Your persona
You’re starting out exploring what digital strategy means — perhaps you’re feeling a little removed from this ‘big picture’ thinking, but taking steps to become familiar with the strategic direction of your government, department, or team can be motivating and transformative. Knowing how what you do fits in with the wider context can help you to make sure that what you’re working on will contribute to overall success. But there’s more to digital than initiatives and objectives — ways of working are also important. Are you or your team working in an agile way?
Maybe agile is less familiar, or perhaps it hasn’t been adopted. It may be that agile techniques don’t quite fit your type of work, but the agile mindset can be beneficial, regardless of your context. Similarly, getting familiar with using digital tools to collaborate and communicate and taking steps to own your professional development will keep you looking forward. Remember, you don’t need to become an expert in digital strategy, agile working, or digital working overnight in order to improve your competency in these areas. Even small steps can make a big difference.
Build your skills and knowledge
Start by reading your government's digital strategy document. This will help you understand the overall vision and goals. If possible, have a conversation with your supervisor or a knowledgeable colleague to learn about your department's digital objectives. How do they impact your work or role?
Create a list of digital services your department provides and make an effort to understand what each service does. You can do this by exploring your department's website and internal resources.
Learn about the key principles underpinning the agile mindset. Explore resources on agile methods and frameworks specific to your department. Try to identify how these methods are applied in practice. Who’s working with agile? What can you learn from them?
Create a community of practice
Audit the digital tools and technologies you use in your daily tasks, and match each tool to its use or function. What are your peers doing? Connecting with others could highlight some uses or ideas that you may wish to try out. Which tools or technology are you less familiar with? Identify a small project where you can collaborate with colleagues using digital tools. This will help you get hands-on experience.
Find opportunities to apply agile principles in your work, even on a small scale. Share your progress with colleagues who are experienced in agile. Perhaps you could find peers who have similar interests and work together.
Keep exploring
Apolitical hosts events with thought leaders discussing a variety of topics, including many focusing on digital work and strategy. Keep an eye out for what’s upcoming, and in the meantime, you can catch up on recordings from past events, such as: How to use agile to get results in the public service.
You might feel ready to dive into a piece of structured learning. Our Mindsets for a Digital Future: Developing Yourself course could be an excellent place to start.
Take some time to explore Apolitical’s community articles, and consider engaging with the article creator by using the comment function. What is digital transformation in government? could be a good place to start.
If you’re looking for inspiration for structured skill development, take a look at our Learning Plans where we have stitched together disparate educational resources into rich, diverse, cohesive and enlightening learning journeys.
Digital Strategy and Working is a common Q&A topic on Apolitical. What is agile government and how do I bring it is bringing together people with questions that might be similar to yours.
What's next?
Not sure if this is the right persona for you? This diagnostic and its suggested outcome have been designed for illustrative purposes and may not reflect your level of awareness or competency.
Find a guide to the statements covered plus the scenario questions here: Digital Self-Assessment and Scenario Summaries.
Explore the other personae using the links below:
Leadership:Digital Explorer, Digital Consolidator, Digital Trailblazer
Non-Leadership:Digital Explorer, Digital Consolidator, Digital Trailblazer
⬅️ Government Skills Impact Tracker | Digital and Data Skills Hub ➡️