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Is digital transformation essentially “boring magic”?

That’s the question posed by Steve Messer, product manager for the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS), who wrote that a colleague in the department, Conor, had explained it as such — and it had stuck.

“Boring magic” might sound a little strange at first. But if you dig deeper into Steve’s thinking, you’ll see why the phrase resonates so much.

“Our job is to make those tedious experiences a bit magical: simple, clear and fast,” he said. “All the hallmarks of convenience [with services] that work the first time.”

This simplicity is at the heart of digital transformation: changing the way the public sector operates by making government services simpler, clearer and faster for the citizen using the service. But how is this done in practice? And how can you embed this way of working when you don’t work on digitally-facing projects?

What is digital transformation?

There is no single definition of what digital transformation in government means. Jonathan Craft, associate professor at the University of Toronto, and Zachary Spicer, director of research and outreach for the Institute of Public Administration of Canada put it neatly:

“Digital government has become a hot commodity,” they wrote for Apolitical. “Everyone wants it even if there is no consensus on what exactly it is or how to do it well.”

More than just “boring magic”, and more than introducing technology into government institutions, instead they view digital transformation in government as a “global reform movement”.

Digital transformation to them means a radical rethink of how government might work. They see it as embedding “new ways of thinking, organising, and working into the public sector in order to modernise and improve its ability to solve public problems”.

The sort of public problems that digital transformation can solve are the big picture government reform questions: how should we design this service so that it meets the needs of citizens? How can we design digital services in close collaboration with the people using them? What is stopping citizens from using our government service?

It’s also helpful to define digital transformation by what it isn’t: small tweaks. This is perhaps best summarised by Marten Kaevats, Estonia’s National Digital Adviser: “turning paper into PDFs isn’t e-governance.”

What kinds of tools or methods could be used for digital transformation?

Agile is one method used to pioneer digital transformation projects. The backbone to the approach is to prioritise people over processes — whether that’s your users or your teammates. The Agile approach breaks work down into smaller chunks, to deliver value bit by bit, through constant experimentation and learning. It’s often done in small, multidisciplinary teams.

The short timescales allow room for experimentation and failure. “If you’re doing a two-week sprint, the most you can do is fail on something in two weeks,” said Colin McIntosh, an agile coach at Inland Revenue New Zealand when speaking to Apolitical. “That's a fast fail, it’s actually learning, not failing or a problem.”

And for those working in non-digital teams, it’s likely you’ll have heard of Agile. Despite its beginnings as a software development tool, the process is now even being applied to change management programs, supporting the management and development of change within an organisation.

Part of this reason is that the Agile manifesto prioritises people over processes: face to face conversations and regular reflections are at the heart of how it works.

Fundamentally, for digital transformation projects or otherwise, Agile is designed to be adaptable. “Don’t be afraid to do something that’s different, and if it doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to change it,” said McIntosh.

How could we apply this sort of thinking beyond digital?

Digital transformation principles mean trying to boil down complex issues into clear problems that you can solve. Aare Laponin, who works across Armenia and Georgia developing e-governance strategies,wrote for Apolitical that in digital transformation projects, “there should be no redundant business processes at all”.

This means that there should be no process for the sake of process — everything should be as streamlined and simple as possible, in order to make progress as quickly as possible and deliver for the end user — the citizen.

Using digital transformation principles also means being unafraid to think radically. Martin Stewart-Weeks and Simon Cooper, authors of the book “Are We There Yet?: The Digital Transformation of Government and the Public Sector in Australia”, wrote that on top of “business as usual” improvements, “digital transformation should also be an opportunity to think about what business as unusual might look like”.

A reflection on “business as unusual” means starting back at first principles and considering whether there is a completely new approach to a question. How can you use this way of thinking to drive digital transformation? — Emma Sisk

[Picture credit: Daria Nepriakhina/Unsplash]