Following on from our interview with Keerthi, we're excited to present an interview with Gavin Elliott, our Chief Design Officer. Gavin's extensive background in design and tech, along with his leadership and vision, has been instrumental in driving our innovative approach to digital solutions. Here's the interview where Gavin shares his career journey, insights and the remarkable impact he's making at Scrumconnect:
I have over 20 years of experience in design and tech. Initially, I served in the armed forces for 3 years before a medical discharge. Though it was upsetting at the time, it led me to pursue my interest in graphic design and tech. From a young age, I was passionate about design, creating newspaper covers and various projects. After my discharge, my dad encouraged me to try freelancing, which was a steep learning curve as I had to teach myself coding and web tools on the fly.
I started as a freelancer, running a small agency in the North East, improving my SEO skills, and gradually growing my clientele. This led to becoming the Creative Director of a larger agency in Newcastle within a few years. My role at Codeworks, a digital excellence centre in North East England, further established my presence in the web design space. I hosted several events, including one of the largest web design conferences in the UK.
When Codeworks shut down due to funding cuts, I transitioned to working for startups, first in New York and then in Newcastle, while also creating my own conference, IndustryConf, which I ran for 4 years. During this time, I also headed up UX at another startup. My interest in government digital services led me to join the DWP in 2015. Initially frustrated by the slow pace of the Civil Service, I considered moving to Shopify in Montreal, but my father's passing in early 2016 changed my plans.
My career at DWP flourished, and I became Head of Design over 2.5 years, staying for over six years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I joined the Health Security Agency for 9 months, then re-applied to Shopify and worked remotely with them for 2 years.
I then had a third conversation with Praveen in five years, and everything aligned. I always had massive respect for Scrumconnect. I used to work in retirement, bereavement, and care in DWP so there is a lot of common ground, and I do believe Scrumconnect has the opportunity to do even greater things in the public sector space. I love the people, company, mission, values, culture, everything, so I wanted to support their growth over the next few years.
As I was growing up, especially as computers became more visible within schools, I did a GNVQ in IT which gave me more time on the computer. I never really got interested in coding as my friends did; I was more interested in design—Paintshop Pro and other tools. I just had a massive thing for design. I went to a conference in 2008, a couple of years after leaving the army, watched a talk and the penny dropped about User Experience being my passion—this is the thing I really understood, so I doubled down on UX. The rest is history.
As the Chief Design Officer, I lead on design capability, profession, and practice. Because it’s a leadership position, I get involved in the business-oriented side of things, senior leadership point of view, supporting Praveen, and business development—bids and tenders. Quality of design within, service assessments, the marketing work too.
There’s no typical day at Scrumconnect, which is a good thing, keeps us on our toes, gives us a plethora of things to work on. Marketing, speaking to teams in departments about design problems, then working with the leadership team on the direction for the company. It literally could be anything, which is great.
I’ve been at Scrumconnect for 5 months now, most of my work has been in quality and design itself. I helped host their first event in Newcastle, which was fantastic for the region and company. The current rebrand has been great. We’ve had various brands over the years but this is the one that will be the one for the next few years.
In my role, I get to work with everybody which is fantastic, whether recruitment, HR, leadership, product managers of teams in different departments. I get to work across the board, which I think is brilliant. Effective communication is important, whether through quick calls, Slack, or in person like with clients in DWP Manchester a few weeks ago,
The Newcastle event! This was part of TechNext week, and we had fantastic speakers, representatives from DWP. Then the Prime Minister called the early general election and we went into Purdah — that’s the pre-election period where civil servants can’t speak in public. That meant 50% of our speakers had to cancel with weeks to go till the event, which was tough. Also, the building flooded on the day. Luckily, staff at the university sorted the room out for us. It was an accomplishment to pull the event off brilliantly in the face of so much adversity.
Q. What skill do you value the most?
The most critical skill is communication. As a leader, you have to be able to have incredible communication skills, communicate effectively and be able to listen. There’s no point in being a leader whilst my team members aren’t being heard by me. Design skills take care of themselves, but when communicating with several departments in and out of the company, you have to stay on your toes.
Diverse, open, and honest. Everything that you want it to be, we love it for that fact. It’s also a fun environment. Everybody chips in trying to do everything that they can do, and support each other which is a good thing, nobody’s left alone to fight challenges. We have a lot of camaraderie and honesty in our discussions.
The fact that no day is typical, and the people. People can make a role and a job, they certainly make the company. Praveen is always trying to push us and the brilliant leadership team- Shilpa, Prahlad, Mark and myself- forwards in the same direction.
The expectation on everyone is to develop and grow. We don’t just ask, we also ask of ourselves. Plans are afoot, we’ll see how they go.
Resources and opportunities for continuous learning include:
I’ve had one in every single stage of my career which has enabled me to develop and grow. Be it at DWP, others throughout the years, quite a few that have given me one line in a 2-hour conversation which stuck with me forever, or been with me when I needed it.
I have a big Labrador who enjoys walks. My two kids also take up a lot of my time. One is incredibly creative, 3D printing, crochet, drawing, the other is tech-oriented so it’s the best of both worlds for me. I’ve been into computer gaming for 30 years, maybe more, also watching good movies. I recently started Couch to 5k —I’m not someone who loves running but it enables me to move more.
I think you’ve got to be fairly strict and set boundaries. I don’t believe there’s a ‘work life’ and ‘home life’, we have one life and the work/home elements can become intertwined. It’s important to consistently set boundaries and communicate them to others. Especially for leadership roles, where we should set a precedent.
Supporting Scrumconnect, nothing beyond that. I just want to do a really good job in a good place with good people. The focus isn’t on me, it’s on Scrumconnect.
Most people focus on GenAI. It’ll probably change things in certain ways. Many sectors are jumping on the bandwagon very quickly, but I think it’s all about digging in and seeing it evolve in the right way for the right reasons. Machine learning, IoT and things like that. Lots of opportunities are arising in the next few years.
I once went to London for a TV casting. I used to run an agony uncle website and a TV company asked me to come for a casting as they wanted to do a show about agony uncles, but they didn’t end up making it.
Prahlad. We have different roles and I’m always intrigued as to what he’s up to, the conversations he’s had and why they’ve happened. Mine are specific to design and UCD space, whereas his are more business-oriented.
Complaining is nothing without action. You can complain to your heart’s content, but unless you do something about it, it’s just a complaint. If you’ve got an opinion, share it, if you’ve got a way to change things for the better, do it. Don’t just complain.
Be passionate. Want to get involved. Love what you do. Share it with everybody else. Let all of that come through.
On 5th November, leaders from across the tech industry gathered in London for the Women and Diversity in Tech and Channel Festival, where they explored key challenges and opportunities for creating a more inclusive and sustainable tech sector.
At Scrumconnect, we specialise in navigating challenges by leveraging Agile methodologies that foster resilience, adaptability, and strategic growth. We partner with clients to not only meet these challenges head-on but to turn them into opportunities for growth.
November marks National Career Development Month, a time dedicated to highlighting the significance of career growth and encouraging both employers and employees to invest in their professional and personal advancement. At Scrumconnect, we take career development seriously, providing our employees with opportunities for mentorship and upskilling opportunities.
Scrumconnect is pleased to announce its successful award of G-Cloud 14 Lot 4 Framework Contract.
We are committed to continuously providing the best in tech with our people, practices and technology through our certifications.
Scrumconnect is committed to disability rights.
This enhanced government-endorsed standard demonstrates that we have implemented the essential plus security requirements for protecting your data, and that of your client’s, against unskilled internet-based cyber attackers.
We are a supplier on Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) Cloud Compute 2 framework, a testament to our commitment to providing high-quality services to the UK public sector.
An integrated management system, designed for ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2015, operates across our business. These are regularly reviewed in order to ensure the continuous improvement to meet the needs of our customers and stakeholders.