This article is written by Sarah Hoy, program analyst at the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, province of Ontario in Canada.

I find, in government, it has been difficult to catch up with the best of what technology has to offer.

We are operating at a pace that is lagging about five years behind everyone else, for all the typical reasons: political agendas, time-consuming approval processes, and a lack of funding to support the technology and applications needed in today’s digital era. But hey! We’ll get there eventually, just at a slower, more cautious pace.

In government, it is always important to understand what is expected of you from an accountability perspective and to act in good faith. So It is understandable that it has been difficult for governments to move away from old paper-based processes where handwritten signatures clearly signify that the proper authorities have reviewed and signed-off on important decisions.

From analogue to digital

According to one definition of digitisation, “[it] is the process of changing from analog to digital form”. With the growing shift towards working online and going paperless for conservation/sustainability purposes, it is critical for governments to move towards digitisation.

Digitisation is often conflated with digitalisation, but there is a significant difference between these two important concepts. Digitalisation is a perfect blend between two definitions of the term “the way in which domains of social life are reconstructed around digital communication…” (J. Scott Brennen & Daniel Kreiss) and it “is the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities” (Gartner).

In government, “revenue” is essentially the services that various ministries are meant to provide to the public. Digitisation adds to this because it results in continuous opportunities to gather information that help improve services and reduce administrative burdens associated with the old “analogue” process of doing things.

So why is it important to understand the difference between digitisation and digitalisation? Because they must both work hand-in-hand to be effective. You cannot simply digitise something that may have once been paper-based and expect that your business process isn’t also going to change.

You cannot simply digitise something that may have once been paper-based and expect that your business process isn’t also going to change

There is a significant amount of work and money involved in digitisation, which is why it is so important to have buy-in and support from senior management to help push this work through. It is also important that senior management support their staff and understand their role in digitalisation

Anyone working on a process that is being digitised won’t need to be persuaded about the need for digitisation, as they are generally always trying to find efficiencies in the way that they work.

Keys to successful digitisation and digitalisation

I am currently part of a huge digitisation operation for an important reporting process for my ministry oversees.

Service providers who are either legislated or funded to provide services to the public are required to report specific incidences to local ministry offices throughout the province by completing incident reports.

Previously, the reports were completed by hand, or electronically using a software application (i.e. Microsoft Word), and e-mailed or faxed to the ministry. Now we’ve worked with an IT cluster to design an online reporting tool in which the ministry and service providers can work interactively on the incident reports, which fast-tracks reporting and eliminates the need to use faxes or to scan documents.

So what have I learnt from this? I think I’ve figured out a formula that will help others in the public sector try to catch up with the digital era if they aren’t already there with the following steps:

#1. Assemble your A-team

It is critical to gather the appropriate subject matter experts (SMEs) that will help your digitisation/digitalisation project succeed.

These experts should be a blend of public servants who have the proper IT knowledge and experience, and those who have worked extensively in the area of work you are trying to digitise.

As a first step, it might be necessary to hire new people if you’re working on an expansive project. If that is the case, you should hire people who have a blend of IT knowledge and of the subject in question to help act as a bridge between these two groups of workers. These “connectors” are critical in ensuring that the IT solution or product being developed meets the needs of those who carry out the work on the ground.

Local change management staff/SMEs should also be hired within each area affected by this change locally, as managing this work is far too time-consuming for employees currently doing the work. Without a strong team to lead this work, and without the added bodies on the ground to manage the change, your project will struggle to succeed.

In the project I’m working on, we have pulled feedback from staff from across the province who have solid, tangible experience working with the process we’ve digitised and who truly care about the work. They are also representative of the different programs and sectors within our ministry, and so they bring with them unique interactions and knowledge of the different clients and/or front-line staff they interact with. This gives them a better understanding of what users of the tool need and the types of incidents that are reported.

#2. Consultation and planning

I strongly believe that those who are closest to the work are the best people to explain what it entails.

It is therefore necessary to gather all the knowledge — or at least as much as possible — to help you understand how to shape the IT solution in the best possible way. It is also important that a feasible timeline is developed to ensure the project proceeds at a manageable and realistic pace.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to try to act as a trainer because we implemented self-directed training that either wasn’t completed properly or was due to insufficient training materials

In my project, our ministry spent years consulting and gathering feedback from local staff directly involved with the process we were trying to improve. We also worked with service providers from across the province to gather feedback, which we also did when we finally had the proper buy-in from senior management.

#3. Prepare your foundational information

Preparing the base data and information your new IT solution will need to capture is a no-brainer.

It is important to invest the time and resources in laying the groundwork to ensure that, at a minimum, old functions won’t break or become unavailable once you implement the new solution. If this step is rushed, it will result in more time wasted in trying to correct the errors.

In my current project, we discussed at length what information we needed in our reporting tool. We then did an extensive clean-up and verification process to ensure it captured what was needed. Along the way, however, we realised that, based on the complexity of the data we were pulling from, and the way in which our service providers are structured, more work needed to be done to distinguish and clean the data, and we continue to do so on an ongoing basis.

#4. Test the bananas out of it

Once a new IT solution is developed, testing is vital. The IT cluster in charge of developing the tool should first consult with some key SMEs to agree on a testing script that makes sense, and then go out and get SMEs from various parts of the government (enough for a good sample size) to ensure the solution is working well.

When I tested the reporting tool my ministry worked on, the first initial scripts were vague and lacked details, so I had to fill in the gaps to complete entire test scenarios, which made testing more time-consuming and confusing. By giving the IT teams constant feedback on this, the details became easier to “fill in”. This was critical because I was involved with testing for several weeks.

After IT would fix a bug or functionality in the tool, they would ask us to test it over and over and over with different scenarios to make sure nothing was missed. Once the tool finally launched, it functioned really nicely, and I knew it was because of the many hours of testing the team did on it.

#5. Document the solution and business processes in detail

If you want to ensure the success of your IT solution, you need proper reference guides and materials to facilitate the documentation of business processes.

There needs to be proper consultation on these pieces of work to ensure all pertinent information is gathered and captured. If there are gaps in these documents, it leaves users feeling uncertain and they default to SMEs for answers and help.

For the process my team helped digitise, we’ve had to answer questions from the many service providers we work with (hundreds of them!), as well as other ministry staff who use the tool, all due to the lack of clarity and details in the current documents that have been developed by the main project team leading this work.

This resulted in us spending much of our precious time during the initial launch of the reporting tool re-clarifying processes and resolving questions related to the new guidelines that were developed. We’ve also made it our mission to get as much of this feedback back to the main project team to ensure that these documents are improved.

#6. Invest time and money in quality training and training materials

Once the time comes and you’re ready to launch your new system, I would highly recommend that you hire a trainer to support and upskill everyone impacted by this work. Training will enhance the success of the IT solution and the revised business process you want to implement for it.

In my current project, we focused primarily on self-learning by posting learning modules and documents/guides available online. While this is certainly a good solution for working with budget constraints, it is not the most effective way for everyone to learn. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to try to act as a trainer because we implemented self-directed training that either wasn’t completed properly or was due to insufficient training materials.

Digitisation and digitalisation require a lot of time, money and hard work; things that make senior leaders quiver

Had better training been given to service providers, they would be reporting incidents more accurately in the reporting tool. This would save time spent on the administrative burden from resolving questions or issues related to errors/lack of clarity in the reports. If we had time to provide better training to ministry staff, my team would not have to answer so many questions related to the reporting tool, and the revised business processes would work more smoothly as all parties would know their roles and how we interact with each other to manage the reports.

#7. Implement the IT solution through phases with proper IT support

Your IT solution should be rolled out in phases with proper communication and coordination. There should also be a proper mechanism for tracking issues and questions, feeding back to the central project team to investigate and help inform continuous improvement of the IT solution.

The first phase should include a small number of users that cover a good cross-section of the subject who are eager and willing to participate. The willingness of these users will enable the project team to gather detailed feedback from users who truly care about the success of the IT solution. After feedback is gathered, this should lead to proper documentation of issues by users, which should be investigated by your IT team.

As with any new process or innovative solution, constant improvement and change have been required as we continue to find little flaws in the tool because — let’s face it — perfection is hard to achieve

After this phase, the IT team should then work with the central project team to test possible solutions and implement enhancements on the IT solution using the issues tracking mechanism. After the enhancements are worked into the IT solution, the IT solution should be fully launched (phase two). Other phases would include other functionalities within the IT solution that are not critical but are nice to have.

For the initial phase on the project I work on, service providers from different program areas with the proper infrastructure and staff began working on the reporting tool. These service providers were generally those who had been planning for years for this day to come, and who were leaders in their program areas. Their feedback proved to be even more invaluable and really helped us implement additional changes in the reporting tool, which made the user experience much smoother.

At the same time, select ministry staff also participated and gave their feedback on the system. All suggestions were collected and IT implemented fixes in the tool, which were tested again by ministry staff. This then led to the launch of phase two of the project, which rolled the tool out to all service providers and ministry staff. Future releases include additional enhancements of the tool and advanced reporting features for data analytics.

#8. Post-implementation feedback and improvement

After implementation (90 days is a good number), all users including government and front-line users should be consulted for additional feedback. This then leads to improvements of the IT solution to ensure it functions as optimally as possible. Future dates for feedback and enhancements should also be set throughout the IT solution’s lifecycle to ensure it functions optimally and continues to improve over time, as business needs/priorities may change.

In conclusion, digitisation and digitalisation require a lot of time, money and hard work; things that make senior leaders quiver. But this precious investment leads to long-term value and gains for both ministry staff and service providers, such as a reduction of administrative burdens, efficiency gains and capitalising on innovative technologies that are available to us now.

In my current project, we have seen many positive gains in digitising the reporting process we have in place. As with any new process or innovative solution, constant improvement and change have been required as we continue to find little flaws in the tool because — let’s face it — perfection is hard to achieve.

I hope that through this article and the many lessons I have learned from this project, other public servants will be able to digitise/digitalise with confidence and get the proper buy-in from senior management to help support this work to ensure its success. Old technology is dying out so it’s only a matter of time before governments digitise and this new way of business becomes the new norm. — Sarah Hoy

Sarah Hoy is a featured Apolitical contributor. She writes a monthly article for Apolitical's readers, and this is the first article in her series about making change happen in the public sector. To find out more about how you can become a featured contributor, please get in touch.

(Picture credit: Death to the stock photo)