The strategic importance of digital:
a conference about culture change
On 13 September I attended an event organised by the Wales Audit Office Good Practice Exchange called; Redesigning public services: The strategic importance of digital. Although I’ve referred to it as a conference for title alliteration purposes, it was actually a seminar event with interactive workshops — and some really fabulous catering — held at the SWALEC Stadium in central Cardiff.
This is my take on the event and the six key messages I came away with. Which, as the title suggests, aren’t actually about digital…
1. Digital means different things to different people… we need a clear understanding of what it means to us
The event kicks off with a speech from Auditor General, Huw Vaughan Thomas. In the speech he states quite accurately, that: “Digital means different things to different people.”
It does and I think that is a huge problem. When he says that we need a clear understanding of what it means to ‘us’ I think we need one clear definition that everyone understands. It’s the only way that we can have aligned conversations and make aligned decisions.
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council has just released their new digital strategy (as a PDF) which explains that Rotherham is putting digital at the ‘forefront’ of their journey to become a modern authority. It links to local health digital strategies, but doesn’t seem to link to a wider culture change or service redesign strategy. Does digital mean the same to Rotherham MBC as it does to the WAO or to Devon County Council? Can we work together effectively if we don’t have an agreed definition?
2. Digital is not doing the same work, but digitally
Huw Vaughan Thomas goes on to clarify that: “Digital is not doing the same work, but digitally.” Which begins to move us towards a definition of digital, and suggests that we’re starting to talk about culture change and service transformation, not creating a new digital strategy.
3. Mistakes are inevitable; we mustn’t shy away from that
Also from Huw Vaughan Thomas’ speech. This is an interesting one. If common sense was a thing this statement feels like it would be a classic example. Of course humans make mistakes; it’s one of our defining characteristics and how we know that we’re not actually machines surely? Still, it feels weirdly radical to have an auditor stand up and say this. It also feels hugely positive and (hopefully) liberating.
We have to move away from a culture that assumes all mistakes can be ‘policied’ out if only we policy hard enough. Instead we have to encourage reflection, learning and individual responsibility. Back to culture change again.
After the Auditor General’s speech there’s a quick fire question and answer session with the panel. The first questions are prepared by the organisers, but the rest are sourced from the audience — it’s a brilliantly engaging approach and works really well.
4. We can’t ‘do digital’ until we understand what citizens actually need
My cavalier approach to note-taking means that I don’t actually know which panelist said this, but it was definitely one of them.
I get an email every other day from a software development company telling me how their customer portal is going to revolutionise back office systems and save money. They’ve even got a snazzy customer testimonial video featuring a local authority IT manager explaining how this digital transformation has saved him pots of money and tidied up all his back office systems, and no-one ever ever mentions user needs.
We can’t put any digital tools in place until we know that we need them and that they’re solving the right problem — and surely we can only do that if we’re talking to our citizens? Surely we can only do that if we are clearly articulating our purpose and we understand why we’re doing anything at all? What we need is culture change and a different approach to understanding our citizens.
5. These things are not technology problems… digital is an enabler. Buying a load of iPads won’t change your culture.
Beautifully succinct quote from Professor Tom Crick in his workshop session, A digitally competent, digitally capable workforce. For me this session raises some really interesting questions about digital capabilities.
- Is there a basic digital standard that our workforce needs to achieve?
- If there is, then shouldn’t this be part of our job descriptions?
- Do we have a hierarchy of digital capability in our workforce with a digital ‘elite’ who have lots of skills and are working in radically different ways to those further behind?
- How do we make sure that staff are learning digital skills rather than learning how to use separate pieces of proprietary software?
- Do we have senior leaders who know enough about digital to make these kinds of decisions?
- Does every organisation essentially need a benevolent hacker at the top table wielding some real power?
Which is all to say that we probably need to look at changing our culture around staff training and recruitment.
Also in this workshop I share a story about a piece of work we did under the heading ‘ask forgiveness, not permission’ which literally makes another delegate’s mouth fall open in shock.
6. Can you build agile, interdisciplinary project teams that can work iteratively?
For the final session I attend the workshop Learning from the Digital Innovators Network run by Jess Hoare and Amy Richardson from Y Lab, which involves marshmallows and spaghetti.
Y Lab is an innovation lab for public service created by Nesta alongside Cardiff University. They have some wonderful, practical resources — most of which are available on the Nesta website.
The workshop involves a quickfire session answering some provocative questions such as ‘[In your organisation] What is the perceived role of IT?’ and ‘Can you build agile, interdisciplinary project teams that can work iteratively?’. We then identify a digital problem and use the Nesta tools, and Jess and Amy’s support and input, to work the issue through.
Fairly quickly we start talking about articulating the problem, identifying users, understanding needs and gathering evidence. We spend the rest of the session looking, essentially, at redesigning the service and the processes.
The problem with digital transformation
Every conversation I had at this event that started with digital transformation ended with looking at culture change and system transformation.
I think we do need to have an agreed definition of digital and it became clear through this event that many people — but definitely not all — understand that digital is an enabler and not an end in itself. I would say that we don’t need digital strategies (sorry Rotherham) rather we need system transformation strategies which include digital enablers. We need to start with purpose and start with users and understand what we’re for and what they need.
I think there’s a real opportunity here though. To start conversations about digital transformation and, through events like this, show how that conversation must move to one about system transformation.
WAO Good Practice Exchange are planning more events in this series and it would be great to see them challenging participants further to think about how we use digital as a catalyst for real organisational change — not just buying a load of iPads.
Notes
View the #waodigital event Storify
Find out about future WAO events
And a really good post on a similar theme by Simon Wilson from NHS beta
