February 2, 2024

By Meghan Hellstern, Facilitator & Trainer, Think Digital

Anyone who’s been working in the world of digital transformation for any length of time knows how vexing and persistent the challenge of evaluating progress can be. Digital transformation is complex, and even more so in the public sector, where there are many moving parts, siloed and stovepiped operations, and overlapping and intersecting dependencies and initiatives. How to make sense of it all!?

We were thrilled to introduce this work to the world at FWD50, one of our favourite conferences that happens every Fall in Ottawa focused on the intersection of government and technology. Our interactive workshop about our digital maturity assessment model was so popular we had to bring in extra seats to accommodate all the interest! You can check out our slides from the presentation at this link.

We shared our “hexagon model” (below) which makes up the core of our Digital Maturity Assessment Model. It includes six different categories, each with 3 sub-categories for a total of 18 different areas of digital maturity that are assessed. 

The assessment process itself takes a mixed-methods approach blending quantitative and qualitative analysis with a human-centered design lens. Each of the 18 sub-categories are assessed based on three different indicators each using a different data type. We have termed this a ‘three-stranded braid’ approach that allows for distinct perspectives to be woven into to the analysis of each sub-category:

• Documentation Review Questions: This type provides a view on the organizational perspective as expressed through formal policies, procedures, and rules.

• Survey Questions: This type provides a view on employee perspectives through responses to an online survey sent to the entire organization.

• Workshop Questions: This type provides a view on management practices as informed by a cross-section of management and employees participating in a live workshop with voting.

While quite the endeavour and labour of love to bring us to this point, in many ways the real work begins now that this model is out in the wild. We have big plans to continue iterating upon the work we’ve done with York Region, making the assessment process as accessible and widely available as possible. You can expect to hear more about this soon, so stay tuned here on our blog and other Think Digital channels. We’re also actively seeking folks who want to be part of our user research, testing and development process – if you’re interested, take a few moments to fill out this form and we’ll be in touch!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this too: do you also struggle with evaluating your digital progress? Could you see a tool like this being useful in your context? What’s missing? If you have questions, thoughts or want to nerd out on this topic, reach out to us anytime – we’d love to hear from you!

The post Introducing Our Digital Maturity Assessment Model appeared first on Think Digital.

June 15, 2023

By Ryan Androsoff, CEO & Founder, Think Digital

Earlier this year we launched the Let’s Think Digital podcast. Our mission behind the podcast was to help you learn about how digital technology is impacting our world (particularly from the perspective of government and public services), and how to ask better questions and get beyond the hype of the newest tech so that you are able to call bullshit when you need to.

How did we do? We’d love to hear from you if you have a few minutes to fill out our listener survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FSVKV32 

Over the course of Season One of Let’s Think Digital I’ve had a great time hosting conversations with leading technologists and digital innovators. We covered a wide-range of topics from the Metaverse, to Artificial Intelligence, to fixing procurement, the role of innovation labs, and much more! Whether you are new to the topic of digital government or an expert in the field, there are a lot of great insights to take away from these podcast episodes. Consider it your own personal masterclass with almost 9 hours of content that you can catch-up on over the summer – on the commute to work or enjoying some sun at the cottage!

Here is the full list of all the episodes from Season One of Let’s Think Digital:

Episode 1 – Dude, Where’s My Digital Government?

Over the last 30 years, technology has been promised to transform government and public services. But the reality hasn’t always matched the promise. Why is that? On our very first episode of Let’s Think Digital, we unpack what is going on, and how we might use the “Pac-Man” model to drive digital transformation.

Featuring:

• Dorothy Eng, Executive Director of Code for Canada / Think Digital Associate
• Winter Fedyk, CEO of Silo Strategy / Think Digital Associate
• Luke Simcoe, change management and communications expert / Think Digital Associate
  

Episode 2 – Welcome to the Metaverse

Everyone is talking about the metaverse, but what is it actually, and what does it mean for digital government and the public sphere? How is it different from the promises of virtual reality made in the 1990s? In this episode we talk to an expert in data science and artificial intelligence, and a user experience and human-centered design specialist to break through the hype. Additionally, we delve a little into how we’ve been using the Metaverse to upskill government executives as part of our Digital Executive Leadership Program.

Featuring:

• Jen Schellinck, expert in data science and artificial intelligence / Think Digital Associate
• Meghan Hellstern, user experience and human-centered design specialist / Think Digital Trainer and Facilitator
  

Episode 3 – Live from Dubai

Ryan travels to Dubai for the World Government Summit, an annual event that brings together leaders in government and industry from around the world, looking at issues related to digital transformation, futurism, sustainable development and other topics that are of interest to policy makers around the world.

Featuring:

• Pooja Warier Hamilton, Chief Partnerships Officer, Apolitical
• Giulio Quaggiotto, Innovation Advisor, Prime Minister’s Office, UAE
• Aaron Snow, Fellow, Georgetown University Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation
• Barbara Ubaldi, Head of Digital Government and Data Unit, OECD
• Simonida Subotic, Former Deputy Secretary for Economic Development, State of New York
  

Episode 4 – All Problems are Procurement Problems

Government procurement. For some, you might think of scandals, like the recent controversy about the amount of money spent on developing the ArriveCan app, or the sponsorship scandal in the early 2000s. For others procurement is that boring, sometimes frustrating process when contracting for services. But the reality is that how governments procure is fundamental to its ability to undertake digital transformation projects.

Featuring:

• Dr. Amanda Clarke, Associate Professor of Public Administration, Digital Government, Data Governance, and Civic Technology at Carleton University
  

Episode 5 – Making Tech Work for Everyone

Unlike in the private sector, governments don’t choose their users. That’s why it’s even more important in the public sector to make sure that technology and digital transformation efforts work for everyone. It doesn’t matter how innovative or efficient digital technology can be for public institutions if the implementation of those actively excludes people from accessing and benefiting from public services and assets. That’s why principles like accessibility, sustainability and openness are so important when we think about digital transformation.

Featuring:

• Mike Gifford, Senior Strategist at CivicActions / Think Digital Associate
  

Episode 6 – Teaching Old Bureaucracy New Tricks

This week on Let’s Think Digital we tackle the idea that government organizations are slow and resistant to change, and explore the idea that digital innovation is a necessary skill set for public servants to learn. Joining us is Robyn Scott, who shares her insights on the types of skill sets public servants need to learn, the challenges of transformation in government, and the importance of connecting with peers from around the world.

Featuring:

• Robyn Scott, CEO and Co-founder of Apolitical
  

Episode 7 – Human Factors of Digital Government

In this episode we talk about the human factors that can prevent and enable digital government innovation. We start with the results of the FWD50 2023 Digital Government Content Survey, and there’s some really interesting results about what digital government practitioners are seeing as priorities, and the challenges they face in pushing through innovation within their organizations. We then talk with Nilufer Erdebil about her new book, “Future Proofing by Design”. She talks about the importance of design thinking, not just as a methodology, but as a way of approaching problem solving in government that can make your life, the lives of citizens, and even your boss’ life, easier.

Featuring:

• Alistair Croll, Founder and Content Chair of FWD50
• Nilufer Erdebil, Founder and CEO of Spring2 Innovation / Think Digital Associate
  

Episode 8 – Government in the Era of ChatGPT

This episode, we go deep and talk about everything you need to know about artificial intelligence, machine learning, large language models like ChatGPT, and big data in the government context. Additionally, we have a preview of a research report that we are publishing next month that explores how governments around the world are approaching the governance of artificial intelligence.

Featuring:

• Jen Schellinck, CEO of Sysabee / Think Digital Associate
• John Stroud, CEO of AI Guides
• Cecilia Tham, CEO and Founder of Futurity Systems
• Shingai Manjengwa, Founder of Fireside Analytics
• Jacob Danto-Clancy, Digital Policy Analyst at Think Digital
• Bryce Edwards, Digital Policy Analyst at Think Digital
  

Episode 9 – Do Innovation Labs Work?

Over the past decade it seems like countless innovation labs have sprung up inside of government. Sometimes, innovation and government can seem like a contradiction in terms. Joining us to explore this topic is our special co-host Nick Scott, and guest Alex Ryan who has a tremendous breadth of experience having previously ran innovation labs in the United States, Alberta, and most recently, serving as Vice President of the Solutions Lab at MaRS in Toronto. He talks about what he has learned during his years of experience helping government and the social sector harness innovation, his belief that government can in fact be innovative, and how government is the ultimate opportunity to do innovation at scale. If you ever have wanted to learn about what these things called innovation labs really are, what they are good for (and what they aren’t), this is the episode for you!

Featuring:

• Nick Scott, CEO ShiftFlow / Think Digital Associate
• Alex Ryan, Co-founder and CEO of Synthetikos
  

Episode 10 – Live from the Code for America Summit

This week, Meghan Hellstern hosts as she reflects on her time at the 2023 Code for America Summit in Washington, D.C! In this episode, we hear about how digital transformation is as much about people as it is technology as Meghan interviews a number of civic technology leaders live from the conference.

Featuring:

• Meghan Hellstern, Trainer and Facilitator with Think Digital
• Hillary Hartley, CEO of U.S. Digital Response, former leader of the Ontario Digital Service
• Dorothy Eng, Executive Director of Code for Canada / Think Digital Associate
• Ariel Kennan, Senior Fellow & Research Faculty at Beeck Center
• Amanda Renteria, CEO of Code for America
• Karina Rider, postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft 
• Natalie Talis, Population Health Manager at Alexandria Health Department
• Luke Simcoe, Think Digital Associate
  

Although Season One is officially completed, we aren’t quite done yet!  Join us live on Friday, June 16th at 12pm ET, where members from the Think Digital team will be joining us to talk about the impacts of social media on work and society from a multi-generational perspective, reflect back on themes from some of the episodes in Season One, and also have a chance get your questions answered live! 

Finally, we are planning to launch Season Two of the podcast this Fall and would love to hear from you as we start planning. Please take a few minutes to fill out our listener survey and lets us know how we can make Let’s Think Digital as useful as possible to you: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FSVKV32 

Thanks so much for being part of our growing Let’s Think Digital podcast community, and remember to keep thinking digitally!

The post Catch-up on Season One of Let’s Think Digital! appeared first on Think Digital.

March 14, 2023

By Ryan Androsoff, CEO & Founder, Think Digital

In the past few years one of the most hyped terms in the tech world has been the “Metaverse”. First coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, it evokes the idea of a persistent, connected online experience that we can explore with all our senses. 

Over the past month it seems I’ve been talking about the Metaverse a lot. In February I was at the World Government Summit in Dubai where I was part of a panel talking about the Metaverse and what it means for government. Closer to home, a few weeks ago I was invited to present to an event hosted by the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management which brought together a group of local business leaders and academics to talk about what the impact of the Metaverse might be for workplaces. We also recently released a new episode on our Let’s Think Digital podcast focused on the Metaverse and how we’ve been using it as part of our Digital Executive Leadership Program for public sector executives.

So why are we talking about the Metaverse so much these days? Well part of the reason is that the advent of immersive, consumer-grade Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies has meant that the Metaverse is quickly transitioning from science fiction to reality. VR refers to the use of digital headsets that allow users to experience computer-generated images in a fully immersive 360-degree environment. AR, on the other hand, overlays computerized images over the real-world using smartphones or specialized smart-glasses. While these technologies that empower the Metaverse aren’t exactly new, they have recently reached an inflection point of cost, performance, and availability that opens up interesting new possibilities.

Some of the biggest tech companies are investing in developing the Metaverse, including Meta (previously known as Facebook), whose Quest 2 VR headset has become what many would consider to be the first VR mass consumer product with over 15 million units sold in just two years. Apple and other companies are also ramping up their investments in VR and AR, with next-generation products expected to launch soon.

One of the principles of good service delivery is to meet your customers (or citizens) where they are. That might increasingly mean the Metaverse in one form or another. However, we should be clear that the Metaverse is likely not going to be the appropriate venue for every service delivery need. It is also important to acknowledge that there are some legitimate concerns from an equity and competition standpoint with regards to who will get access to, and control of, Metaverse platforms. The history of major social media platforms over the past two decades and recent controversies over issues such as centralization and censorship of such platforms may prove to be instructive as we think about the future of the Metaverse.

That said, Metaverse technologies are showing some compelling use cases for situations where we want to prototype or explore real-world services using what is often called “digital twins”. As we explore what the future of remote working looks like with workplaces that are shifting post-pandemic to a hybrid model, it allows possibilities for more immersive virtual collaboration across geography. It can also allow for exploring and manipulating data and scientific information in compelling new ways that improve decision-making compared to the traditional 2-dimensional data visualizations that we are used to.

The Metaverse is still very much in its infancy and organizations should be careful to sort through the hype to discover where there might be real value for them. This will require building knowledge and encouraging experimentation in this fast-moving domain. We recommend that leaders start thinking about the Metaverse as being a part of their future technology roadmap in the same way that they have been exploring how technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain can be leveraged to improve services. The Metaverse may yet prove to be a powerful new way to connect, collaborate, and communicate with stakeholders, clients, and citizens. Getting hands-on experience now with this emerging technology will ensure that your organization is prepared take advantage of it in the future while being mindful of how to navigate the potential pitfalls.

What do you think? We’ve love to hear what your thoughts are about the Metaverse and where you feel the biggest opportunities and pitfalls might be! Please fill out this very short survey and share your thoughts with us: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YHD3ZMB 

The post The Metaverse is Coming: Is Your Organization Ready? appeared first on Think Digital.

February 24, 2023

By Ryan Androsoff, CEO & Founder, Think Digital

I’m writing this blog post as I fly back to Ottawa after having spent a week in Dubai as a guest at the World Government Summit where I participated in a panel about the Metaverse and hosted a fireside chat about the future of government digital services. I’ve always found travel to be a great opportunity for reflection, and there is indeed much to reflect on over the first full year of operations at Think Digital.

We publicly launched Think Digital in November of 2021 and this past year has proven to be one of growth for the team. The work that we undertake generally falls into the categories of Advisory, Training, and Engagement. Here are some highlights from each of these areas:

Advisory:

Over the past year we engaged on advisory projects with seven organizations in the Government of Canada. These included:

• A study on the evolving role of Chief Data Officers in the Government of Canada (in partnership with the Institute on Governance)

• Conducting a multi-disciplinary review of program-level data systems using a design-thinking lens

• Providing advice on the Future of Work including developing guidance for executives and employees on hybrid return-to-office plans

• Creating a Data Health Index methodology for assessing the “health” of data holdings across multiple dimensions
• Developing an organization-wide digital literacy action plan

We also had an opportunity this past year to do some international work through participation in an organizational and processes review of the Government of Montserrat that was led by the Institute on Governance. Think Digital led the digital government portion of the review including some capacity building work while visiting Montserrat in November.

Closer to home, we have been working with a municipal government to develop and pilot a digital maturity assessment methodology. This has been a particularly interesting area of work for the team and something that we are hoping that we can scale up to other organizations later this year.

Training:

• The Digital Executive Leadership Program that we run in partnership with the Institute on Governance continues to be going strong and is always a highlight in our team’s calendar, with the 13^th cohort of the program completed this past Fall. First launched just over four years ago, we have had almost 200 executives participate in this innovative learning program from 34 federal government departments, as well as provincial and municipal governments across Canada. Registration is now open for our 2023 cohorts that start this spring which will build on our new hybrid format that mixes online learning (including immersive Virtual Reality) with in-person workshops.

• We run webinar-style programs on a variety of topics, including custom courses on topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Design Thinking, or the Metaverse, as well as a regular half-day Digital Leadership webinar that is hosted by IOG.

• Last year we ran a pilot for a government team on using Virtual Reality for collaboration and team building in a distributed work scenario with members of a management team scattered across Canada.

• We also facilitated a hackathon-style workshop for a federal department that wanted to generate ideas for, and prototype, new solutions to better serve their clients by bringing together a wide-range of internal and external stakeholders for some hands-on co-creation.
  

Engagement:

• Think Digital was proud to be a collaboration partner for the FWD50 conference in Ottawa this past November. This event is always a highlight of the digital government community’s calendar in Canada, and we had the opportunity to run a well-received workshop that identified digital government blockers. You can read about some of the themes that emerged from the workshop in our follow-up blog post.

• We also ran two webinars as part of the FWD50 Extras program, one discussing the insights from our Chief Data Officer study, and the other focused on the Metaverse.

• Think Digital was a sponsor of a few digital government events this past year, including ones run by the Public Sector Network as well as the annual Professional Development week run by DPI. We are going to again be sponsoring the 60^th anniversary edition of DPI’s Professional Development Week happening May 10-12, 2023 (look for us at the photo booth!) where we will also be running a seminar about the Metaverse.

• The team published a number of thought pieces throughout the year via our Think Digital blog, including on Accessibility, Policy Making in a Digital World, and our Pac-Man Model for Digital Transformation.

• I had the opportunity to provide some perspective on our work via media interviews, including with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Future Tense and CBC Ottawa Radio and CBC.ca Online.

• The team is also very excited to have recently launched our new podcast called Let’s Think Digital! The first three episodes are available now at: https://letsthinkdigital.ca or on your favourite podcast platform. We are also publishing video versions of most podcast episodes on our YouTube channel.

Finally, I’ve been really excited to see how our team has grown and come together over the past year. We have a wonderful, multi-disciplinary team of Associates and have also been building up the team’s capacity by welcoming a handful of students and policy researchers into the Think Digital family. We are a fully remote and distributed team with people based across Canada and beyond. In addition to our regular online connections (including at our Think Digital Metaverse office!), we enjoyed having a few opportunities this year to gather in person, including at what we hope to be our first-annual Think Digital summer social.

I’m very proud of everything we’ve been able to accomplish as we’ve brought this team together and begun to scale-up our work and impact. There is a clear need for the type of perspective that we are bringing to governments that are trying to modernize to be successful in the digital age. It’s something that the whole team is passionate about, and I’m thankful every day to have such an amazing group of people to collaborate with on this important mission.

The post Some 38,000-foot Reflections on Think Digital’s First Year appeared first on Think Digital.

December 12, 2022

By Luke Simcoe, Associate, Think Digital (along with contributions from the Think Digital team)

Here at Think Digital, we tend to agree with the idea that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” No digital or innovation strategy will succeed if organizational culture isn’t aligned with its aims and methods.

But we know culture doesn’t tell the whole story. Culture is elusive; it’s emergent. You can’t really change culture, at least not directly. But you can change the things that determine and produce culture, like how people are rewarded (incentives) and the way decisions get made (structures). 

This is the logic behind our “Pac-Man” model of digital transformation. It suggests that if culture eats strategy, then incentives eat culture, and structures eat everything else.

We brought the Pac-Man model to FWD50 this year, as a way of kickstarting a conversation about how structures and incentives in government act as blockers to the culture required to deliver 21st century public services. 

Our Think Digital team at the FWD50 Workshop (from left to right: Aislinn Bornais, Research Assistant; Luke Simcoe, Associate; Ryan Androsoff, CEO & Founder; Dorothy Eng, Associate; Winter Fedyk, Associate).

It was our first time delivering the workshop and we weren’t sure what to expect. Would FWD50 attendees be as keen as us to look at their work through the lens of incentives and structures? 

Fortunately, the answer was yes. The room was packed. Almost 100 people participated, and the result is a rich dataset about the common blockers public servants encounter at every level of the Pac-Man, as well as the solutions they’re exploring to overcome those blockers. 

We’re still diving into the data from the workshop, but we wanted to share back (working in the open FTW!) some of our early findings with the community. 

Blockers

First up, we asked participants to consider the Pac-Man tiers – starting with strategy, then moving up to culture, incentives and structures – and name the blockers that make it difficult for them to adopt and sustain new ways of working.

We collected their responses, and have grouped them into a set of common themes. The results may not be that surprising to those working in government, but the way themes are ranked, and how they cut across the different tiers can point us towards some potential interventions.

At the level of strategy, the most common blockers were communication (mentioned by 25 participants), planning (20), a lack of sharing or collaboration (18), expertise (12) and priorities (9). 

While we’re still digging into the data, our hunch is that these responses reflect an approach to strategy-making that is too top-down. Strategies developed by and for executives risk not being relevant to those tasked with implementing them, can fail to articulate the ‘what’s in it for me’ for staff, and can feel like attempts to ‘boil the ocean’ rather than offer useful guidance about how teams should prioritize their limited resources. 

For culture, the most common blockers were fear (mentioned by 49 participants), change (48), mindsets (30), hierarchies (24) and a lack of sharing or collaboration (22). 

We see a need for more people-centred change management in the digital government space. It’s cliche, but change is scary, and until we engage with the very real reasons why people fear the changes we’re pitching (spoiler: many of these fears stem from incentives and structures), these blockers will remain. 

When asked to reflect on incentives, participants named resistance to change (mentioned by 27 participants), money and procurement (23), measurement (23), hiring and retention (23), and benefits and rewards (21) as blockers.

It wasn’t surprising for us to see both resistance to change and measurement pop up in the incentives category. If measurements and incentives are linked, then changing what we measure (from costs to user satisfaction, for example) will also require staff to have to adapt to very different formal and informal incentives while they adjust and re-optimize. It is also worth noting that some of the discussion during the workshop on this topic highlighted the fact that governments don’t always have the same tools to change monetary incentives for employees that a private sector company might. Even when they do (for example performance pay for Executives in the federal government) it generally is not aligned yet with the types of behaviours that we might want to emphasize in a digital world in part because these are more difficult to measure. Change management looms here too; if we’re going to change measures and incentives, how do we give people the psychological safety they need to be comfortable with that uncertainty?

Finally, at the level of structure participants cited a lack of sharing or collaboration (mentioned by 35 participants), silos (35), hierarchy and approvals (33), procurement and funding (32), and planning and transparency (22) as top blockers. 

If we’re defining structure as the way decisions get made, these concerns paint a picture of decision-making in government that is siloed, centralized, rigidly hierarchical, and lacking transparency. It reads to us as a clarion call for leaders and executives to let their teams in and devolve some of their power and decision-making to them. But that’s easier said than done. Perhaps we could start by asking why public sector leaders are incentivized to hold on to information and influence, how those incentives could change, and who would need to be involved in changing those incentives (e.g. political leaders). 

Solutions

Midway through the workshop, we asked participants to pivot. Having identified some of the top blockers, we encouraged them to pick one that impacts their work and brainstorm possible solutions. 

A sign of a great workshop:

lots of great discussions across tables
lots of reflection and sharing across the room
a ton of notes filled with valuable insights

(an eventual share-back wrapping it all up)

An incredible session by the @ThinkDigitalCA team! #FWD50 pic.twitter.com/wwkz4hqzTy

— Amanda Bernardo (@AmandaBernardo) November 1, 2022

Every single blocker identified had at least one person in the room interested in tackling it! However, there were some definite clusters of blockers that participants opted to solve for. In particular, folks were most interested in silos and a lack of collaboration (17 would-be solvers), aversion to change (14) and a broader cluster around attracting, retaining, incentivizing and upskilling talent (14), especially leadership and digital talent (9). 

To address ongoing silos and a lack of collaboration, many expressed a desire for more cross-functional product teams, or at least more cross-team meetings. Other participants advocated for skip-level meetings and 360-degree feedback to normalize giving and receiving feedback from those outside your immediate vicinity. And a number of people (4) suggested communications staff should be included on cross-functional project teams. It’s a smart, actionable idea; if the goal is to have more people informed about and engaged with your work, why not tap into the storytelling expertise that already exists in your organization?

Workshop-goers who had implemented new collaboration methods noted such changes can initially feel like more work, but pay dividends later; as one person put it, “there’s always a dip in productivity that precedes improvement.”

When it came to dealing with risk aversion, there was real consensus among participants: governments must create safe spaces to experiment (“we need sandboxes to play in”), incentivize smart risk-taking by staff (“let’s put risk-taking into performance agreements”), and adopt more people-centred change management approaches (“we should understand the fear behind risk aversion and work to eliminate the fear”). 

Easy, right? Fortunately, participants were able to point to some tangible examples of how other governments have tried to move the dial on risk, including the U.K. government’s use of “regulatory sandboxes” and the 10x program in the U.S. General Services Administration.

One piece of advice that some participants offered was that before you step into a sandbox, figure out when and why you’ll step out. Understanding and aligning on what failure looks like will enable you to press stop on a prototype before the sunk costs kick in. 

And when it came to talent, participants expressed frustration around finding digital talent in government, but there was a dearth of tangible solutions. Mechanisms to bring in private sector talent for ‘tours of duty’ – like those offered by the Canadian Digital Service or Code for Canada – were mentioned most often, but participants felt such tools were more effective at attracting than retaining (“they brought in talent and helped build capacity, though folks don’t always stay”). This sentiment was often paired with suggestions for more empowered delivery teams, suggesting that while mission attracts digital talent to public service, autonomy and ownership of work is what makes people stay. 

On the leadership side, participants suggested language requirements (at the federal level) should be relaxed for digital executive positions to be able to pull from a larger pool of qualified and diverse candidates with sometimes hard to find skill-sets, and that familiarity with digital ways of working should be a requirement for all leadership roles. Both suggestions were cited as ways to attract private sector talent and provide greater upward mobility for public servants who have in-demand skills. 

What’s next?

Our FWD50 workshop felt more like the start of a conversation than the end of one. The digital government movement has talked and written a lot about strategy and culture; we think the next phase of the movement will require a deeper exploration of incentives and structures. Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but we couldn’t help but notice how many other FWD50 speakers referenced aspects of incentives and structures in their talks – folks like Honey Dacanay, Katy Lalonde and Katherine Benjamin, Maria Patterson, Marina Nitze, Mike Bracken, as well as James Duncan and Lewis Eisen. We also very much appreciated the reflections from FWD50 speaker Pia Andrews who participated in our workshop and called it one of her favourites of the year! Here at Think Digital, we’re committed to continuing that conversation, both amongst ourselves and with our clients. 

If you’d like to run a version of the Pac-Man workshop at your own organization, here are our worksheets as well as our presentation deck. All we ask is that you share your findings with us if you can, so we can add to the data and the conversation on this important topic. 

Before we go, we’d like to thank everyone who attended the workshop – your input was invaluable! – and extend our gratitude to Alistair, Rebecca, Phil and the entire FWD50 team for making the event happen. We’d also like to give a special shoutout to Aislinn Bornais and Mel Han, our Think Digital co-op students who helped us to sort and code what turned out to be a much larger dataset than anticipated! 

The post Insights from Think Digital’s “Pac-Man” workshop at FWD50 2022 appeared first on Think Digital.

August 3, 2022

By Winter Fedyk, Associate, Think Digital

In Canada and around the world, the digital revolution is giving rise to a new society.

In the mid-1990s, governments came alive to the challenge of the internet and online platforms for the first time.

Today, the digital transformation of public services and the institutions of the welfare state is one of the greatest challenges facing federal, provincial, and municipal public servants. They are building a new plane while they fly it.

Although digital governance is likely not top of mind for most Canadians at the ballot box, it will surely become more important in the years ahead as digital products, tools, services, and platforms continue to emerge and combine in ways that redefine the economic, political, and social value that is created, exchanged, and distributed.

The internet of things, artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced telepresence, virtual reality, advanced materials, decentralized production technologies, and blockchain technologies are maturing and combining to change the economy and how public services are delivered to Canadians.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital deployment and uptake and forced a channel shift in the way that public services are provided. There is an opportunity for government organizations to leverage the lessons learned over the past two years to serve citizens more efficiently, scale services more cheaply, and adapt to change more quickly.

Of course, government is not the only sector deploying digital tools to improve service to its clients.  In April, Canadian social media took notice of a new virtual cashier system implemented by the healthy fast-food company Freshii in November 2021.

People are revolting against Freshii after learning they’re paying $3.75 per hour https://t.co/ADoxN7lyYG #Freshii

— blogTO (@blogTO) April 26, 2022

Freshii, whose corporate mission is to help citizens of the world live better by making healthy food convenient and affordable, said the goal of its new “labour optimization program” was to “further assist partners in managing costs and protecting profitability”.

It seems to be working, with the company nearly doubling its revenues in 2021. Angry twitter users were quick to point out how the company’s profits were largely due to outsourcing local Canadian jobs to virtual cashiers in Nicaragua for $3.75 an hour.

Anyone trying to call Freshii’s “labour optimization” program anything but job-killing wage theft is selling you a story. Everyone deserves good jobs and a livable wage. #BetterJobs #Outsourcing #CanLab #Freshii #Ontario https://t.co/OaNGWhnBpM

— PIPSC_IPFPC (@PIPSC_IPFPC) April 29, 2022

Stories like these contrast against ones that highlight the opportunity and potential of digital transformation for improving people’s lives and strengthening public services, like health care enhancements for historically marginalized groups.

Across rural and remote Canada, robots are credited with saving the lives of acutely ill Canadians who would otherwise need to travel great distances for care, burdening them, their families, and the environment.

How robots are helping doctors save lives in the Canadian North: Advances in telecoms, robotics, sensor technology and AI have opened the door to better health care https://t.co/IVPjBPZIid via @ConversationCA #Arctic pic.twitter.com/vug5Vw1zVE

— Nunatsiaq News (@NunatsiaqNews) December 18, 2018

The juxtaposition of these examples captures the complexity of the challenge faced by policy makers in the digital world, but just at the tip of the iceberg.

Technology and digital tools – especially those that leverage data — change the feasibility, range, and characteristics of the policy instruments available to governments. Applied to public administration, they enable new ways of functioning, engage citizens and civil society at large, and provide service to the public.

But digital transformation also heralds a sea-change in the way society is organized. Changing information flows shift who has power and how they can wield it. Labour that has put food on family dinner tables for generations is quickly being displaced by robots that presently don’t pay income taxes to help fund community services like health care, education, or roads.

A broad public conversation on what this means for Canada can’t come soon enough. While public sector organizations at all levels of government are focused on delivering back-office efficiencies and pursuing service enhancements for citizens, their goals and practices need to evolve to address the meta-level impacts of digital on Westminster policy making and governance.

In this ever-changing and uncertain environment, key questions for policy makers to consider include:

What does policy making in a digital world mean? Does digital help or hinder the policy making ‘knowledge problem’? Are policy making institutions, processes, and cultures flexible enough to tackle ‘wicked problems’ and accommodate the changing and increasing complex environment? In a world of Wikipedia, misinformation, and distributed trust, what is ‘truth to power’?

What is digital governance and what problem does it solve? How do agile principles and practices translate in rigid Westminster systems grounded in tradition and hierarchy? What are the main digital policy pursuits internationally, nationally, sub-nationally, and locally? What key behavioural insights and practices should policy makers consider?

How does digital transformation affect power and who has it? How are the institutions and processes of democracy responding to redesigned information systems and power structures by big data, social media, and other technology tools?

Who are the main policy actors and what are their roles and responsibilities? How can public servants be agile, connected, responsive, user-centric, open, and innovative in the current environment? What best practices exist and how can digital policy risks be managed?

How is Canada faring in the global digital transformation, and what should policy makers focus on for Canadians? What legislative and regulatory priorities need to be addressed? From which ‘burning platforms’ should we leap?

How can policy be future-proofed and what can policy makers do to get ready? What are the key competencies of digital policy leaders and what is their toolkit to become agents of change and transformation?

This is the first in a series of articles that explores these and other questions that consider the governance challenges being surfaced by the digital transformation efforts of policy makers at all levels of government in Canada.

To support policy makers navigating the digital era, Think Digital is developing a new learning program called “Policy Making in a Digital World”. Our aim is to help those working on policy issues at all levels of government to grapple with the questions above and learn about practical tactics and techniques to modernize policy development practices for the digital era.

More information about this new program will be coming soon – including a public survey to get your views on the priorities for training in this area. If you are interested in learning more about this new program as it is developed or have ideas to share, drop us a line at: contact@thinkdigital.ca or subscribe to our mailing list.

The post Policy Making in a Digital World: Loosing Anarchy or Future-Proofing Democracy? appeared first on Think Digital.

May 31, 2022

By Ryan Androsoff, CEO & Founder, Think Digital

Note: this article was originally published as part of Think Digital’s role as Knowledge Partner for the 4th Government Services Forum held at the World Government Summit 2022 during Expo 2020 Dubai

Governments around the world are facing unprecedented change. The digital revolution has upended expectations around service delivery in all sectors of society. The COVID-19 pandemic forced both citizens and government employees into more fully online modes of interaction than ever before, and it is very likely that much of that change in how we work and receive services will be “sticky”. Put simply, there is no going back.

The challenge for governments however is how to evolve their operating model to be successful in today’s digital reality. We are seeing a broad consensus emerge in the digital government movement globally that public sector organizations need to move towards more agile, human-centered ways of developing and delivering services to citizens and businesses. However, we are also seeing that efforts to bring in these new ways of approaching service delivery are coming up against systemic barriers within their own organizations. In our experience, governments around the world are often being held back by laws, policies, and internal processes that were developed with a very different set of assumptions on what constitutes a successful public service organization. Without focus and effort on changing the ways in which government organizations work from the inside-out, efforts to build the next generation of client-centric services will face continued friction.

Frequently the starting and ending point for attempts to modernize how government delivers services for the digital age is the development of a digital services strategy. This is not to suggest that strategies are not useful. If done well, the process of developing them can serve to engage key stakeholders and provide a common vision to strive towards. Too often however we have seen completed strategy documents spend more time collecting dust on a shelf rather than inspiring tangible results. Why is this?

The familiar adage of management consultants is that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. This is without a doubt true, and the best digital services strategy will not gain traction if the culture of the organization does not align with its aims. Strategy without culture change is doomed to fail. However, this is not the entire story. Culture change can be elusive, and too often is dependent upon the personal efforts of a small number of inspired senior leaders to drive it forward. While this can be effective – indeed necessary – in the short-term to build momentum, it rarely leads to sustainable change. The reason is that organizational culture is like an elastic band – unless there is something pulling on it, naturally it wants to snap back to its previous shape. Ambitious change initiatives can often fall victim to the reality that leaders may move on to other organizations or by necessity must turn their attention to other priorities over time.

So how can we provide that pull on our organizational culture in a more sustainable way to enable successful implementation of a digital transformation strategy? We call this our “Pac-Man” model of organizational change. It suggests that if culture eats strategy, then incentives eat culture, and structures eat everything else.

Incentives are focused on how people are rewarded or disciplined in an organization. What gets someone promoted or demoted? What types of behaviours attract more resources to a team or see them taken away? What gets measured in the organization, including at the individual level through tools such as annual performance assessments?

Structures deal with how decisions are made in an organization. What is the process for allocating budget or human resources? What are the governance and project gating processes? Who gets to make these decisions? What laws, regulations, or policies are in place that constrain or influence how decisions are made?

When embarking on efforts to evolve government organizations to deliver client-centric services, issues around institutional structures and incentives cannot be ignored. Indeed, a good digital services strategy must take an honest look at existing institutional structures and incentives and propose tangible, actionable changes that will help align the culture of the organization. This can be difficult and unglamorous work. However, it may be the single most important area for government leaders to put their focus on if they want to be successful in leverage the latest technological advancements to enable the next generation of client-centered services.

The post The “Pac-Man” model for rethinking how government works appeared first on Think Digital.

January 19, 2022

By Mike Gifford, Associate, Think Digital

Mike is a Senior Strategist at CivicActions and a facilitator with the IOG’s Digital Executive Leadership Program. Mike works on issues of open source software and digital accessibility in both of these roles.

I recently came across the work of Dr. W Edwards Demings and his work on quality management. I was introduced to it in an episode of the IAAP United in Accessibility podcast. I had heard of Total quality management (TQM) but not much more. These management frameworks are very applicable to our current challenges with digital accessibility. 

What can digital teams learn about eliminating bugs from our process from one of the fathers of modern industrialization? This is an article for digital leaders who are looking for ways to make their teams more inclusive. 

Dr. Deming’s work started in Japan in the 1950’s is credited by some for the rapid post-war economic growth of that country. His systemic work on total quality management has been credited for influencing our concepts of the agile workforce. This is now a key part of modern software development. 

“Improve quality, you automatically improve productivity.” 

— Dr. Deming

Accessibility issues are bugs. Most of the time accessibility errors are simply a failure to follow recognized W3C guidelines. It is also clear that our inability to effectively address these bugs is affecting our productivity. 

In this article I’m looking at his influential 14 points of management applied to digital accessibility. His 14 points are the best known legacy of his book, Out of the Crisis. Many of the processes that he advocated for decades ago can help build and maintain high quality digital products and services. He appealed to leadership that improving quality would reduce expenses, and increase productivity. This applies directly to digital accessibility.

1) Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.

A team can focus better if they unite around a common goal. For many products this could be as simple as “find ways to continually improve what your customers are paying for.”

• With digital accessibility you need to plan long term to maintain quality.

• There is so much diversity in the field of disability. Technology is moving so quickly. It is always possible to find ways to do what we are doing now, but better. Innovations in quality can often be found in looking for better things to do.

• On the internet, the future isn’t that far away. Invest in preparing for future challenges. Good semantics will always make your digital platform more future-compatible. Find solutions that support investment in tomorrow, with the goal of constantly getting better.

• Short-term solutions like accessibility overlays will always fail to deliver.

2) Adopt the new philosophy.

Organizations can’t haphazardly adopt this approach. Management must take the  responsibility to shape a process of continual improvement and guide the change management process.

• Make customer experience a priority. Design products and services that will meet the needs of outliers rather than the 80%. If we design for accessibility stress tests then we know that everyone will be able to use it. 
• Involve people with disabilities in defining that vision of quality, then implement it.
• A truly inclusive organization that consistently builds accessible products and services requires leaders, not just managers. We need diversity throughout our teams, especially people with disabilities, to ensure we are able to create robust design solutions. 

3) Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.

Statistical sampling of the product to evaluate the process was important to Demings, but he argued to  “eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.”

• Accessibility audits are costly and unreliable. Rather than meaningfully improving the quality and accessibility of digital platforms, they simply highlight the errors, leading to the temptation for “band-aids” or quick fixes.
• It is not sufficient to fix barriers that are found in digital products/services – rather, we must find what allowed that error to happen in the first place. Fix the problem up-stream and find ways to eliminate the “wrongs” altogether.
• Use organization-wide accessibility monitoring to gather statistical information on the real progress of accessibility. Manual inspections will still be needed to catch all of the elements that cannot be identified with automated tools.  Organizations need to be ever vigilant and consistently seek to prove that the process is working.
• To build quality accessibility, it must be baked into the process from start to finish. Everyone involved in production must be empowered to pull the lever that stops the entire production line. Flaws need to be corrected early and not allowed to impact the work of others. This means everyone needs to know what they should be receiving from those before them in the process, and how to verify that quality exists.

4) End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize total cost by working with a single supplier [Edit: or a limited pool of suppliers].

Deming’s management system views suppliers as partners. They should be critical to each other ‘s mutual success. Building a long-term partnership can avoid the long-term challenges of price driven incentives.

Note: In the public sector this may be more of a challenge as there are legislative limitations to any procurement innovations. This said, often culture and legacy policies have a greater impact than legal mandates. 

• Open standards and open source solutions ensure that the projects remain vendor neutral. Vendor lock-in limits innovation but also tends to reduce quality because quality relies on consistency. The less variation you have in the input, the less variation you’ll have in the output.
• Standards and software need to evolve to be compatible with present and future needs. Suppliers should be encouraged to contribute back. Suppliers need to know that they are a partner in delivering quality. Contracts should encourage  them to spend time improving their own processes to improve quality over time. If suppliers have to compete on price and presentation then quality will suffer. 
• Don’t assume quality accessibility. Project-wide monitoring needs to be included to ensure that suppliers meet your quality standards. Trust but verify. 
• Analyze the total cost of delivering an accessible product, not just the initial cost of purchasing it. It is always more expensive and less flexible when attempts are made to add in accessibility afterwards. 
• It is important to have trust between the client and vendor. A limited pool of qualified suppliers can ensure that vendors understand client needs and are investing the long-term. 

5) Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.

Continuous Improvement (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) are common concepts in agile software development. Rapid development need not reduce the quality of the software. Improvement is always possible, and should always be pursued in the never ending search for higher quality.

• With most organizations, their staff are their greatest asset. Investing in improving onboarding, documentation and ongoing education can help everyone embrace common understandings. At CivicActions we built an  accessibility site with lots of resources for our staff and clients. We are also sharing our experiences building accessibility onboarding. 
• Identify what artifacts, policies and practices which you have which affect accessibility. Look for how those align with the current best practices of other organizations with mature accessibility programs. 
• Continuously improve your systems and processes through an agile, iterative approach.  As we walk through discovery, ideation, validation and implementation we instill a habit of process analysis and continual improvement.

6) Institute training on the job.

Deming was very clear that “people are part of the system; they need help”.  He was talking about large industrial factories, which are no-doubt complicated, but modern software development is even more so.  He believed that beyond just implementing training, investing in all staff needed to be a core part of the institution. 

• Look for people with experience in accessibility when hiring, and start accessibility training with the onboarding. It can’t be assumed that people already know how to produce accessible digital content or code. Role-specific training will help reduce variation.
• Work in the open to build and maintain an accessibility practice area to serve as a single source of truth for the organization. This should include links to other resources that are maintained outside of the organization. 
• Encourage individuals to  understand their roles in the “big picture” of the organization. At CivicActions, we all work toward a common goal of using technology to build a better future for everyone, including those with disabilities. 

7) Adopt and institute leadership.

Deming’s view of leadership was that of a transformation agent. He said that, “the aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people.”

• Organization executives and project managers need to understand their staff and the processes they use to build accessible content.
• Individuals must be supported by policies, processes and artifacts that help them do their best work. An accessibility subject matter expert should see their role as a coach instead of a police officer.
• Go beyond meeting numerical targets and remember that the purpose is about making products and services more accessible to everyone. 
• Leadership needs to listen to teams doing the work to ensure there is alignment.

8) Drive out fear.

Organizations need to be able to make evidence-based decisions. Independent of an understanding of the broader system, data on its own can reduce performance. Fear can drive a range of bad behaviors, and organizations embracing this approach need to have a team that feels empowered to seek actual improvements. 

• Accessibility is complicated enough that even experts need to be constantly learning. Make sure that nobody is afraid to express their ideas or voice their concerns.
• Everyone has to know that accessibility isn’t about finding blame, but ensuring that every day we’re making more accessible choices than we did the day before. Mistakes will happen and what is important is we learn from them. 
• Many people are uncomfortable with engaging on topics related to  disability. Use open and honest communication to remove fear from the organization. 
• Everyone should  feel valued and should be encouraged to find better ways to do things.

9) Break down barriers between staff areas.

“Individual parts of the system may have to suffer in order to achieve the best overall result.” It may seem counter-intuitive, but an organization must be focused on the larger goals if overall improvements are to be realized. Especially in larger organizations, it is common for departments to work at cross purposes. Multifunctional teams can bring all the required talent to bear on the core activities of the company and thereby overcome the limitations of silos. 

• Focus on collaboration and building consensus instead of compromise. Experience with working in the open can help develop this. 
• People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee accessibility problems in the product or service.
• Invest in building accessibility champions throughout the organization. See that staff have the time to learn from one another. A champion’s network can help build a culture and environment to sustain accessibility innovation over time.

10) Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.

People will often work toward a quantitative target at the expense of the broader aim.  As Deming said, “They will likely meet the targets – even if they have to destroy the enterprise to do it.” People are more motivated by simple targets than by informative qualitative measures. Thus, we must take steps to help them embrace a more holistic approach to meaningful results.

• When people make mistakes, let them know in private. Regularly praise people publicly for doing good work.
• Don’t let words and nice-sounding phrases replace effective leadership. Outline your expectations for accessibility clearly. 
• Ensure that accessibility is clearly included in the organization’s objectives and key results.  It needs to be measurable if we are going to be able to evaluate progress over time. 

11) Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.

Leadership is more important than mere numbers. Deming envisioned a System of Profound Knowledge® (SoPK) in which leaders took a stronger role in both listening to and guiding others in the organization. 

• Provide support and resources so that production levels and accessibility targets are high and achievable.
• Look at how the process for developing digital tools is carried out. 
• Measure the process rather than the people behind the process.
• Ensure you have a feedback loop for your users and actively seek ways to remove barriers for your users.
• Do testing with real people in real-world scenarios as you design/build your product. Eliminating barriers for people is more important than mere compliance. 

12) Remove barriers that rob people of [pride in their work], and eliminate the annual rating or merit system.

People need to be proud of their work. Pride and self-confidence is a real motivator for any member of a team. Daniel Pink in his work on motivation boiled it down to autonomy, mastery, and purpose, but this is very much the same concept. 

• It is the responsibility of supervisors to see that everyone takes pride in their work without being rated or compared. This means having a shared definition of good work which includes accessibility. 
• People with disabilities have a lived experience coping in a world built in ways that exclude them. This experience is very valuable for organizations looking to build inclusive products, but too often they aren’t part of the development team. People with disabilities are often excluded from being hired in organizations, which in the end hurts everyone. 

13) Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.

A company’s employees must be encouraged to learn. Learning new technology will help prepare for future challenges, as will having a better understanding of user needs. 

• Staff should be constantly learning about digital best practices to see that their skills continue to improve. This will increase the quality of the work they are capable of doing. It will also help to prepare the organization for future challenges. 
• Digital technologies change at a fast pace, and it is important to keep up with best practices as they apply to one’s job responsibilities. The organization has a role to facilitate this, ensuring that staff have access to the resources they need. 
• We all have biases, and this can be a barrier for our teams achieving their best. Supporting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility training for everyone is a great way to help teams learn to work better together.  

14) Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.

The transformation is everybody’s job.

Leadership has responsibilities for fixing issues with management, but there are many leverage points in complex systems and everyone can have a positive influence. Everyone can contribute in one way or another to the organization’s transformation.  

• Each small step contributes to  the larger picture. Knowing the process helps teams learn how to build digital products better. 
• Organizations can improve overall inclusion when each person joins the task to learn how they can improve accessibility.
• Quality accessibility happens when it is embraced throughout the organization. Every position can have a role in supporting inclusion. 

Part of the reason Deming succeeded in Japan was that companies there fully embraced all 14 Points, and overhauled their entire systems to meet them. Early attempts at using Deming’s 14 Points in North America failed or ended up sub-optimal, because they only adopted some of them, or didn’t fully make the systemic changes required. The lack of full adoption may have resulted in Deming’s methods being seen as not relevant in North America. 

Partial commitment will not produce the desired results. Here too, there are similarities with digital accessibility.

If accessibility is embraced as a value of an organization and is factored in at every stage of a process, and at all levels in the organization, you will have great results. If there are only a few self-appointed accessibility champions who are trying to squeeze work in with other tasks or as part of the final QA, results will suffer. It is always more expensive and fragile to do accessibility work at the end of the process.

It will be very difficult to make any lasting changes in digital accessibility until we embrace the idea that a quality digital  product is one that adheres to global accessibility standards. Bugs are clearly introduced in many places with digital tools, and there are often many layers of technology involved. Embracing Deming’s 14-Point Philosophy will help with the commitment to a holistic accessibility journey — ensuring every day is more inclusive than the previous one. 

This article is inspired by Deming’s 14-Point Philosophy – A Recipe for Total Quality and Daniel Frank’s interview with the IAAP United in Accessibility podcast. Thanks also to feedback from Kate Kalcevich and Greg Hanek for their feedback.

The post Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s 14 Points for Management — Applied to Accessibility appeared first on Think Digital.

November 30, 2021

By Ryan Androsoff, Founder & CEO, Think Digital

I’m thrilled that we have announced the launch of Think Digital, a new company focused on the vision of creating a future where public institutions are able to adapt and thrive in the era of digital disruption! It’s the continuation of a journey that started many years ago, and I’d like to take a few minutes to share with you a bit of the Think Digital story.

For the past two decades I have been working in and around government – both here in Canada and around the world. The majority of that time I’ve been focused on what today is often called “Digital Government”. I spent a number of years inside the public service leading digital policy and transformation projects from the Office of the Government of Canada Chief Information Officer, including as one of the co-founders of the Canadian Digital Service in 2017. I also spent a year at the OECD in Paris, France working with their Digital Government team and having the opportunity to learn first-hand about how countries around the world are working to adapt to the digital era.

Over the past four years since leaving the public service I’ve built a consulting and training practice focused around advancing digital change in government. I’ve had an opportunity to work with a dozen different government organizations – federal, provincial, and municipal governments across Canada – on a variety of projects ranging from developing digital transformation roadmaps, to putting in place strategies for digital skills training, to conducting a review of the role of the Chief Data Officer across the federal government.

I’ve also had the opportunity to create unique and impactful digital leadership training programs through my partnership with the Institute on Governance. Perhaps most notably, three years ago we launched the Digital Executive Leadership Program, the first program of its kind in Canada focused on digital leadership and literacy skills for public sector executives.

This work with government over the years from both an inside and outside perspective has reinforced for me the magnitude of what the digital revolution means for public sector organizations. At its core, the Digital Government movement is about recognizing that the technologies of the internet era are changing society in profound ways, and that for government institutions to be effective they must adapt to this change. The challenge is that governments around the world carry the burden of legacy. Legacy technology systems of course, but also legacy culture, practices, and policies. Our public sector institutions are ultimately made up of people and thus require a human-centered approach to enable sustainable change.

In short, rethinking government for the digital era means we need to start with changing mindsets.

This is where Think Digital comes in. Over the past few years I have had the honour of collaborating with an amazing network through the work I have been doing around digital transformation in the public sector. The genesis of Think Digital was to start pulling together this ecosystem of people and organizations under a common banner – all of whom believe in taking agile, human-centered approaches to using digital technology and data to advance the public good. Through Think Digital we have started to assemble an outstanding group of Associates and Partner Organizations that are ready to come together to help support meaningful and sustainable digital transformation through our three services areas: Advisory, Engagement, and Training.

There will be much more to come in the weeks and months ahead, so if you haven’t already please sign-up for our mailing list so that you can get the latest from Think Digital directly to your inbox.

We’d also love to hear from you! Please send us a note or post in the comments below and let us know what challenges you are facing in transforming your organization for the digital era and how we can help.

The post Think Digital Takes On Digital Disruption appeared first on Think Digital.