Who knew Santa had so much pre-flight admin to handle? From reviewing customs declarations and completing his sleigh’s MOT to ensuring he has the proper permits to travel through each country in the UK, his list of requirements is nearly as long as his naughty or nice list. On top of that, Santa wants an easier way to monitor how many carrots each reindeer needs to make it through the night. He’s decided enough is enough—it’s time to go digital.

This year, for the Informed Solutions Christmas Community of Practice Challenge, teams have been presented with a long list of Santa’s pain points and problems. Their mission was to design a workflow that results in a product to simplify Santa’s to-do list. By collaborating and drawing on their diverse domain knowledge, teams will consider factors such as scope, design, requirements, and technical constraints.

Our five Communities of Practice (COP) foster skill development, innovation, and best practices across the organisation, while promoting external community engagement. These communities focus on five key disciplines: Delivery Management, DevOps, GIS and Data, Software Development, and User-Centred Design. Throughout the year, our COPs host regular sessions that bring colleagues together for insightful talks, debates, and knowledge-sharing opportunities.

For this year’s special Christmas challenge, four teams, composed of members from both delivery services and internal service groups, were tasked with designing a system which would minimise Santa’s manual workload, incorporating innovative approaches to technology. The brief required each concept to integrate essential elements for delivering a successful service, including data, testing, DevOps, and User-Centred Design.

At the end, after enough mince pies and treats had been shared, each team had the chance to show off their initial concepts, highlighting which pain points they decided to address and any features they were most proud of.

After a rigorous judging process with an internal panel, team ‘Reindeer AI Asset Management Solutions’ were triumphant with their solution of ‘Reindeer Performance Management System (RPMS)’. This digital solution included a creative and innovative approach to ensuring the flying reindeer had sufficient carrots to eat throughout their journey. Through integrated AI technology, a dashboard demonstrating key datapoints, and, surprisingly, some carrot soup, this team demonstrated ‘out of the box’ thinking and earned themselves the title for another year.

A huge thank you to Santa’s Elves Ellie, Michael, Natasha, Joely and Owen for organising this year’s challenge and for making the long journey back on the Polar Express to deliver our Proof-of-Concepts to Santa.

We look forward to hosting more fun and engaging Communities of Practice and Skills Development sessions in 2025.