At the Public Technology Annual Conference, Engage Process joined Rachael Dixon from Sedgemoor District council to share their story of putting processes at the heart of digital transformation. Rachael explained how they were able to show a 65% reduction in time and cost to manage collection of tax and freedom of information requests. This was one session in a very busy two day event, filled with other informative and useful sessions. Here is our summary of what we learned that day.
Key take-ways from the event
First we’ll summarize the key take-aways,, then we’ll go bit more in depth in the topics that can help you in your transformation efforts:
- The UK is ranked at #2 in the world in the digital government ranking.
- The pandemic has forced organisations to rapidly implement changes.
- Most organisations implemented new technology 20x to 40x faster than they normally would. In most cases, they were able to act so quickly all along.
- The main reason organisations changed much slower before the pandemic is that they lacked certain motivation or urgency.
- Keeping focus on a common goal, helps to maintain this motivation or sense of urgency.
- To successfully drive change you need to create a team consisting of different disciplines and perspectives.
- You need to help your staff gain some sort of resilience to technology instead of only teaching them how to use the tech they use. This way they learn how to quickly adapt to new technology.
- It is important to have Digital Champions and Digital Critics in your organisation. They can help pick the right technology at the right time.
- Use proces management as a foundation for all your Digital Transformation efforts.
Let's go a bit more in depth on the most important things we learned at the event:
1. Companies have implemented new technologies 40 times faster, than before the covid-pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced government institutions and other organisations to change the way they work. They were forced to rapidly implement these changes and often did so with little effort.
Apparently most companies have implemented technology 20x to 40x faster than they did before covid. Which indicates that these companies were already able to apply changes quickly but needed some external pressure or motivation.
2. Stay focused on why the organisation is driving change
In the past year, many organisation have proven that they can quickly drive change when necessary. The key to keeping motivation and enthusiasm to change, is to stay focused on the reasons why the change is needed. And make sure everyone in the organization is aware of this and share this common goal.
3. Discuss challenges with a multi-disciplinary team
It’s important to get different people with different disciplines and perspectives together when working on transformation. The challenges should be discussed together and everyone should give input from their point of view.
4. Work on successful data sharing and avoid silo working
We know that using data and facts are important for transformation programmes, but being able to share this data and using the right technology to do this are key in cross-department collaboration.
5. Deal with a stagnant culture from the top
Sometimes a culture change is needed when working on transformations. This usually starts at the top, at a strategic level.
It’s important that an executive is aware of the need of the transformation and encourages the team to talk about how they work and what they do and don’t like about that. This way you get a happy team and a better and more efficient way of working can be realised.
6. Help employees get resilience towards technology
You need to teach people a certain type of resilience towards technology. Help them to learn how to switch to other platforms and new technologies rapidly. This will not only give them a certain skillset and know-how of the platforms they are currently using, but will also prepare them when changes in technology do happen.
In addition to teaching people resilience, you can train digital champions who can help drive the changes. Just as important it is to have a digital or tech champion, you need a tech critic in the room to help bring balance when looking into new technology. Together, these two roles can make the right decisions on what to use and when.
7. Put human centric process management at the heart of management programmes
Most organisations are struggling with an increasing number of management programmes. Creating a common ground for these programmes can often be the key in efficiently tackle them. Process management can be this common ground or foundation. This was the subject of our own session at the Public Technology Annual Conference.
In the article ‘5 Key Requirements of Human Centric Process Management’ we explain what is needed to create a foundation out of process management and what the benefits will be when doing so. You can read the article on this page.
