2015: No Front End ~ A Warning for the New DTO
From 2015.
Author. Marie Johnson. Published on LinkedIn 27 January 2015.
Last week on 23 January, the Australian Government announced the establishment of the Digital Transformation Office – a long awaited and welcomed announcement. But folks - the story is not about "digital".
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-01-23/establishment-digital-transformation-office
I have been asked by a number of publications to provide commentary on the establishment of the Digital Transformation Office, given my advocacy for and opinion pieces on transformation – and I would refer readers to the paper I co-wrote with Dr Jerry Fishenden from the UK. “A Tale of Two Countries – The digital Disruption of Government”.
https://ntouk.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/a-tale-of-two-countries-the-digital-disruption-of-government/
It is pleasing that the proposition in our paper for a “Commission of Transformation”appears to have been picked up.
But the task at hand is not about a digital front-end – in the way that the online and egov initiatives of past decades left the client in a cluttered nest of process between and across agencies.
The commentary in our paper emphasised the client experience in the digital era and the profound challenges this will present to the machinery of government.
The focus must be on transformation – not “digital” - and that means some inconvenient truths will need to be faced about accountability and old structures that are not needed.
The challenge at hand will require a profound understanding of the machinery of government – it is in every respect a complex system, and systems thinking is required. Knowing the lever points that can change the system – as well as the fossilised structures - avoiding years of effort putting digital lipstick on the front end but which doesn’t change things.
The single determinant of success is the client experience - simple – and this is more than the front end.
There is in fact no front end, in the digital era.
Time to be brave.