This was my first attendance at an ICiPS conference and I went from being unsure whether this was the right conference to attend, to thinking why hadn’t I been to one before.

The first innovative approach was that the conference was chaired and facilitated by a brilliant actors’ group called Enact. Enact went through different scenarios that could be improved in a work environment around leadership and communication and then stopped the acts and asked for audience feedback and recommendations.

This was interspersed with workshops and talks from a diverse group of speakers on topics such as data visualisation, the potential of the smart society, using location data, neuroscience-based leadership, and finally harnessing innovation in public sector delivery by David Hardman CEO of the Birmingham Science Park.

All the talks encouraged a holistic view and cross sector working and at tables we were encouraged to discuss topics and bring out key points. This was an inclusive practical and accessible conference and I came across lots of new and interesting perspectives. As a primary care worker I found this a fun, relaxing and interesting conference with the potential for transferable learning. I met colleagues from Government, HMRC and council planners, many of whom have a shared interest in continuous improvement and were curious about different approaches and shared learning.

My learning points from the day were varied. I now know how to create visual data on reports with different computer apps, but I also have a better understanding of industry backgrounds and their desire to collaborate with us and how similar some problems are and of course the power of serendipity.

At the end of the day the Enact group improvised a scene with all of the key points about leadership that we had contributed, which was a masterpiece of real time feedback.

You can join the ICiPs discussion group via their website www.icips.org. Slides from the talks should be available on the website soon.

I think this organisation has great potential for cross working with QI members from the Q community. I plan to attend next year and was pleased to meet Stacey Lally our Q community Head of Delivery there.

ICiPS is a charity working to ‘Embed continuous improvement in the delivery of public services through education’.  Q has teamed up with ICiPS to make membership available to Q members. You can find out more about this offer on the Subscriptions and Offers page