Simon Rolley of DWP moves out of his comfort zone to present at AI in ITSM at Bletchley Park.
Sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns… and this was one of those occasions. I was asked to present to a room full of ITSM professionals for itSMF UK’s recent AI in ITSM event, and I said YES!!
In this blog, you will hear about my experience at the National Museum of Computing (some would say the home of modern computing due to its links to Turing) at Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes, and how I overcame my nerves, or didn’t. And if you love old tech, I’ve put together a few pictures which are guaranteed to transport you back to your youth.
I arrived in Milton Keynes the day before the event so that I could get a nice early start, and take some time to enjoy the museum before speaking. Six presenters were due to take part on the day and I was the penultimate speaker. This meant I had to let my nervousness build up until it was my time to present. And I will be honest, I was nervous, mainly because I haven’t presented face to face to an audience this size for a while. Let’s face it, many of us live on Teams these days.
I had prepared my slides in advance. I even prepared Q cards as I found these proved useful when I delivered a best man’s speech to a large room; but I was also worried that I was going to drop the Q cards all over the floor if my nerves got the better of me during my presentation, so I was in two minds whether or not to use them.
Anyways (I know I’m too old to use that term but there it is anyway…s). I got an early night at the hotel, went to bed around 10pm, and set my alarm for 7am to give me plenty of time to get there, and to manage any unpredictable rail mishaps (I’ve had a few – mainly my fault. Ask anyone!). I’m sleeping well until Clatter, Boom, Bosh, Clatter, Oy-Oy-Oy!! It’s 5am; outside in the corridor some latecomers are super noisy and I am a very light sleeper. I wake up, the sound is short lived and I try to get back to sleep. No chance, it ain’t happening. I spend the next two hours trying to sleep but failing miserably.
This does however give me an excellent opportunity to get breakfast and walk 40 minutes (in the drizzle) with my case to Milton Keynes Central. The walk is uneventful but wet, and as if some other worldly entity was guiding me through my journey, I manage to successfully navigate to the correct platform, jump on the correct train and arrive at Bletchley Park for 8.30am. (This is very ‘not me’… ask anyone!).
And so to ‘AI in ITSM’. The day looked like this:
- 09:30 Registration & coffee/tea
- 10:10 The natural language of AI, Aaron Perrott, KTSL
- 10:40 Break
- 10:55 The impact of AI on Knowledge Management, Chevonne Hobbs, Illuminet Solutions
- 11:30 Case Study: AI in Education ITSM, Cristan Massey, Pearson
- 12:00 Lunch
- 13:00 Case study: AI within the Service Desk environment, Jason Hamer, Vodafone
- 13:30 AI in recruitment and how it could change the hiring process, Simon Rolley, DWP Digital
- 14:00 Break
- 14:15 AI in ITSM 2025: Discoveries & Predictions, Roman Zhuravlev, PeopleCert
- 14:45 Panel/Q&A
- 15:15 End of day networking/museum access
- 16:30 Event close
Honestly, I would have coped better or been less nervous if I was speaker number one, but these are the cards I was handed, so onwards we go.
Before the day gets going, a chance to look around the museum. They have expanded it and introduced a whole new section dedicated to modern computing – 60’s and onwards. There are some pics further on in the article if you fancy a nostalgia hit.
Below are my slides, this is what I am building up to presenting.
With time to spare, I look round the museum and take loads of pics, and even execute a bit of 10 print “text goes here”, 20 go to 10, Run. Some of you will think I have lost my marbles here while others will feel a sense of warmth, knowing they spent their Saturday afternoons going round Dixons executing similar code with probably not very appropriate text in the “text goes here” box on all the home PCs on display in the shop.
Anyways (it’s there again… sorry), I find a colleague and fellow IT Service Manager and we go for a coffee and a chat, and a catchup. So nice to see a familiar face (as well as the itSMF crew – you know who you are).
In an attempt to keep you interested and reading on, I have INSERTED A VIDEO SUMMARY OF THE DAY HERE which contains some cool royalty free music which will hopefully help you persevere to the end of the article. Make sure your sound’s not on full if you’re in the office or everyone will look at you like you’re a 14 year old on public transport watching TikTok on full volume (maybe). Those who didn’t read on and just skipped to the video without reading this bit might currently be attracting some unwanted attention in the office :).
And so we begin. As I watch each presentation, I am listening out to see how engaged the audience is, and how the presenters articulate themselves, desperately looking for the secret to a fantastic presentation. I want everyone to enjoy it, to engage in the content, and not fall asleep so soon after lunch.
Jason Hamer from Vodafone is on Q&A and I’m up next. My hands are sweating, I’m taking deep breaths, I’m super worried at this point and also conscious that I have a front tooth missing and that has lowered my confidence (I’m waiting for an implant as I refuse to go to Turkey for one). I’m asking myself if I’m going to use my Q cards or drop them as soon as I stand up. Jason finishes his session and Mark Lillycrop stands up and introduces me. I approach the lectern, my slides are already on screen showing a picture of me from 10 years ago (I must change that). I take another deep breath, a last look at my intro Q card, and then carefully place the deck on the windowsill next to me, opting to simply rely on my own recall of the content. And I’m off.
My main worry is that no one in the room is involved in the recruitment process, but my slides are two-fold in context. One angle looks through the eye of a recruiter and the other looks through the eye of a job seeker, so I open up with “Who in here is involved with the recruitment process?”
I’m hoping for more than 5, but if it’s low I can joke that this session is going to be useless. I get a show of around 15 hands, so I say, “Not many then, but a few”. I then change it around and say, “Who in this room has ever applied for a job?” Everyone raises their hand and giggles and I comment that perhaps there is something in the session for everyone. The room laughs, and this reassures me that I have engagement and I should be able to do this.
I delivered my presentation and the whole session went really well with lots of laughs along the way and lots of Q&A and discussion in the room. I was so relieved that it went well.
The moral of the story is that I absolutely recommend you push yourself outside of your comfort zone on a regular basis. I feel so much more confident to present now and look forward to the next time I get the opportunity. The longer you procrastinate, the worse your fears will become. There are lots of opportunities for all of us to present and lots of material available relevant to our own worlds, and many organisations hold great training resources online to help with presenting. I hope I have inspired at least one person to take the leap and present live in front of a large audience.
Thanks for reading. Below are some useful links and lots of pics of old tech for all my fellow nerds 🙂
https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/artificial-intelligence-in-recruitment
Simon Rolley
Simon Rolley is DIgital Recruitment Lead for ITSM at DWP Digital Group.
