The only thing standing in the way of Beta is a service assessment. There are 26 points to cover in 3 hours! Gulp. It’s the first in-house assessment for DVLA too, double gulp.
Was I nervous? Yes - especially when we couldn’t get the wifi to work!
I think it was quite comforting that we were doing this assessment on home ground. A 3-hour journey to London and a 20 minute tube ride might have just tipped me over the edge! You’d think familiar faces would also settle your nerves but no, this was still serious business. Over or under 100k transactions, it’s still the same service standard that you have to meet.
Presenting to the panel
You may think that having a GDS and DVLA panel would make things easy as they would understand where I was coming from but no, because they knew the lay of the land they had the ability to throw you some curve balls.
With the wifi finally working (phew) and after a series of questions being asked and answered the early nerves started to fade and we all got into the swing of things. With some approving looks following the demo the nerves eventually disappeared fully and before I knew it, the assessment was over.
Thankfully I had a really good team with me. Rohan, Peter and Matt knocked those balls right out of the park. If DVLA and Kainos had a Twenty20 team they’d definitely be the first up to bat and they’d easily clock up some winning runs.
The agonising wait
At the end of the assessment we were advised it would take three days before we’d know what the recommendation was. 72 hours I could cope with but the agony was prolonged further as we had to wait for DVLA's digital lead to approve the assessment. Note to self, next assessment needs to be outside the holiday season.
Just over one week later the confirmation I’d been waiting for finally happened! So it’s goodbye Alpha and hello Beta!
With a few recommendations to take forward during beta, it means even more exciting times ahead and I know that in the blink of an eye I’ll be back in front of that GDS panel demonstrating the hard and amazing work the team will undertake over the next few months.
Can’t wait!
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