the seaside and self-service technology. We look forward to hearing more from Pete in the future.
First, tell us a little bit about your career to date
For just under 15 years, I worked in the University’s Computing Services department - OUCS for those with long memories. Whilst there I went from a hands-on techie, to running large programmes such as the Financial Oracle R12 and migrating the University’s email system onto Microsoft. I was managing one of the larger service groups containing the teams who ran email, phones, backup and other University wide services when I was approached by a firm outside the University to come and join them, running their IT.
This was a financial services firm who build mathematical models of markets and use them to trade around the world. It was a driven environment full of incredibly intelligent mathematical researchers, and highly skilled engineers. The engineers took the models and transformed them into code to run on large computer clusters. There are a lot of parallels between the environment there and the technology-based research groups in the Medical Sciences Division.
I learnt a huge amount in my time there but it was time for a change. I happened to sit down for lunch with an old University colleague who pointed me to an opportunity to work with start-ups at the BioEscalator. They are a great, dynamic part of the division doing amazing work to provide a collaborative environment to help nurture and grow the companies there. I then became one of the Deputy Directors of MSD IT Services – our divisional level IT provider – and spent a short time as Interim Director there prior to becoming Head of Technology (HoT).
I was attracted to the role as HoT for the Division as it brings together the elements I enjoy: helping people navigate through the ever-changing technology landscape; changing both what we do and how we do it; and linking together disparate groups who are working on the same things.
Tell us more about this new role and any challenges you think you might face?
As the Heads of Technology are newly roles created in each division, we are all still finding our feet a little bit!
There are five strands to a Head of Technology:
- Drive the move to new model of delivery for IT
- Create conditions for collaborative engagements
- Liaise between Division, IT Services and digital governance
- Alignment within division and across divisions/UAS
- Oversee the implementation of shared services.
At the moment I am concentrating on the activities that face outwards from the Division, building bridges with the Heads of Technology in each division and other colleagues, noting where the divisions are alike and where we are different. Each Division is starting from a different point with different priorities but we are broadly on the same journey. My next steps are to look the opposite way, into the Division, reaching out to colleagues in a variety of roles to map how the changes in the digital and IT space, coming out of activities such as Digital Transformation, can turn into real on-the-ground tangible benefits.
One of the big challenges I see on the horizon is the change of mindset required to embrace the “Shared by default; bespoke by exception” delivery model recommended by the IT Infrastructure Service Review. I am happy to discuss the details of what makes a service “shared” and I encourage people to come and talk to me about it. The shared service delivery model makes sense for IT and digital given the structure of the University, but it is hard to get the balance within it right. We are lucky in Medical Sciences that we are ahead of the curve both in thinking and implementation having operated a proportion of the Division’s IT provision in this shared model for many years – sharing IT delivery between IT staff in departments and MSD IT Services.
Is there a piece of technology or a gadget that you can’t live without?
Catch-up TV, internet banking – any on-demand self-service technology. These have vastly changed our lives, and I love the way these sorts of technologies empower people.
What have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned throughout your career?
Forgive me if this sounds a bit aloof and philosophical, but with my background in IT you can probably understand where it comes from. Things go wrong; how you fix them is what matters. We take decisions based on what we know at the time; and this may mean we need to change course later. Sometimes things break when there is nothing we could have done to predict it; and we just need to get on with the job of fixing them. Whilst we learn from these experiences, we shouldn’t kick ourselves with the what-ifs and if-onlys. We just need to make sure we work together to put things right, that is the part that people will remember.
What do you like to do to relax?
For me, there is something about the sea that is good for the soul. I don’t think you can beat a stroll along the beach on a bright cold winter’s day. Unfortunately, in Oxford we are about as far from the sea as you can get in the UK!
If you weren’t Head of Technology, what would you like to be doing?
Based on the above… probably writing feel-good memes for people to share on the internet!
For more information, please see our Digital Strategy webpages.