Building digital capability in your organisation

Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash

For any digital transformation effort to be a success, it needs to have a organisation that is open to change to work with.

This is often a bit of a stumbling block, because even if you have an amazing digital team and a kick-ass programme in place, if the people across the organisation don’t understand what you’re on about, then you’re in trouble.

This is why one of the projects you need to initiate early on is a digital capability programme. This should provide just enough digital knowledge, understanding and – most important – confidence in the people you work with to keep things running smoothly.

There are a few different ways to approach this. Here’s some of the things I have found work well – you can pick and choose and adapt as you see fit!

Build your leaders’ digital confidence

There is no getting around the fact that you must have the buy in from senior people in your organisation. In fact, buy in doesn’t really cut it – they need to own this thing. Oftentimes leaders -whether they be politicians or senior management types – need a regular reminder of what really matters when it comes to digital and what they need to do to support this.

What I have found is that a one-off workshop is great for getting some excitement and momentum, but it’s really, really easy for that to dissipate if you don’t follow it up. I’d recommend getting workshops booked in for every other month with your most senior management team, if you can.

Another idea is to put in place a form of one to one coaching for senior people. Often they might not be willing to confess to not knowing things within a group context, so providing a safe space where they can perhaps be a little more vulnerable might be a good idea. It also helps foster your own relationship with them and builds trust, and gives you the chance to help them take a long term view of their need for understanding and commitment to the digital cause.

Digital champions or advocates

Building a network of enthusiastic and knowledgeable digital people across your organisation can be an incredibly useful way to spread goodwill about your efforts in departments other than your own. It’s really important though to avoid ‘milk monitor syndrome’ in creating yet another opportunity for people to volunteer for something nobody wants to do. One way to do this is to maybe avoid titles like ‘champions’ and instead go for something newer sounding – I like ‘advocates’.

One key thing is to engage with the already-enthused. Any network or community of practice like this will die a death if people feel they are forced to be there. Find those hidden, motivated digital enthusiasts who want to be a part of something and will make change happen because they want to.

Some of the things you can do to make your advocates network something people might actually want to join:

  • Run face to face events as well as online networking to build trust in the network
  • Make things available to your advocate network that other’s don’t get – whether early access to new digital services, learning and development opportunities or even just a sticker for their laptop
  • Organise an excursion – maybe to visit another similar organisation to yours to see how they do things, or perhaps to a digital company in another sector

Big thanks to the digital doers community for their help in sharing what has worked for them building these internal enthusiast networks.

10 things you need to know

This is something I have been banging on about for a while, and I have seen it – or similar – done really well in a couple of places. To me there is a basic amount of knowledge that you would want everybody in the organisation to know about digital and transformation. Not the specifics on how to use certain products or services, or even how to run agile ceremonies or user research, but instead focusing on the big picture things people really need to understand to ‘get’ what you are trying to achieve.

This could be delivered in a number of ways, but I like the scalability of an e-learning course, one that could be pitched to anyone in the organisation, from the CEO to front line workers. It should give everyone the core knowledge they need, so you can move quickly when working with other service areas.

Internal blogging or newsletter

Working in the open makes things better, we know this. However sometimes we can work more openly internally, to let people know what we are up to. It’s a great way to spread your cultural tentacles, whether in the form of a regular newsletter or an internal blog. It helps you ‘show the thing’ to a wider audience than can attend show and tells, for instance, and can bring your weeknotes to more people’s attention.

You might worry that people won’t be interested but my experience is that people are way more interested than you assume they are – and if you can add some character and humour to your comms, that will help a lot too.

Come along for the ride

A final idea is to get people from other departments involved in the work you are doing even if they wouldn’t ordinarily be a part of the project. Digital volunteering, in other words. Say you have someone who you’d like to expose to agile delivery methods – why not invite them to play a role on the team, attend the ceremonies, and deliver some of the work. There is no better way of learning this stuff than by doing it and being surrounded by others doing it, and creating a way for people to get experience of it before being involved in a project they are truly responsible for is a great approach.

The importance of inclusion

I can’t finish this article without flagging up the importance of taking an inclusive approach to your capability building. People’s backgrounds can have a huge impact on how they engage with change and new ways of looking at work, and it’s important to ensure that whatever training, workshops or other learning activity you put in place acknowledge this and are built around the needs of those engaging with it. Take the time to understand the people you are going to be working with, and demonstrate that digital doesn’t just mean churning out cookie-cutter experiences using technology.

In other words, your capability programme should be a great exemplar of user centred design itself!

FREE online workshop: Matching user needs with tech capabilities

A while ago I shared a post with a template showing how you can take a capability-based approach to picking technology by focusing on user needs.

There has been a fair bit of interest in it since it was published, so I thought it might be useful to run a short online workshop running through how it works with a smallish group of people. As I have at this stage no real idea what I am doing, it will be free for public sector people.

Book your place now!

The workshop will run on Zoom on Wednesday, September 15 at 11am. I anticipate it will last around 45 minutes, but keep an hour free just in case.

At the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

  • Understand the benefits of approaching technology decision making through capabilities
  • Understand the core ideas around user needs and how they should impact technology choices
  • Confidently run your own workshops following the process in your own work
  • Come up with loads of ways to improve the whole thing!

The running order is as follows:

  • Quick intro to the session and what we will cover
  • Everyone says hi (and I’ll probably ask a silly question about your favourite something or other)
  • I’ll run through the idea behind the process and template and what it is meant to achieve
  • We will work through the example of the intranet as used in the blog post
  • We will then work through an example or two that people on the session suggest – hopefully real scenarios they are currently dealing with

Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? So what are you waiting for? Book your place now!

LINK: “Throw away your corporate training plan”

Transforming an organisation is fundamentally about working with people to help them do new things and work in new ways. There’s a whole industry built on workplace training with courses, curricula and training providers to fit almost any skills gap. But when it comes to digital transformation, this way of thinking falls short in several ways.

Original: https://blog.wearefuturegov.com/throw-away-your-corporate-training-plan-e8eae41ae6c8

Five for (Good) Friday – 18 April 2014

linksFive for Friday is WorkSmart’s weekly roundup of interesting stuff from the week’s reading.

  1. On a quest for the future of enterprise collaboration
  2. The best training ever
  3. The Right Mix – review of task management apps
  4. Socialogy Interview: Anne Marie McEwan
  5. Innoveracy: Misunderstanding Innovation
Did you know that WorkSmart has a Pinterest board where loads of cool stuff is shared?

We also now have a LinkyDink group which will automatically email you links to read everyday!

So, you think you want social media training?

whiteboardIncreasingly, following a bit of a chat, it turns out you don’t.

I’ve been delivering training on digital tools, including social media, for a fair few years now. I’d like to think I’m quite good at it, and that those who leave my training sessions get a lot out of it.

One of the most frustrating things, though, is when at the end of some training, a learner will ask ‘so, will we actually be able to use this stuff?’ or ‘this has been great, but until I get these websites blocked I won’t be able to use anything I’ve learned’.

Gack!

What’s happening is that there is an acknowledgement within an organisation that they need some additional digital capacity, so they send people on a course. Trouble is, the strategy, or vision, isn’t in place for the organisation – so those skills are going to go to waste.

Instead, if you want to spend some money on this stuff, it’s better to spend it first on developing some idea of where digital fits into your organisation.

One of the first commissions WorkSmart has received has been to do just this. The original brief was for a series of workshops explaining how to use the popular social media tools. Discussing it, though, everyone became aware that there was a piece of work to do first.

So, we’re running an agile little project, made up of a couple of workshops and some online deliberation and collaboration. The aim at the end will be to have a draft strategy document, outlining how the organisation can use digital tools and techniques – including stuff like agile project management and user centred design.

Along with that there will also be a process defined for rolling this kind of capability out across the organisation, using internal expertise rather than bought in training. Hopefully this means that the learning activity will be scalable and sustainable, and most importantly of all, everyone will know why they are doing it.

Link roundup

I find this stuff so you don’t have to:

Link roundup

I find this stuff so you don’t have to:

Digital councillors

digitalcllr is a place where we are bringing together all the work we have been doing recently with elected members.

Mostly that means training, but we also offer a service to host websites for councillors, for free.

On the digitalcllr site, we’re also putting up content now and again that might be helpful to elected members starting to dabble in online engagement.

This morning, for instance, I posted some online safety tips, that may well come in handy.

We also create video content, interviewing councillors about their use of social media. Here’s Cllr Roger Gambba-Jones talking about his use of Twitter and a blog, for example.

If you’re a councillor needing some support in using social media, get in touch! Likewise if you are a democratic services or member development bod.

Introduction to Public Sector Digital Engagement LONDON & SE

Tuesday 25th October 2011

Feedback from previous Digital Engagement workshop

The workshop provided me with a better understanding of the advantages & pitfalls of social media – Tourism Development Officer, Ceredigion County Council
The workshop was informative and lent itself well to interaction with well thought out activities – PR Officer, Coleg Morgannwg
Useful insights and experiences shared. Very knowledgable and practical. – Information Systems Consultant, Newport City Council
Dave is very engaging and informative – E-Communications Officer, Mid & West Wales Fire & Rescue Service
Very engaging and knowledgable – Head of Consumer Strategy, Remploy
Interesting. Good use of examples. Relaxed interactive discussions. Good mix of activities & discussions –  PR Officer, Coleg Morgannwg

We are delighted to announce this workshop introducing Public Sector organisations to the opportunity offered by the web and social media to enable effective engagement with citizens and communities.

Facilitated by Kind of Digital’s Director, Dave Briggs, who has a wealth of experience advising government on digital engagement at all levels; from small local authorities to 10 Downing Street – attendees will come away with a full grasp of the background and potential of this work as well as a practical toolkit to get underway.

The agenda, a blended mixture of engaging talks, group discussion and practical exercises, will include the following sessions:

  • How local authorities can use the web and social networks to engage citizens and communities
  • Case studies of good practice use of emerging technology to engage by those involved in local government
  • How to develop a digital engagement strategy for your work
  • Choosing the right tools and approach to meet your objectives
  • Getting around organisational barriers to implementing your plan
  • Further support

As well as the training on the day, attendees will benefit from post-event support and learning. This includes exclusive access to a follow-up web conference and an online support forum.

Click here to book your place.

AGENDA

9.30am: Registration

10.00am: Introductions and housekeeping

10.15am What is digital engagement, and why is it important?

* The background to digital engagemen
* The opportunities it offers for local government

10.45am: Introducing the digital engagement toolkit

* What are the key tools?
* How have they been used across the public sector

11:15am: The importance of a strategic approach

* Why having a strategic approach to social media activity matters
* The best way to balance strategy and experimentation

11.30am: Coffee break

11.45pm: Strategy development workshop – writing your own digital engagement strategy

* Objectives
* Implementation
* Evaluation
* Risk management

1.00pm: Lunch break

1.45pm: Overcoming barriers

* What are the blockers in many organisations for getting social media activity going?
* How to manage them

2.15pm: Planning a social media campaign exercise

* Group exercise to design effective social media projects, using the right tools and involving the right people

3.45pm: Coffee break

3.55pm: Social media question time

* An opportunity to ask questions of the group and facilitator to work out issues in more depth

4.25pm: Close and next steps

* Further online support: webinars and forum

4.30pm: Workshop ends

Delegate Costs : If you book your place before 19th August, you receive the benefit of an early bird discount, so don’t delay!

Early bird price – £200 + VAT
Standard price – £250 + VAT

Address:
CCT Venues Smithfield
2 East Poultry Avenue
London
EC1A 4PT
Map and Directions

Start Time: 9:30 am
End Time: 4:30 pm

Click here to book your place.