Digital leadership
Talk to service managers, June 2015
Kit Collingwood-Richardson, @kitterati
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Background
Nearly 3 years as head of digital and a
service manager, creating a digital
start-up.
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Background
● Grew OPG digital team from 2 to 45(ish)
● Built 2 external digital services
● Passed 3 service standard assessments
● Built an open-source case management system
● Put all hosting in the cloud
● Standardised technology stack
● Challenged security principles
● Wrote a digital strategy
● Turned procurement on its head
● Built a recruitment strategy and pipeline
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Our principles
The user is king (or queen)
Do things small - it makes them deliverable
Build to share
Publish everything (unless it would compromise security)
Embrace failure
Be agile
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What I’ve learned
Lessons from the bleeding edge
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Procurement
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Procurement
When you say ‘procurement’, most
people think you mean ‘buying
things’.
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Procurement
Government needs to stop buying
things.
Instead, we should build, commission
or rent them.
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Procurement
If we buy anything at all, it should
be small, interoperable and flexible
to our needs.
The only thing we bought last year is online product
management software licences. We can move our data out
at any time.
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Procurement
Every time government signs a long,
monolithic IT contract, we fail the
taxpayer and our users.
It generally means we don’t own or control what’s built.
This is expensive and leads to a poor user experience.
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Procurement
If you’re spending more than £2m
on any contract, you should
question yourself heavily.
Any bigger than that and you should remove a zero and
see what you can do for that. Do things small - it makes
them deliverable.
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The team
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The team
Team before product
If you don’t get a small, solid team in
before product development starts, you’
ll have problems.
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The team
Service managers are government’s
real digital leaders.
We’ll only make a true digital
government with bold, visionary
service managers.
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The team
Bringing product owners in from
your business improves user
awareness and business trust.
Find those superstars and coach them.
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The team
Make conscious decisions about
how to fill the other team roles.
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The team
Then ruthlessly protect the team
from external influence.
This includes your PMO asking for what you’re planning to
deliver over the next year.
Clue: you shouldn’t know.
Clue 2: most gantt charts are fairytales.
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The team
Increasing your organisation’s
digital capability isn’t about hiring
developers.
Without a whole-agency approach,
you’ll be slow to deliver.
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Digital maturity
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Digital maturity
As a digital agency gets more
experienced, its thinking should
mature.
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Digital maturity
From project thinking….
Defined start and end date
Often has a PMO who drive reporting
Led by a project manager - primary
concerns are time and budget
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Digital maturity
….through product thinking…..
Something you make
Has defined scope
Has a defined end user
Led by a product manager - primary
concerns are users and shippable code
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Digital maturity
…..to service thinking
Something you do
Is a long-term investment, not a ‘thing’
Has a defined end user
Led by a service manager - primary concerns are team and
service quality
Encompasses all channels
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In summary
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In summary
● Be aware of the leader you are
● Protect your team
● Evolve beyond project thinking
● Stop buying stuff
● Do it small and deliver big