Developing a digital organisation

I published a post today on the Department of Health’s Digital Health blog about the work I am doing there building digital capability across the organisation

Here’s a quick snippet:

To my mind there needs to be a three pronged approach to developing an organisation to help it become truly digitally enabled. Those prongs are:

  • Strategy – an approach to digital technology and culture that demonstrates a thorough understanding of the opportunities and the risks
  • Leadership – encouragement and permission from the top of the organisation that digital tools are important and that appropriate access and learning opportunities are provided
  • Capability – confidence, comfort and skills throughout the organisation so that staff can make the most of the opportunities and avoid those pesky risks

The department has a digital strategy in place, and a digital leadership coaching programme is currently ongoing. I’ll leave it to others to blog about those. My job is developing our network of digital champions, who are a key part of our means of developing capability throughout DH.

So who are these champions, and what do they actually do – and why are they doing it?

The champions are enthusiasts for working digitally. This doesn’t mean they have to be experts in any particular technology, rather that they embody the digital mindset of curiosity, creativity and cooperation. In other words, they don’t need to know all the answers, but they do need to have an idea of how to find them.

Do me a favour and go and read the whole thing.

WorkSmart’s digital strategy workshop will help you make this sort of thing happen in your organisation.