Discovery progress and camping at Shell Island

A double weeknote starting 30 March 2026. Continuing the discovery phase and a trip to North Wales.

Discovery progress

The discovery I'm working on has already revealed a nice surprise. The internal users are not following the intended procedure properly, so we think they can cut out a few steps from their as-is workaround straight away.

I still think there is value in pushing ahead with the discovery, as the remaining steps are still a manual workaround that we want to improve. But we may already be able reduce the size of the problem to solve by about a third.

I'm counting it as a win for the discovery, as the map that we created helped others to spot the procedure error. But I think our team can learn something about sharing our discovery plans with key people sooner to ensure less time is wasted capturing incorrect procedures.

The bit I'm most interested in now is creating a list of opportunities to explore in the alpha. I've remapped the journey into key tasks and it shows how we're basically asking the user to re-enter things multiple times. We should be able cut down the steps, reduce risk of error and reduce time taken on cases, leading to reduction in the backlog.

Camping at Shell Island

Campervan and awning in a green field with reflective water, rolling hills and blue cloudy sky.

We took the van away for our second trip. This time was 3 nights in Shell Island, North Wales for Easter weekend. Unfortunately our trip coincided with Storm Dave. Luckily our awning survived, but for safety, all 5 of us decided to sleep in the van with the top down. Bit of a squeeze.

The campsite was very pretty. The campsite is located on a spit of land in between the sea and a large estuary, it's not a true island, but the road in and out gets cut off by the tide so it feels quite remote. You can camp anywhere and it feels quite wild, but the centre of the site has lots of facilities (bar, shops, arcade) that can get quite busy with families.

Highlights included...

  • Zip World Betws-y-Coed
  • Portmeirion
  • Driving through towns like Barmouth and Harlech
  • Stopping in Aberaeron on the way home for fish and chips in the New Celtic, drinks in the Harbourmaster and some warm sun (finally)

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