ICT
| Lessons from New Zealand's digital journey |
The New Zealand government's four-year ICT Strategy lays out the foundation for government service and system transformation, and leverages several emerging game-changers to support better public services.
Over the years, government agencies’ uptake of and adherence to the strategy has resulted in a unique and collaborative transformation approach across the public sector and has, so far, delivered $77 million each year in savings and cost avoidance across the system. We recently caught up with two of the people driving the change, Tim Occleshaw, Government Chief Technology Officer and Russell Cooke, Director of Relationship Management, Department of Internal Affairs, to explore four tips from their successes.
Expanding the ICT umbrella
Led by the Government Chief Information Officer, the strategy expands far beyond ICT and is focused on five key areas – Information, Technology, Digital Services, Leadership and Investment.
“From the exchange of information across services to interoperability and leadership, it’s all covered under the ICT umbrella,” explains Tim.
“By doing this we’ve kept the strategy fairly low-key and focused. The transformation doesn’t seem quite so big.”
Collaboration that drives momentum
A key part of implementation has been to take a centrally led, collaboratively delivered approach.
“We’ve brought together 55 senior leaders from 21 agencies to work collaboratively and drive digital transformation through a Partnership Framework,” adds Tim.
It’s a group of Tier 2 leaders (including CIOs, CFOs and COOs) led by 12 CEOs.
“It helps to drive a clear digital picture of the ICT and digital landscape. When you have a group like that, it gives some real momentum and builds profile for the work we are doing.”
Create trust and empowerment
Whereas some transformation leaders try to create a centralised authority and service, a more collaborative approach helps to empower all agencies involved.
“We’re talking about system stewardship and taking a New Zealand Inc. approach. This allows people to feel empowered,” explains Russell.
“We've worked hard to be in close collaboration with all agencies involved, attending bids or facing problems together. We don't dictate, and it's created a new level of trust.”
Be citizen-centric and agile
When embarking on long-term, cross-agency and ever changing initiatives such as this, the landscape can be described as chaotic.
For a small and isolated country like New Zealand, it can be easy to fall behind. Tim explains how the real journey has only just begun, and how all government agencies should prepare for what’s to come.
"We have to embrace the chaos; we have to constantly evolve, change and if we're going to be making mistakes - let's make sure we only make new ones.
"We are looking to create a digital government at the heart of a digital society. It’s a cultural shift, and it will go on forever. We need to continue to adapt to the revolutionary changes that come our way.”
| 6 reasons why IT transformations fail (and how to avoid them) |
According to Forbes, a whopping 84 percent of IT transformation projects are considered a failure.
Pretty much every public sector organisation is on some form of transformation journey, some huge, others small.
To be successful, it’s important to look at why other projects failed so things can be done to act on the lessons from others. Perhaps surprisingly, it rarely comes down to the technology itself.
Ahead of the Public Sector Innovation Summit 2017 we took a look at the key reasons projects fail, and how you can avoid it.
1. Lack of understanding on the task at hand
If there’s one thing tech vendors often forget to communicate; it’s that installation is only about 20 percent of the job at hand. Every $1 spent on software needs on average a $4 spend on day to day implementation.
If your IT strategy connects to your business strategy, it will keep the whole team on the same page with the scale and purpose of the task. Develop a clear path for running the new technology, not just installing it.
2. The leader is not the right person for the job
This be a tricky area, and it doesn't always get spoken about. The leader of an IT transformation can often be more focused on technology, over communication.
It’s the communication aspect that will ultimately be the decided on whether the project works.
Develop a leadership team, or at least a project team that has a combination of both soft and tech skills - have an honest and transparent chat about who should take what role.
3. The momentum gets lost
Transformations are long, and ‘doubters’ of the project can be loud.
By nature, people like to air their voice when they aren’t happy about so much money being spent on a transformation they may not have thought was needed in the first place.
It’s really important to celebrate wins along the way and have a clear vision for your team to get behind. Develop a programme to make sure hard work and supporters get recognised. You’ll need supporters on your side when the moaners come out.
4. There’s a fear of talking about failure
Whether it’s pride of fear of ramifications, failures can often get hidden under the carpet. As a result, projects can go down the wrong path for too long and thousands, if not millions of dollars can get wasted. Only when it’s too late, do the failures come to light.
Create a safe forum where people feel they can come to you if they are starting to doubt something they initially thought was right. Make it clear that there is nothing wrong with failing, and that it helps identify the right outcome in the end. Have a flexible and agile model that can react to changes without ‘having to start again from scratch’.
5. The smaller details get overlooked
Failure rarely comes down to one small aspect of a project, rather a culmination of small things, much like the domino effect.
It’s important to measure the milestones of a project, have clear KPIs shared across the leadership team and sit down monthly to review. It gives you an early indicator of when something doesn't quite look right so that you can spot the signs and act on them early.
6. Too much too soon
It’s easy to be swayed by a new technology solution and think it’s an out of the box, one size fits all fix. It’s not uncommon for people to bend the business problem to suit a specific platform.
Understand your core goals and develop a project aligned to that.
Identify the core areas which can make the biggest impact and focus time and energy to those areas. Don’t take on more projects until you’ve seen that through.
