Weekly 1:1

Person #1: Can you hear me? Person #2: Yes, I can hear you. Give me one second, I'm just closing my door. The corridor is—okay. I'm here. Person #1: Good. How was your morning? Person #2: Productive, wallah. I had the foresight review with the team, the quarterly horizon scan. We're seeing some interesting signals on—well, I'll get to that. But first, I assume you want the planning cycle update. The one where I have to tell you things you already know. Person #1: You know me too well. Person #2: It's part of my job description, Your Excellency. Alright. So, the templates. The annual planning cycle templates have been with the sectors since the twelfth. The seventeenth was the soft deadline for the first pass. We are now on the twenty-sixth. Of the fifty-three entities, we have received drafts from thirty-one. Twenty-two have not submitted. Two of those have written to formally request an extension until the end of the month. The rest are silent. Person #1: Which sectors are the silent ones? Person #2: GovDigital is the most concerning. They've had internal issues, restructuring the data governance team, and the Chief Data Officer role is still vacant since—since Youssef left in May. So the data platforms and governance pieces of the plan are thin. The template they sent back on Friday was mostly the cloud infrastructure narrative, which is good, but zero on the AI use case milestones for next year. And we know the Executive Council wants that front and center. Person #1: And Talent? Person #2: Government Talent has submitted. Fatima's team got theirs in on Sunday, actually. It's solid. The 2026 HR Law implementation timeline is in there, the Emiratisation targets per entity, the salary scale adjustments. They've been very cooperative, alhamdulillah, given how much attention that file gets. Person #1: Hmm. Person #2: The challenge is Customer Experience. They're waiting on the TAMM 4.0 numbers from GovDigital, which they need to forecast next year's CX investments. So they're blocked by GovDigital being late. Not an excuse, but it's the reality. I spoke to the customer experience team yesterday and they're ready to go as soon as they get the usage data. Person #1: And GovAcademy? Mawaheb? Person #2: Also submitted. Their plans are very detailed, very programmatic. Maybe too detailed on the program side and not enough on the outcomes, if I'm being honest. But they did the work. Person #1: What about the rest? Not GovDigital, not Talent. The others. Person #2: TAMM itself has submitted. The Digital Platforms teams have submitted. Corporate Services submitted their procurement and governance plans. The ones that are silent are the smaller enabling functions, the ones that historically didn't have to do this, the standalone entities that think of themselves as too small or too operational to matter. And then there's the usual pushback from the larger service entities, the ones that see us as the bureaucracy that asks them for paperwork. They think this is a compliance exercise. They're waiting to see if we have teeth. Person #1: Do we have teeth? Person #2: We have the Executive Council behind us. But you know as well as I do, Your Excellency, that the sectors know we haven't escalated anyone since the merger. They're testing. Person #1: I am surprised. Person #2: You're surprised that they're testing? Or surprised at the level of— Person #1: Surprised that we're still in a place where they think it's a test. The mandate is what it is. The Chairman of the Executive Council has asked for integration. He has asked for AI-native government. He has asked for the scorecard to reflect actual outcomes, not activity. And we're still having conversations about whether entities need to fill in a template. This should be, khalas, done. Person #2: I agree. And I don't want to be the one standing here with excuses for them. But I will say, on their behalf, that some of them find the template itself confusing. The finance sections overlap with the Department of Finance's capital planning templates. The procurement sections overlap with the Procurement Gate requirements. So there is a legitimate question about what we're asking versus what DoF is asking. We could streamline that for next year. Person #1: We can. But the deadline is the deadline. What if we send a reminder today, copy the Executive Council office on it? Person #2: That would be... that would be a message. Are you sure you want to go there yet? I have the names of the twenty-two, and I know which ones are genuinely late because of internal capacity issues versus which ones are waiting to see if we blink. If we copy the Executive Council, we're saying this is now a governance matter, not a planning matter. Person #1: And if we don't, we're saying the deadline is optional. Person #2: The deadline is optional because we've never enforced it. I know. It's a pattern. We've had this conversation before, and I take the blame for the softness on my side. I've been protective of the relationships with the DGs, especially the ones we need for the AI agenda. If I push too hard on the planning cycle, they'll dig in. But you're right. The longer we wait, the more we signal that this is a suggestion. Person #1: Send the reminder. Not yet copying the Executive Council. But make it clear that the next step is a list to the Executive Council. You know the kind of language that works without being threatening. Person #2: I'll draft it today. "The Department of Government Enablement is consolidating the annual planning submissions to meet the Executive Council's reporting timeline. Entities that have not submitted by Friday will be listed in the status report to the Executive Council secretariat." Something like that. Firm, factual, no threat. Person #1: That works. Person #2: And I will call the GovDigital DG myself. Have a direct conversation. Because the rest of them are waiting on them, and if I can get GovDigital to move, the others will follow. The customer experience block goes away, TAMM can finalize, and we can present a consolidated picture to you by the first week of September. Person #1: September the first is Monday. You're giving them four days. Person #2: Inshallah. If GovDigital delivers by Friday, the rest can be done over the weekend. My team is used to it. They'd rather work a weekend than have this drag into October. Person #1: How is your team holding up? Person #2: Tired. But they're good. They're very good. The planning analyst, she's been here since the merger, she knows every entity's structure better than the entities themselves. She's been chasing them with polite emails and scheduling calls. And you know, the thing is, they're not lazy. They're just—the ones who are silent, they're not used to being managed. Before the merger, some of them were standalone authorities. They had a direct line to a different Council committee. They had their own planning cycles. And now they have to report to us, which they still see as new, even though we're three years in. Person #1: It's been three years. Person #2: I know. But change management is slow. And the DGs, especially the ones from the legacy entities, they still have their old habits. They think if they ignore us, we'll go away. Person #1: We won't. Person #2: No, we won't. But I understand why they think that, because we haven't proven otherwise. So this reminder, and the call I'm going to make, that's part of proving it. Person #1: Good. What else is on your plate? Person #2: The World Governments Summit is February, which is closer than it feels. We have the Abu Dhabi Leadership Forum in November. The Al Jadaara cohort, the second one, their capstone presentations are in October, right before GITEX. And GITEX, as you know, is going to be the showcase of TAMM 4.0's full rollout, the AI assistant with the new voice interface. The GovDigital team is aiming for a live demo on the main stage. Person #1: A live demo. Brave. Person #2: They did it last year, the assistant worked. It only failed once, and it recovered. The media didn't pick it up. So they're confident. And the ADEC scorecard, the Q2 results were favorable, we had a strong quarter on the service delivery metrics. But Q3, we're seeing a dip in the TAMM app store rating, which is... the reviews are down to four points two. There was a three-day outage in July on the digital identity verification, people couldn't log in, and it hit the ratings. The customer experience team is doing a campaign to encourage positive reviews, and we're hoping to get back to four point five by the end of the year. Person #1: What happened with the outage? Did we get a root cause? Person #2: Yes, it was the integration with the federal digital identity. The federal side updated their API, and the integration wasn't tested properly. It's fixed now, but the damage to the rating is done. And the Deputy Director of CX, she was quite upset, because she'd been leading the effort to get the rating up from four point one to four point five, and she said "we lost three months of work in one weekend." But we've been through this before. Ratings recover. Person #1: The citizens notice, though. Person #2: They do. But they also notice when we fix things. The outage was fixed within three days, and we communicated on the app and on social media. The transparency helped. Some people even appreciated the honesty. We have a comment from a user saying "at least they told us what was happening" which is better than silence. Person #1: That's a good lesson. It's not about not making mistakes. It's about how fast you recover and how honest you are. Person #2: Exactly. And that's the kind of philosophy we're bringing into the planning cycle. When we ask entities to submit their plans, we're asking them to be honest about their risks. Not just their achievements. We're asking them to say "this is what might fail, and this is how we'll recover." And some of them don't want to write that down, because they think it'll be used against them. Person #1: It won't be used against them if they write it down first. It's the surprises we don't like. Person #2: I know. But that's a cultural shift. And it's not one that will happen with one planning cycle. Person #1: How many cycles do we need? Person #2: Two. Maybe three. If we're consistent, if we enforce the deadlines, if we show that we use the plans to support them rather than to punish them, then by the 2028 cycle, it'll be normal. By 2027, we'll have a baseline. This year is about getting everyone to submit something that's honest and realistic. Next year is about making it better quality. The year after, it's just part of the rhythm. Person #1: That's a long horizon. Person #2: It is. But you know me, I always think in horizons. And the foresight work we're doing, the strategic foresight, this is the same discipline. We're looking at 2030, 2035. What will the government look like? What will the workforce look like? What will the citizens need? And we're working backwards from there. So the planning cycle is the near-term version of that. If we can't get the near-term right, the long-term doesn't matter. Person #1: What is the foresight scan telling you? You said there were signals. Person #2: Yes. Let me frame this properly. Three things, Your Excellency. First, the demographic shift. The population of the country is growing faster than projected, and the non-citizen workforce is growing faster than the citizen workforce. That has implications for the services we deliver, the housing, the transportation, the healthcare. The load on government services will increase by an estimated twenty percent over the next five years. And if we don't automate, we'll need significantly more staff, which is not sustainable. Person #2: Second, the AI acceleration. The private sector, especially the big tech companies, they're moving faster than we are. We have the AI-native government strategy, we have two hundred use cases, but the private sector has faster cycles. They can deploy in weeks. We're deploying in quarters. That gap is growing. And it will be a problem if we can't close it, because the citizens will expect the government to be as good as their banking apps, their retail apps, and the gap will be visible. Person #2: Third, the climate. The summer temperatures are still rising. We're getting more extreme heat days. That impacts the service centers, the outdoor workers, the energy demand. The planning cycle next year needs to include resilience plans. Not just for the physical infrastructure, but for the workforce. How do we change working hours? How do we use remote work? How do we protect the delivery drivers and the construction workers? Some of that is federal, some of it is local, but we need to be thinking about it. Person #1: The heat. That's something we don't talk about enough. Person #2: No, we don't. Because it's not a "government enablement" issue on the surface. But it is, when you think about it. If the service centers close due to heat, that's an outage. If the digital services can't handle the load during the hottest hours, that's an outage. If the staff are less productive in the summer, that affects our performance. Person #1: What if we pilot something? A heat-responsive service schedule. The service centers, some of them, could move to morning hours during July and August. Close by one instead of two. And the digital channels absorb the rest. We have the data. We know when people use the service centers. If the morning peak is the strongest, then we can shift the physical presence to the morning and leave the afternoon to TAMM. Person #2: That's interesting. The customer experience team has the data. They know which services are most used in person, and which hours. And the government talent team would have to approve the schedule changes for the employees. But it's doable. We did something like that for Ramadan, the reduced hours, and the digital channels handled the load well. Person #1: Let's explore it. Not for this planning cycle—I mean, it could be a pilot in a couple of service centers next year. But the thinking should be in the plans. Where is the flexible working policy going? Person #2: The talent team is working on it. The 2026 HR Law allows for more flexibility. But the entities are conservative. They're used to the physical presence. The cultural shift is slow. But if we pilot it, we can show it works, and then we can scale it. Person #1: How is the traffic, by the way? You came in on the Al Ain road this morning? Person #2: Actually, I took Sheikh Zayed Road today. I dropped my daughter at school, which is on the other side, so I came in from the east. And it was—you know, for a Wednesday morning, it was okay. It took me forty minutes from the school to here. Normally it's an hour. So I was early. That's why I was in the office before eight. Person #1: The school traffic is worse than the work traffic. Person #2: Yes! The schools are the real bottleneck. If you get out after eight, you're fine. But between seven and eight, with all the parents dropping off, and the school buses, it's a gridlock. I don't understand why the schools can't stagger their start times. That would reduce the traffic by half, easily. Person #1: I've said that. The education authorities, they don't want to change because the parents complain. But we could raise it again. Maybe with a data study. Show the peak hours and the school start times. Person #2: We have the data. The integrated transport center has the traffic data. And the schools' start times are public. We could correlate them and show the peaks align with the school bell times. And then we can make a case. But it's a sensitive subject. The parents are used to the schedule. Changing it would be disruptive. Person #1: Not for the children. For the parents. The children adapt. Person #2: That's true. Kids are resilient. It's the adults who complain. Person #1: So we're back to the planning cycle. Person #2: We are. And I have to get back to it. I'll send you the draft of the reminder email by the end of the day for your approval. And I'll call the GovDigital DG tomorrow morning. I'll be the one who has the uncomfortable conversation with him. And then we'll see who submits by Friday. Person #1: And the ones who don't? Person #2: Then we escalate. You have my word. Person #1: Good. Anything else? Any other fires? Person #2: My team has been working on the MoUs. The government relations file. We have a delegation from Korea coming in September, they want to see the TAMM 4.0 and the AI strategy. And we have a request from the Saudi delegation, they want to do a benchmarking visit in October. And the protocol office, they're handling the visits, but they need the strategy team to brief the visitors. So we're preparing the standard presentations. Person #1: The standard presentations. Are they good? Person #2: They're getting better. We've improved the TAMM journey slides, we have more numbers, the data is current. But the AI section still relies on the analyst's estimates for the compute requirements. The GovDigital team hasn't given us the final numbers. So there's a placeholder in the deck. I don't like placeholders, but I'm used to them. Person #1: We should have a single source of truth for the AI numbers. One number for the compute, one for the use cases, one for the adoption. Not a placeholder. Person #2: Agreed. We're working on it. The data governance team, the one that's being restructured, they're supposed to be the source. But with the vacancy, nothing is finalized. Once the new Chief Data Officer is appointed, we can move. Person #1: Who's on the shortlist? Person #2: We have two candidates, wallah. One is internal, from the digital platforms team, she's very strong technically. The other is external, from the private sector, a data officer at a large bank. The talent team is doing the final interviews this week. I expect we'll have a decision by the end of the month. Person #1: The end of September? Person #2: No, the end of August. Insha'Allah. This week. The interviews are Thursday and Sunday. And then the offer can go out. If we can get them in place before the planning cycle is done, that would be ideal. The new person can review the data sections and give us a technical assessment. Person #1: That's good. Keep me updated. Person #2: I will. And the other thing, we're starting to look at the upcoming budget cycle. The financial planning for 2027. The Department of Finance has issued the circular, and the entities will need to submit their budget requests by mid-November. We're aligning our planning cycle with the budget cycle, so the plans that we're collecting now will inform the budget requests. That's the idea. But it means we need the plans to be good enough to be the basis for budget decisions. And if some entities don't submit, they won't get their budget allocations. That would be a consequence. Person #1: That's the consequence. We should say that. Person #2: It's implied, but we haven't said it yet. Maybe in the next communication, we can mention "the planning submissions will be the primary input for the budget recommendations." That would make it clear. Person #1: Do it. Person #2: Okay. I'll add it to the draft. And then we're aligned. Person #1: Good. We have a lot going on. But I'm not worried. It's just about execution. Person #2: It's always about execution. Strategy is easy. Execution is the hard part. Person #1: You sound like my old professor. He used to say "Strategy is what you do when you have time to think. Execution is what you do when you don't. Person #2: Wise man. Person #1: Anyway, this was a good call. Keep me informed about the GovDigital conversation. And the outcome by Friday. Person #2: I will. And I'll send you the draft email today, in the afternoon, before you leave. You should have it by three. Person #1: Good. Person #2: Is there anything else you want to discuss? Or can I get back to my team? Person #1: One more thing. The TAMM 4.0... the AI assistant. The hallucinations. The incidents from last week. How are we handling them? Person #2: We had three incidents where the assistant gave incorrect information about fee amounts. The data was outdated, from the legacy system. The GovDigital team has corrected the data sources, and the assistant is now pulling from the current fee schedule. But the incidents were visible to users, and the customer experience team is doing a follow-up with the affected users, offering to correct the information and apologize. We're also reviewing the confidence thresholds. If the assistant is not confident, it will say "I'm not sure" instead of guessing. Person #1: That's the right approach. Better to say "I don't know" than to invent. Person #2: That's the principle. We're training the assistant to be humble. It's a mindset shift, not just a technical fix. But we're on it. Person #1: Good. Keep me informed if there are more incidents. And make sure the media doesn't get wind of it. The last thing we need is a headline about the AI giving wrong information. Person #2: Agreed. The communications team is on standby. We're being proactive with the affected users, but we're not doing a public statement. Unless it escalates. Person #1: Okay. Good. Person #2: Alright. I'll get back to work. Person #1: Jazakum Allah khair. Person #2: Wa iyyak. See you at the next meeting. Person #1: Actually, hold on. You mentioned the Saudi delegation in October. Have we confirmed the dates? Because GITEX is the same week. Person #2: The Saudi delegation is the week before GITEX. The second week of October. The 7th and the 8th. They want to see the TAMM 4.0, the AI strategy, and the data platform. And they want to meet the Executive Council if possible. But we can't confirm the Executive Council until the agenda is set. I'll follow up with the protocol office. Person #1: The Executive Council, the Chairman, he's usually available for delegations if it's important. I'll see if I can get a slot. Person #2: That would be excellent. The Saudi delegation would appreciate it. And it strengthens our relationship with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology over there. We've been working on a joint project on smart city data standards. Person #1: I know. I was briefed. The standards work is moving well. Person #2: It is. We have a joint task force, and we're sharing the data schemas. The goal is interoperability. But it's slow, because the two countries have different data governance laws. We're working on a memorandum of understanding to facilitate the data sharing. The legal team is reviewing it. They should have a draft by the end of the month. Person #1: Keep me updated. The data standards work is important for the region. Person #2: I will. And the other thing, the innovation lab pilots. We have a new pilot on predictive maintenance for government buildings. The idea is to use IoT sensors to detect early signs of equipment failure and schedule repairs before they become urgent. The pilot is in two buildings, one in the city and one in the suburbs. The results so far are promising, we've detected three issues that would have resulted in emergency repair calls. So we're going to expand to more buildings next year. Person #1: That's the kind of thing that makes a difference. Not flashy, but practical. Person #2: Exactly. And it's scalable. If it works, we can apply it to schools, hospitals, all the government assets. The savings could be significant. The facilities management teams are excited, because it reduces their workload. Person #1: Good. Keep me informed. Person #2: I will. Now, really, I should go. I have a meeting at two with my team to review the foresight scan. And then I'll draft the email. And I need to call the GovDigital DG. So I'm going to be busy. Person #1: Go. And inshallah, it all works out. Person #2: Inshallah. Thank you, Your Excellency. Person #1: Wait, before you go. The annual planning templates. The Executive Council wants the scorecard inputs by the end of next week. Where are we? Person #2: Ah. Yes. I was going to raise that. We sent the reminder last Wednesday, and we have, let me think, we have five of the eight completed. GovDigital is in, Customer Experience is in, Talent is in, Mawaheb is in, and my own sector is in, obviously. Person #1: That's five. Who is missing? Person #2: TAMM, GovAcademy, and Corporate Services. I have been chasing them. The TAMM director said they are finalizing the numbers for the AI assistant take-up, and they want to be accurate. But I think they are just busy with the post-GITEX follow-up. Person #1: I am surprised. The AI assistant usage is a headline number for us. We need it in the scorecard. And GovAcademy? That should be straightforward. Person #2: I know. The GovAcademy team is waiting on the enrolment data from the Tomouh platform, and that integration has been, yaani, problematic since the merger. It is almost the same conversation every cycle. Person #1: The data should flow automatically. Why are we still manually reconciling? Person #2: Honestly, Your Excellency, it is a legacy issue. Tomouh was built before the merger, the data schema is different, and the ADDA team that maintained it has been redeployed. We have a ServiceNow ticket open, but it has been sitting in the queue for, I think, eight weeks. Person #1: Eight weeks. That is too long for a plan input. Tell me the date I can report to the Executive Council. Person #2: If I push them today, I can get TAMM by Friday inshallah. GovAcademy, maybe Monday. Corporate Services, the DG said she needs approval from the Undersecretary on the procurement savings figure, so that might slip to Wednesday. Person #1: I need a single date. Not three. Person #2: Understood. Let me make a call this afternoon. I will get you a firm date by tomorrow morning. I promise. Person #1: Good. And make sure the numbers are actuals, not forecasts. The Council is tired of forecasts. Person #2: I know. We have audited the figures for my sector, and I will insist on the same from the others. If the numbers are not ready, we will put a clear status flag rather than a made-up number. Person #1: That is honest. I prefer that. Person #2: Thank you. Now, I really do need to go. The two o'clock meeting is in the other tower, and the traffic on Sheikh Zayed is already building up. Person #1: It is always bad after lunch. I came in from Al Ain Road this morning, and it was clear. But the way back may take you forty minutes. Person #2: Forty minutes is optimistic. Last week it took me an hour. Anyway, I will draft the email as soon as I sit down, and I will copy you. Yalla, inshallah we get it done. Person #1: Inshallah. Good luck, Saadat. Person #2: Shukran, Your Excellency. Salam. Person #1: Wa alaikum assalam.