The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL
NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
·
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., “Key
words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels”, BCP 14, RFC 2119, March
1997. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt.
·
[Alexander 1964] C. Alexander, Notes
on the Synthesis of Form, Harvard University Press, 1964
·
[Alexander 1979] C. Alexander, The
Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press, 1979
·
[Brown 2011] P. Brown, Introducing
Pattern Languages, March 2011 http://www.peterfbrown.com/Documents/Introducing%20Pattern%20Languages.pdf
·
[BSI-SCF] Smart City Framework – Guidance for decision-makers in smart cities
and communities, [January 2014]
·
[Coplien 1996] J. O. Coplien, Software
Patterns, Bell Laboratories, The Hillside Group 1996
·
[EIF] The European
Interoperability Framework, version 2, European Commission 2010, Annex 2 of
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0744:FIN:EN:PDF
·
[OIX] Open Identity
Exchange, http://openidentityexchange.org/
·
[SFIA] The Skills Framework for
the Information Age, SFIA Foundation, http://www.sfia-online.org
·
[SOA-RAF] The SOA Reference Architecture
Framework, OASIS, http://docs.oasis-open.org/soa-rm/soa-ra/v1.0/cs01/soa-ra-v1.0-cs01.pdf
·
[SOA-RM] The Reference Model for
Service-Oriented Architecture, OASIS, http://docs.oasis-open.org/soa-rm/v1.0/
·
[PMRM] The Privacy Management
Reference Model, OASIS, http://docs.oasis-open.org/pmrm/PMRM/v1.0/csd01/PMRM-v1.0-csd01.html
Summary
The Transformational Government Framework (TGF)
is a practical “how to” standard for the design and implementation of an
effective program of technology-enabled change at national, state or local
government level. It describes a managed, customer-centred process of
ICT-enabled change within the public sector and in its relationships with the
private and voluntary sectors, which puts the needs of citizens and businesses
at the heart of that process and which achieves significant and
transformational impacts on the efficiency and effectiveness of government.
Context
All around the world, governments at national, state, and
local levels face huge pressure to do “more with less”. Whether their desire is:
to raise educational standards to meet the needs of a global knowledge economy;
to help our economies adjust to financial upheaval; to lift the world out of
poverty when more than a billion people still live on less than a dollar a day;
to facilitate the transition to a sustainable, inclusive, low-carbon society;
to reduce taxation; or to cut back on public administration; every government
faces the challenge of achieving their policy goals in a climate of increasing
public expenditure restrictions.
Responding effectively to these challenges will mean that governments
need to deliver change which is transformational rather than incremental.
During much of the last two decades, technology was heralded
as providing the key to deliver these transformations. Now that virtually every
government is an "e‑Government" - with websites, e‑services
and e‑Government strategies proliferating around the world, even in the
least economically developed countries - it is now clear that Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) are no “silver bullet”. The reality of many
countries' experience of e‑Government has instead been duplication of ICT
expenditure, wasted resources, no critical mass of users for online services,
and limited impact on core public policy objectives.
An increasing number of governments and institutions are now
starting to address the much broader and more complex set of cultural and
organizational changes which are needed if ICT is to deliver significant
benefits in the public sector. We call this process: Transformational
Government.
Definition of Transformational
Government
The definition of Transformational Government used in the
Framework is:
Transformational Government
A managed, customer-centred, process of ICT-enabled change within
the public sector and in its relationships with the private and voluntary
sectors, which puts the needs of citizens and businesses at the heart of that
process and which achieves significant and transformational impacts on the
efficiency and effectiveness of government.
This definition deliberately avoids describing some perfect “end-state”
for government. That is not the intent of the Transformational Government
Framework. All governments are different: the historical,
cultural, political, economic, social and demographic context within which each
government operates is different, as is the legacy of business processes and
technology implementation from which it starts. So the Transformational
Government Framework is not a “one-size-fits-all” prescription for what a
government should look like in future.
Rather, the focus is on the process
of transformation: how a government can build a new way of working which
enables it rapidly and efficiently to adapt to changing citizen needs and
emerging political and market priorities. In the words of one of the earliest
governments to commit to a transformational approach: “…. the vision is not
just about transforming government through technology. It is also about making
government transformational through the use of technology”,
Target audience for the
Transformational Government Framework
The Transformational Government Framework (TGF) is intended
primarily to meet the needs of:
-
Political and administrative leaders responsible for shaping
public sector reform and e‑Government strategies and policies (at
national, state/regional and city/local levels).
-
Senior executives in industry who wish to partner with and assist
governments in the transformation of public services and to ensure that the
technologies and services which the private sector provides can have optimum
impact in terms of meeting public policy objectives.
-
Service and technology solution providers to the public sector.
Secondary audiences for the Transformational Government
Framework include:
-
Leaders of international organizations working to improve public
sector delivery, whether at a global level (e.g. World Bank, United Nations) or
a regional one (e.g. European Commission, ASEAN,
IADB).
-
Professional bodies that support industry sectors by the
development and maintenance of common practices, protocols, processes and
standards to facilitate the production and operation of services and systems
within the sector, where the sector needs to interact with government processes
and systems.
-
Academic and other researchers working in the field of public
sector reform.
-
Civil society institutions engaged in debate on how technology
can better enable service transformation.
Structure of the Transformational
Government Framework
The TGF can be seen
schematically in Figure 1. At the top-level, it is made up of the following
components:
·
guiding principles: a statement of values which leaders can use to steer
business decision-making as they seek to implement a TGF program;
·
guidance
on the
three major governance and delivery processes which need to be refocused in a
customer-centric way, and at whole-of-government level, in order to deliver
genuinely transformational impact:
-
business management,
-
service management, and
-
technology and digital assets management
based on the principles of service-oriented architecture.
·
benefit realization: guidance on how to ensure that the intended benefits of a TGF program are
clearly articulated, measured, managed, delivered and evaluated in practice;
·
critical success
factors: a checklist of issues which TGF programs should regularly monitor
to ensure that they are on track for successful delivery and that they are
managing the major strategic risks effectively.
Figure 1: The overall TGF framework
Each of these six components is described in detail in the
following sections, which set out the activities which a TGF program should
undertake in each area in order to be successful. These activities
(highlighted in pink in Figure 1) are expressed in a formal structure as a set
of “patterns languages”. This set of patterns is intended to be readable
end-to-end as a piece of prose but is structured also in a way that lends
itself to being quoted and used pattern by pattern and to being encapsulated in
more formal, tractable, and machine-processable forms including concept maps,
Topic Maps, RDF or OWL.
Pattern Languages
The idea of Pattern Languages, as a process for analyzing
recurrent problems and a mechanism for capturing those problems and archetypal
solutions, was first outlined by architect Christopher Alexander [Alexander
1964] and [Alexander 1979]: “The value of a Pattern Language is that
remains readable and engaging whilst providing basic hooks for further machine
processing… [it] is not an ‘out-of-the-box’ solution but rather some ‘familiar’
patterns with which a team can work” [Brown 2011].
The exact configuration
varies from one pattern language to another, and the pattern adopted in the TGF
is structured as follows:
·
the name of the pattern and a reference number;
·
an introduction that sets the context and,
optionally, indicates how the pattern contributes to a larger pattern;
·
a headline statement that captures the essence of the need
being addressed;
·
the body of the need being addressed;
·
the recommended solution – what needs to be done;
·
some notes on linkages, showing how each pattern links to
related and more detailed patterns that further implement or extend the current
pattern. In some cases this also includes references to external resources that
are not part of the TGF.
These patterns together make up an initial set of “Core
Patterns” of what is expected to be an evolving set of TGF patterns. These
form the core of the TGF standard, and it is against these that conformance
criteria are set out in Section 9. Where closely related patterns have been
grouped together in one section of this document – for example, on Business
Management, Service Management and Technology and Digital Asset Management –
the relevant section also includes some additional introductory text to help
readers understand linkages more easily. This text, however, does not form
part of the TGF Core Pattern Language.
There is one TGF Core Pattern on Guiding Principles. This
is set out below.
Context
Development and delivery of a
successful TGF program requires collaboration and change across a wide range of
individuals, communities and organizations over a sustained period of time. An
approach that is rooted in a set of clearly stated principles can help ensure
that business decisions across those organizations align.
In the TGF, we use the term “principle” to mean an enduring
statement of values which can used on a consistent basis to steer business
decision by multiple stakeholders making over the long term, and which are:
·
used
to inform and underpin strategy;
·
understood, agreed and owned by stakeholders.
v v
v
The Problem
A management hand on the
tiller is not enough to deliver effective transformation. Effective
transformational government strategies need to be principle-based.
“Transformational Government” is a managed process of
ICT-enabled change in the public sector, which puts the needs of citizens and
businesses at the heart of that process and which achieves significant and
transformational impacts on the efficiency and effectiveness of government. Leaders
of TGF programs face significant challenges. These include:
·
the scope of the program, which
touches on a very wide range – potentially all – social and economic activity
in a jurisdiction;
·
the scale of ambition for the
program, which is aiming to achieve change that is transformational not
incremental;
·
the wide range of stakeholders and
delivery partners involved in the program.
Taken together, these
challenges mean that top-down change management approaches cannot work. Success
cannot be delivered by planning in detail all elements of the change at the
outset. Rather, it can be delivered by setting out a clear and agreed vision,
and then underpinning this with a roadmap that does not over-plan but that
provides a framework for an organic, inclusive process of change to deliver the
vision over time across multiple stakeholders. Key elements of this are
explored in the other Patterns of the TGF. But the starting point should be
clarity about the guiding principles that stakeholders will seek to work
towards throughout this process.
A “one-size-fits-all” approach to public sector reform does not
work. Nevertheless, there are some guiding principles which 10-15 years of experience
with e‑enabled government around the world suggests are universal. They
are based on the experience of many OASIS member organizations working with
governments of all kinds, all around the world, and they form the heart of the TGF.
v v
v
The Solution
TGF leaders should
collaborate with stakeholders to develop and agree a set of guiding principles
for that specific TGF program that cover, as a minimum, the core TGF Guiding
Principles.
The TGF Guiding Principles are
set out below, and must be used by any Transformational Government program
conforming to the Framework. These principles together represent an enduring
statement of values which the Leadership for a Transformational
Government program should adopt and use consistently as a basis to steer
business decision-making throughout the conception, development, implementation
and follow-up of that program. These are explicitly declaratory
statements of principle (“We believe…”) that reflect the desired commitment of
the program Leadership as well as indicating the expectations from all Stakeholders.
We believe in establishing a
vision of the future which our TGF program will create which is clear,
compelling and jointly owned by all stakeholders
Clarity
about the social, economic and environmental outcomes we want to achieve, and
the challenges involved in doing so.
A
shared vision of how we will invest in and transform our physical, spatial,
digital and human assets to deliver those outcomes, and what doing so will look
and feel like.
All stakeholders involved in
developing and delivering the vision.
We believe in detailed and segmented understanding of our
citizen and business customers
These customers should be owned at the whole-of-government
level.
Decisions should be based upon the results of research and evidence
rather than assumptions being made about what customers think.
Real-time,
event-level understanding of citizen and business interactions with government
should be developed.
We believe in services built around customer needs, not
organizational structure
Customers should be provided with a “one-stop service”
experience in their dealings with government, built around their needs (such as
accessibility).
Government should not be continually restructured in order to
achieve this. Instead "customer franchises" should be created – small customer-focused teams that sit within
the existing structures of government and act as change agents for their
customer segments.
Services should be delivered across multiple channels using
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles to join it all up, reduce
infrastructure duplication, and encouraging customers into lower cost channels where
appropriate.
Organizational and business change must be addressed before money is
spent on technology.
A
cross-government strategy should be built for common citizen and business data
sets (e.g. name, address) and common customer applications (e.g.
authentication, payments, notifications).
We believe that transformation is done with citizens and
businesses, not to them
All stakeholders should be engaged directly in service design
and delivery.
Customers should be given the technology tools that enable them to create
public value themselves.
People
should be given ownership and control of their personal data - and all
non-personally identifiable data held by government should be freely open for
reuse and innovation by third parties.
We believe in growing the market for transformed services
Service transformation plans should be integrated with an effective
digital inclusion strategy to build access to and demand for e-services across
society.
We will use the benefits from future
universality of digital access to help fund the costs of ensuring digital
inclusion now.
Partnerships
should be built with other market players (in the private, voluntary and
community sectors) in recognition of their significant influence on customer
attitudes and behaviour and enable the market and others to work with
government to deliver jointly-owned objectives.
We believe in managing and
measuring key critical success factors:
Figure 2: The nine Critical
Success Factors
v v
v
Linkages
Delivering these
principles, in line with the [CSF1] Critical
Success Factors, requires government to re-visit – and potentially to
transform – every stage of the service delivery process. Developing, agreeing
and acting as guardians of the guiding principles is a core task for people
involved in [B2]
Program Leadership, and should be
addressed at an early stage in development of the [B1] Vision for Transformation and [B10] Roadmap for Transformation.
This section of the TGF
focuses on business management: that is, the key aspects of governance,
planning and decision making that need to be managed at a whole-of-government
level. This does not mean a top-down, centrally planned and managed
approach; it does mean taking a government-wide approach to:
•
establishing an integrated vision
and strategy;
•
underpinning this with
an operating model which balances the need for government-wide cohesion on the
one hand and local innovation on the other;
•
taking a “viral”
approach to implementation: establishing the business processes, capacity and
structures that can drive transformation and create sustained improvements over
time, even if all the steps of that transformational journey cannot be planned
in detail at the outset.
The core patterns within the
business management component of the TGF are:
·
[B1] Vision for Transformation
·
[B2] Program Leadership
·
[B3]
Transformational Operating Model
·
[B4] Franchise
Marketplace
·
[B5] Stakeholder
Collaboration
·
[B6] Policy Product Management
·
[B7] Supplier
Partnership
·
[B8] Skills
·
[B9] Common Terminology
and Reference Model
·
[B10] Roadmap for Transformation
Context
First among the [GP1] Guiding Principles is the need for [B2]
Program Leadership to
develop a clear, compelling and shared vision for the transformation program.
v v
v
The Problem
It is not the intent of the Transformational Government
Framework to describe some perfect “end-state” for government. All governments
are different: the historical, cultural, political,
economic, social and demographic context within which each government operates
is different, as is the legacy of business processes and technology
implementation from which it starts. So the Transformational Government
Framework is not a “one-size-fits-all” prescription for what a government
should look like in future.
Rather, each TGF program needs
to set its own clear vision. This will require agreement and clarity amongst
stakeholders on:
·
the social, economic and/or
environmental impacts that the TGF program seeks to achieve;
·
the challenges that a TGF program needs to overcome in order to deliver these
impacts and the vision should address – such as, for example:
−
Public sector budget pressures
−
Changing service needs
−
Infrastructure stress
−
Resource scarcity
−
Skills and market access
−
Growing population
−
Aging population
−
Mobile population
−
Economic inequality
−
Digital divide
·
how the future will “feel”
different for key stakeholders – so that the vision is articulated not in
technical terms, but also in human and emotional ones.
v v
v
The Solution
Program
Leadership must create a vision for
the TGF program that:
a)
is developed in an iterative and collaborative manner (that is, inclusive
of all stakeholder groups and informed by user research and engagement, with
social media and other technologies used to enable wide public participation in
the process);
b)
embraces the opportunities opened up by new technologies and delivery channels,
open data and effective collaboration;
c)
does so in a way which integrates these with the core socio-economic, political
and environmental vision for the future, rather than seeing them as somehow
separate from the government’s core strategic objectives;
d) can
be measured.
v v
v
Linkages
The vision should
be informed by the TGF program’s [GP1] Guiding Principles, and
developed through intensive [B5]
Stakeholder Collaboration. It is vital
to ensure that the vision can be expressed in terms of measurable outcomes and
that clear “line of sight” is established between all activities in the roadmap
and delivery of these outcomes for the program vision. Guidance on how to do
this effectively is set out at Benefit Realization.
Context
Development of a shared and
compelling [B1] Vision for Transformation requires significant
leadership and strategic clarity; delivery of the vision then requires that
leadership to be sustained over a period of years.
v v
v
The Problem
Transformational government cannot be pursued on a
project-by-project or agency-specific basis but requires a whole-of-government
view. At the same time, transformation cannot be delivered successfully through
traditional top-down program structures – so TGF programs need to find
effective ways to empower and enable leadership on a distributed, cross-government
basis.
There is no “ideal”
leadership structure for a transformation program. However, global experience suggests the
following factors are vital to address in whichever way is most appropriate for
the specific government context:
a)
A clear focus of accountability for the TGF program
as a whole.
At both the political and administrative
levels there should be an explicit functional responsibility for the TGF
program. These functions should be occupied by individuals with sufficient
authority to shape resource allocation and organizational priorities.
b)
Building a broad-based
leadership team across the government.
It is not essential that all Ministers and senior management are committed to the TGF program from the very outset.
Indeed, a key requirement of building and managing a [B10] Roadmap for
Transformation is to work in ways that nurture and grow support for
the strategy through the implementation process. However, it is important the TGF program is
not seen as a centralized or top-down. Sharing leadership roles for the design
and delivery of a program with senior colleagues across the government and with external partner organizations is therefore important.
c)
Bringing leaders together in
effective governance arrangements.
Government-wide governance systems need to be established at two levels:
·
the strategic governance level,
focused on defining required outcomes of the TGF program and ensuring effective
Benefit Realization;
·
the delivery governance level,
focused on implementation of the [B10] Roadmap for Transformation.
d)
Deployment of formal program
management disciplines.
To deliver effective government-wide transformation, it is vital to use a formalized program
management approach to develop and manage a portfolio of programs and projects
that together are intended to deliver the [B1] Vision for Transformation.
While these projects can be managed by many different stakeholders, they should
be brought together into an overall strategic program of work with:
·
an overall [BR1]
Business Case, supported by
measurement of clear success indicators;
·
prioritization of activities and
program changes, based on performance and feedback criteria linked to the programs
[GP1] Guiding Principles;
·
common frameworks for managing
strategic risks, issues and constraints, bought into by all delivery partners.
e)
Ensuring the right skills mix
in the leadership team.
Effective leadership of a transformation program requires the senior
accountable leaders to have access to a mix of key skills in the leadership
team which they build around them, including: strategy development skills,
stakeholder engagement skills, marketing skills, commercial skills and
technology management skills. Deployment of a formal competency framework, such
as Skills Framework for the Information Age [SFIA] can be helpful in
identifying and building the right skill sets.
f)
Allowing for organizations’
evolution over time.
Contributions by private and voluntary stakeholders are likely to be subject to
“engagement lifecycles”. Organizations are created, evolve and eventually merge
or decline. The continuity of assets and services needs to be actively managed
throughout this evolutionary process.
g)
Ensuring an open and
transparent governance process
Finally, transparency is important in order to build trust, strengthen
accountability for delivery of the TGF program, and to facilitate openness and
collaboration with all stakeholders. This means that the leadership of a TGF
program should aim to publish all key vision and strategy documents, make names
and contact details of program leaders publically available, and publish
regular updates of performance and delivery against the [B10] Roadmap for
Transformation.
v v
v
The Solution
A TGF program should
therefore establish leadership and governance
arrangements that ensure:
a)
a clear focus of accountability
within the government for the program;
b)
a broad-based leadership team
across the government;
c)
government leaders are brought
together into effective governance arrangements, at both the strategic
and delivery levels;
d) deployment of formal program
management disciplines and prioritization of activities and
program changes, based on performance and feedback criteria;
e)
the right skills mix in the
leadership team;
f)
an ability to manage
organizational evolution among partner organizations, and to deliver
continuity through political changes;
g)
openness and transparency in the governance process, including through digitally-enabled models of wider
civil participation.
v v
v
Linkages
Key tasks for the leadership
of a TGF program include:
•
articulating and acting as
guardians of the [GP1] Guiding Principles for the TGF
program;
•
ensuring that the program is
aligned to deliver a clear, compelling and agreed [B1] Vision for Transformation;
•
acting as champions and
ambassadors for the TGF approach as part of [B5]
Stakeholder Collaboration;
•
developing and overseeing a [B10] Roadmap
for Transformation;
•
ensuring line-of-sight
from all within that roadmap and the strategic outcomes being targeted by the program
through its Benefit Realization framework;
•
ensuring that the
program is effectively managing all of the [CSF1]
Critical Success Factors.
[B3] Transformational Operating
Model
Context
A central task of the [B2] Program Leadership and [B5]
Stakeholder Collaboration is to enable the machinery of government to
deliver customer-centric services “one stop services”. They need to cooperate
with stakeholders in developing a new operating model that delivers those
services in practice, when and where they are needed.
v v
v
The Problem
The failure to create an appropriate new operating model
has arguably been the greatest weakness of most traditional e‑Government
programs. The transition to e‑Government has involved overlaying
technology onto the existing operating model of government: an operating model
based around existing functionally-oriented government departments and
agencies. These behave like unconnected silos in which policy-making, budgets,
accountability, decision-making and service delivery are all embedded within a
vertically-integrated delivery chain based around delivery functions
rather than recipient needs.
The experience of governments around the world over the last
two decades has been that silo-based delivery of services simply does not
provide an effective and efficient approach to e-government. Many attempts have
been made by governments to introduce greater cross-government coordination,
but largely these have been "bolted on" to the underlying business
model, and hence experience only limited success. Without examination of, or
fundamental change to, the underlying business model level, the design and
delivery of services remains fragmented and driven by the structures of
government, rather than the needs of the government’s customers.
Figure 3 below illustrates
the traditional operating model which is still typical of most governments:
·
the individual citizen or business has to engage separately with
each silo: making connections for themselves, rather than receiving seamless
and connected service that meets their needs;
·
data and information has typically been
locked within these silos, limiting the potential for collaboration and
innovation across the government, and limiting the potential to drive change at
speed.
Figure 3 –
Traditional operating model: where governments have come from
Government transformation programs involve a shift in
emphasis, away from silo-based delivery and towards an integrated,
multi-channel, service delivery approach: an approach which enables a
whole-of-government view of the customer and an ability to deliver services to
citizens and businesses where and when they need it most, including through
one-stop services and through private and voluntary sector intermediaries.
Key features of this shift to
a transformational operating model include:
a)
investing in smart data, i.e. ensuring that data on the performance and use
of the government’s physical, spatial and digital assets is available in real
time and on an open and interoperable basis, in order to enable real-time
integration and optimization of resources;
b)
managing public sector data as
an asset in its own right, both
within the government and in collaboration with other significant data owners
engaged in the TGF program;
c)
enabling
externally-driven, stakeholder-led innovation by citizens, communities and the private and voluntary
sectors, by opening up government data
and services for the common good:
·
both at a technical level, through
development of open data platforms;
·
and at a business level, through
steps to enable a thriving market in reuse of public data together with release
of data from commercial entities in a commercially appropriate way;
d)
enabling internally-driven,
government-led innovation
to deliver more sustainable and
citizen-centric services, by:
·
providing citizens and businesses
with public services, which are accessible in one stop, over multiple channels,
that engage citizens, businesses and communities directly in the creation of
services, and that are built around user needs not the government’s
organizational structures;
·
establishing an integrated
business and information architecture which enables a whole-of-government view
of specific customer groups for government services (e.g. elderly people,
drivers, parents, disabled people);
e)
setting holistic
and flexible budgets,
with a focus on value for money beyond standard departmental boundaries;
f)
establishing
government-wide governance and stakeholder management processes to support and evaluate these changes.
Figure 4 summarizes these
changes to the traditional way of operating which transformational government
programs are seeking to implement.
Figure
4 – New integrated operating
model: where governments are moving to
v v
v
The Solution
TGF programs should therefore ensure
that their [B1] Vision for Transformation includes the need to establish
a Transformational Operating Model to help build services around citizen and
business needs, not just government’s organizational structure. This will
include:
- providing citizens and businesses with services which
are accessible in one stop and ideally offered over multiple channels;
- enabling those services also to be delivered by private
and voluntary sector intermediaries.
The Transformational Operating Model must go beyond
simple coordination between the existing silos and should include:
- An integrated
business and information architecture which enables a whole-of-government
view of the customer, thus making possible both the integration of
services and simple, effective cross-agency customer journeys;
- Incentives and business processes that encourage the
internal cultural change and cross-silo collaboration needed to drive the
integration and joining-up of services;
- A cross-government strategy for shared development,
management and re-use of common customer data sets, applications, and
applications interfaces (e.g. authentication, payments, and notifications);
- Opening up public data for re-use and innovation by the
private and voluntary sectors, and directly by citizens and businesses.
v v
v
Linkages
Rather than attempting to restructure Government to deliver
such a Transformational Business Model, the [B4] Franchise Marketplace SHOULD
be considered as the recommended approach to implement this model.
Multi-channel delivery of services can be provided through optimized [S6] Channel Transformation and
public data can be opened up to create new sorts of value through [S1] Stakeholder Empowerment.
Common customer data sets can be built as shared services with customer data
under customer control and managed using [T2] Technology Development and
Management. This pattern is facilitated by placing citizen, business,
and organizational data under their control as set out in [S3] Identity and Privacy Management.
[B4]
Franchise Marketplace
Context
The [B3] Transformational Operating Model underpins
the requirement of Transformational Government programs to build services
around citizen and business needs rather than government’s organizational
structure. This includes having a whole-of-government view of the customer; as
well as providing those customers with services that are accessible when and
where they are most needed and ideally offered over multiple channels. This can
be achieved using a “Franchise Marketplace”
v v v
The
Problem
There is a seeming paradox -
given the huge range of government service delivery - between keeping “global”
oversight of all aspects of a customer’s needs at the same time as delivering
well-targeted services in an agile way.
Too many government departments and agencies have
overlapping but partial information about their citizens and business
customers, but nobody takes a lead responsibility for owning and managing that
information across government, let alone using it to design better services.
One way of addressing this problem has been to
restructure government: to put responsibility for customer insight and service
delivery into a single, central organization which then acts as the “retail
arm” for government as a whole to interact with all its customers.
Under this model, one organization becomes
responsible for the service delivery function across all channels -
face-to-face, contact centre, web - with relevant staff and budgets being
transferred from other agencies.
This is one way of implementing the [B3]
Transformational Operating Model as required but with one obvious
difficulty: making structural changes to government can be extremely hard. The
sheer scale of the “government business” means that any changes need to be
implemented carefully over a long period of time and take account of the
inherent risks in organizational restructuring. The resulting large-scale
delivery organization needs extremely careful management if it is to maintain the
agility that smaller-scale, more focused delivery organizations can achieve.
An alternative
approach is called the “Franchise Marketplace”: a model that permits the
joining-up of services from all parts of government and external stakeholders
in a way that makes sense to citizens and businesses, yet without attempting to
restructure the participating parts of government. Conceptually,
this leads to a model where the existing structure of government continues to
act as a supplier of services, but intermediated by a "virtual"
business infrastructure based around customer needs. A top-level view of such a
virtual, market-based approach to transformational government is set out in the
figure below:
Figure 5:
Overview
of the Franchise Marketplace
Key features of this business model
are:
The
model puts into place a number of agile cross-government virtual
"franchise businesses" based around customer segments (such as, for
example, parents, motorists, disabled people). These franchises are responsible
for gaining full understanding of their customers' needs so that they can
deliver quickly and adapt to changing requirements over time in order to
deliver more customer centric services - which in turn, is proven to drive
higher service take-up and greater customer satisfaction.
Franchises
provide a pragmatic and low-risk operational structure that enables
functionally-organized government agencies at national, regional and local to
work together in a customer-focused "Delivery Community". They do
this by:
-
Enabling government to create a "virtual" delivery
structure focused on customer needs;
-
Operating across the existing structure of Government (because
they are led by one of the existing "silos") and resourced by
organizations that have close links with the relevant customer segment
including, possibly, some outside of government;
-
Dividing the task into manageable chunks;
-
Removing a single point of failure;
-
Working to a new and precisely-defined operating model so as to
ensure consistency;
-
Working across and beyond government to manage the key risks to
customer-centric service delivery;
-
Acting as change agents inside‑Government departments /
agencies.
The
model enables a "mixed economy" of service provision:
firstly,
by providing a clear market framework within which private and voluntary sector
service providers can repackage public sector content and services; and
secondly by
deploying ‘Web 2.0’ type approaches across government that promote re-use and
‘mash-ups’ of existing content and services, to make this simpler and cheaper
at a technical level.
The whole model is
capable of being delivered using Cloud Computing.
This Franchise model represents an important break-through
in the shift from a traditional e‑Government approach towards
transformational government. Certainly, the model as a whole or key elements of
it has been adopted successfully in governments as diverse as the UK, Hong
Kong, Croatia, Abu Dhabi and Australia (where it has been adopted by both the
South Australia and Queensland governments).
It is clearly possible that alternate models may develop in
future. But however the Transformational Government agenda develops, every
government will need to find some sort of new business model along these lines,
rather than continue simply to overlay technology onto an old silo-based
business model built for an un-networked world.
v v v
The Solution
Establish a number of agile, cross-government, virtual
"franchise businesses" that:
a) are
based around customer segments (such as, for example, parents, motorists, disabled
people) and that sit inside the existing structure of government;
b) deliver
customer-centric, trusted and interoperable content and transactions to
citizens, businesses and other organizations; and
c) act
as champions of and drivers for customer-centric public service improvement.
v v v
Linkages
The Franchise Marketplace is a specific example of a [B3] Transformational Operating
Model and is considered as the most effective and lowest risk way of
delivering the element of the [GP1]
Guiding Principles which requires Transformation Programs to “Build
services around customer needs, not organizational structure”. Further details
on the key stakeholders who need to be involved in enabling the Franchise
Marketplace model are contained at Appendix B.
[B5] Stakeholder Collaboration
Context
Effective stakeholder
collaboration is critical. Establishing a process of sustainable change
requires a critical mass of actors inside and outside of the government to be
both engaged and supportive. Delivering a [B1] Vision for Transformation cannot
be done without meaningful stakeholder collaboration.
The private, voluntary and
community sectors have considerable influence on citizen attitudes and
behavior. These influences must be transformed into partnerships which enable
the market to deliver program objectives. This requires a “map” of all
stakeholders as part of overall business management.
v v
v
The Problem
It is not enough to map and understand stakeholder
relationships and concerns. Classic models of
stakeholder engagement also need to be re-assessed.
Leaders from all parts of the government organization, as
well as other organizations involved in the program, need to be motivated for
the program to succeed and need to be engaged in clear and collaborative
governance mechanisms to manage any risks and issues. The development and
delivery of an effective Transformational Government program requires
engagement with a very wide range of stakeholders, not only across the whole of
government but also, in most cases, with one or more of the private, voluntary
and community sectors as well as with public service customers. A significant
effort is needed to include all stakeholders in the governance of the
Transformational Government program at an appropriate and effective level.
Key elements are set out below that a conformant TGF program
will need to address in developing its Collaborative Stakeholder Governance
Model, if it is to engage successfully with stakeholders and align them
effectively behind shared objectives.
Figure 6: Overview of Collaborative Stakeholder
Governance
It is vital to describe and map the complete landscape of
relevant stakeholders. The Transformational Government Framework puts the
individual – whether acting on their own behalf as a citizen or on behalf of
another citizen or of a business– at the centre:
Figure 7:
Landscape
of some key stakeholders
This view deliberately and completely avoids
the rather generic concept of ‘User’ that is dominant in traditional IT
stakeholder engagement models, preferring rather to identify the different
interests and concerns that are at stake (the mauve labels) and the key groups
of stakeholders (the different people icons) in the development of any service.
The figure
is by no means complete nor the only ‘valid’ view. It seeks instead to
illustrate that the process of transformation requires reappraisal of the
current set-up and assessment of what needs to change.
By clearly separating out key stakeholder
groups and starting to understand and articulate their specific concerns as
stakeholders (any individual’s role may vary according to context:
in one situation, a person is a parent; in another, a policy-maker; or another,
a service provider), we can start to understand how stakeholders relate (in
different roles): to each other; to various administrations and services
involved; to policy drivers and constraints; and how these all come together in
a coherent ecosystem supported by a Transformational Government Framework. In
this view:
A service
(or ICT capability made available as a service) is understood as responding to
a set of requirements and policy goals (some of which overlap) – stakeholders
concerned at this level include, for example, case workers in a public
administration or developers who have worked with them in delivering a specific
service;
Requirements encapsulate and formalize vaguely stated
goals and needs of citizens and businesses and take on board the policy goals
of the political sponsor or champion – stakeholders at this level include, for
example, managers of public service who can articulate the needs of their
respective services, the information and systems architects who capture those
needs as formal requirements that engineers can work with to develop services;
Policy
Goals capture the high-level concerns and priorities of the political
authorities and continually assess how these goals reflect key citizen and
business concerns – stakeholders include policy makers and senior management as
well as consultants and analysts involved in helping identify technology and
administrative trends that can be used to leverage those goals; and finally;
Citizen and Business Needs that, ultimately, can only
be fully understood by the people concerned themselves – nonetheless
stakeholders at this level can also include citizen or business associations,
consumer and other interest groups who engage with policy makers to advance the
interests of certain groups with distinct needs and are able to articulate
those needs in ways that can be used by analysts and consultants.
The various ellipses in the diagram above are deliberately
not concentric circles. This is to underline that the process of establishing a
service or capability is not a linear one going from needs, goals and
requirements. In reality stages are often inter-related.
The mapping of stakeholders and their principal concerns at
a generic level is used as a key input to the TGF [B9] Reference Model
and that needs to be validated within any TGF program. It is valuable as a tool
for encouraging collaborative governance as it renders explicit many of the
relationships and concerns that are often left implicit but nonetheless impact
on an organization’s ability to reflect stakeholders’ concerns.
However, it is not
enough simply to map and understand stakeholder relationships and concerns. An
effective TGF program will also address the three other dimensions of the model
illustrated above:
Stakeholder Engagement Structures: the organizational arrangements put in place to lead
the transformation program, e.g.:
-
central unit(s)
-
governance boards
-
industry partnership board.
Stakeholder Engagement Processes: the processes and work flows
through which the TGF Leadership and the different TGF Stakeholders interact, e.g.:
-
reporting and accountability processes
-
risk management processes
-
issue escalation processes
-
consultation processes
-
collaborative product development processes.
Stakeholder Incentives: the set of levers available to drive
change through these governance structures and processes. These will vary by
government, but typical levers being deployed include:
-
central mandates
-
political leadership
-
administrative championship
-
personal performance incentives for
government officials
-
alignment between public policy objectives
and the commercial objectives of private sector partners.
There is no one right model for doing this successfully, but
any conformant TGF program needs to make sure that it has used the framework
above to define its own Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement Model which
explicitly articulates all of these elements: a comprehensive stakeholder map,
coupled with the structures, processes and incentives needed to deliver full understanding
and buy-in to the program, plus effective stakeholder action in support of it.
Collaboration between TGF Programs
The model clearly focuses attention within any
specific TGF program. However (and increasingly) collaboration is required also
between governments and, by implication, between TGF programs. In the
figure below, we see that collaboration between TGF programs is favoured at the
political, legal and organizational levels and only later, if and when
necessary, at the more ‘tightly-coupled’ semantic and technical levels.
Figure 8: Collaboration between TGF programs
through different levels of Interoperability
This approach is also consistent with the SOA paradigm for
service development – not only are requirements defined and services offered
independently of any underlying technology or infrastructure but also one TGF
program can be seen (and may need to be seen) as a ‘service provider’ to
another TGF program’s ‘service request’. For example, a business wishing to
establish itself in a second country may need to provide authenticated
information and credentials managed by government or business in the first
country.
A further advantage of this approach is that it becomes
easier to identify and manage high level government requirements for services:
whether in the choice of ICT standards that may need to be used to address a
particular technology issue or determining the criteria for awarding public
procurement contracts, this approach allows a ‘loose-coupling’ at the level of
clearly defined high-level policy needs rather than the more tightly-coupled
and often brittle approach of specifying particular technologies, software or
systems.
v v
v
The Solution
TGF programs should
establish, and give high priority and adequate resources to, a formal managed stakeholder engagement program.
This should be led by a senior executive and integrated into the roles of all
involved in delivering the TGF program, and should cover:
·
Stakeholder
modelling: identifying and mapping the relationships
between all key stakeholders in the program (users, suppliers,
delivery partners elsewhere in the public, private and voluntary sector,
politicians, the media, etc.); maintaining and updating the stakeholder model
on a regular basis;
·
A
collaborative stakeholder governance model: establishing
a clear set of structures, processes and incentives through which the [B2]
Program
Leadership
and
the different stakeholders will interact, and covering:
‒ stakeholder
participation: ensuring that all stakeholders have a
clear understanding of the TGF program and how they will benefit from it, and
have effective and inclusive routes (including through use of digital media) to
engage with and participate in the program;
‒ cross-sectoral
partnership: engaging effectively with stakeholders
from the private, public and voluntary sectors to deliver the program in a way
that benefits all sectors;
‒ engagement
with other transformation programs to
learn lessons and exchange experience.
v v
v
Linkages
Stakeholder Collaboration should be established as a formal
workstream within the [B10] Roadmap for
Transformation, with measurable performance metrics built into the Benefits Realization framework. Stakeholder
engagement underpins all other parts of the TGF, because anyone in involved in
the realization of the [B1] Vision for
Transformation (or receiving benefits as a result) is considered
a stakeholder. However, intensive multi-stakeholder engagement is particularly
important for [B1] Vision
for Transformation, [B2]
Program Leadership,
[B7] Supplier
Partnership,
[S2] Brand-led Service
Delivery, [S1] Stakeholder Empowerment and [S3] Identity
and Privacy Management. The development of successful
customer franchises within the [B4] Franchise Marketplace
will depend on the effectiveness of collaborative governance – while at the
same time helping improve stakeholder collaboration significantly.
[B6] Policy Product Management
Context
In any government, “Policy
Products” - the written policies, frameworks and standards which inform
government activity - are important drivers of change. In the context of
Transformational Government, the [B2] Program Leadership will use
a wide set of Policy Products to help deliver the program – and, in particular,
to ensure interoperability between the different organizations and systems
involved in the TGF program.
v v
v
The Problem
Traditional policy approaches for e-government have often
been too narrowly focused. An effective Transformational Government program
requires a more holistic approach to policy development.
We define a "Policy Product" as: any document that
has been formally adopted on a government-wide basis in order to help achieve
the goals of transformational government. These documents vary in nature (from
statutory documents with legal force, through mandated policies, to informal
guidance and best practice) and in length (some may be very lengthy documents;
others just a few paragraphs of text). Policy Products are important drivers of
change within government: first because the process of producing them, if managed
effectively, can help ensure strategic clarity and stakeholder buy-in; and
second because they then become vital communication and management tools. Conversely, if policy products are poorly managed and/or
out of date, then they can become significant constraints to effective change.
Over recent years, several governments have published a wide
range of Policy Products as part of their work on e-Government, including
e-Government Visions, e-Government Strategies, e-Government Interoperability
Frameworks, and Enterprise Architectures. Other governments are therefore able
to draw on these as reference models when developing their own Policy
Products. However, we believe that the set of Policy Products required to
ensure that a holistic, government -wide vision for transformation can be
delivered is much broader than is currently being addressed in most
Interoperability Frameworks and Enterprise Architectures.
The European Commission
identifies five broad interoperability domains via the European Interoperability
Framework (EIF): technical, semantic, organizational, legal, and policy
interoperability. While this framework is conceptually complete, TGF programs
will find it helpful to map the five EIF dimensions against the three
government-wide delivery and governance processes identified in the TGF:
business management, service management, and technology and data asset
management.
The resulting matrix represents the landscape within which a
government needs to map the barriers to interoperability which it faces, and
relevant constraints placed by national or international policy commitments. In
each cell of the matrix, some action is likely to be needed.
This Policy Product Matrix MUST be used to create a map of
all the Policy Products needed to deliver a particular TGF program effectively.
This matrix maps the three delivery processes of the TGF (Business Management, Service
Management and Technology and Digital Asset Management) against the five interoperability
domains identified in the [EIF].
v v
v
The Solution
TGF Programs should therefore
use the Policy Product Matrix below as a tool to:
a)
help identify key barriers to
interoperability in their TGF program;
b)
identify, for each and every cell in the matrix, the policy product(s)
that are needed to deliver the Transformational Program effectively. Nil, one,
or multiple policy product(s) may be required per cell. Consideration MUST be
given to every cell as to which policy products might be included.
c)
establish policies and actions to address these,
drawing on international, European or national standards where possible; and
d) promote
commonality of approaches and easier linkages with other TGF programs.
Delivery Processes
|
Interoperability Levels
|
|
Political
|
Legal
|
Organizational
|
Semantic
|
Technical
|
|
Business Management
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Service Management
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Technology and Digital Asset Management
|
|
|
|
|
|
v v
v
Linkages
The [B2] Program
Leadership should undertake this policy gap analysis through [B5] Stakeholder
Collaboration, and then ensure that the accountability and process for
developing any missing Policy Products is embedded within the [B10] Roadmap for Transformation.
A full analysis of
the Policy Products which we recommend are typically needed to deliver an
effective and holistic transformation program are described in a separate TGF Committee
Note “Tools and Models for the Business Management Framework”. Although the
detailed Policy Products in that note are advisory and not all of them may be
needed, any conformant transformation program MUST use the overall framework
and matrix of the Policy Product Map in order to conduct at minimum a gap
analysis aimed at identifying the key Policy Products needed for that
government, taking the Committee Note into account as guidance.
[B7] Supplier Partnership
Context
Governments rely heavily on
suppliers to deliver large parts of their services. These suppliers are usually
external organizations but they can also be other internal parts of government.
The management of supplier relationships needs to sit above the management of
individual contracts and it is important that distinction is fully understood
by all parties. Legacy supplier relationships and procurement policies have often
raised significant barriers to transformation programs.
v v
v
The Problem
Transformational
Government programs require effective, partnership-based relationships with
suppliers but the relationships themselves can obscure or prevent the vision of
more citizen-centric and integrated service delivery.
Supplier partnerships should set
out a formalized and robust way of managing, monitoring and developing supplier
and commissioning party performance whilst at the same time minimizing risks to
the business. ‘Partnerships’ focus on the overall relationship over time rather
than the specific relationship around an individual, time-limited, contract.
Yet traditional public sector
procurement and supplier management practices can represent a significant
obstacle to transformational government. From both the public and private
sector sides of the market, there is strong evidence that such practices can
stifle innovation and inhibit the ability of governments and industry jointly
to undertake real life R&D and to pool intellectual property for mutual
benefit.
Equally, there is increasing
consensus on new, “smarter” approaches to supplier partnership, which are
already starting to develop and should be more widely adopted. Figure 9
summarizes some of the key elements of this shift.
|
|
|
Traditional public procurement and supplier
management
|
|
Transformational Supplier Partnership
|
|
Silo-based procurement, with
requirements set by individual agencies within the government…
|
|
An integrated strategic
approach to the commissioning of services, across the government and in
partnership with other public service delivery organizations
|
|
…and with little ability to
fund solutions that benefit multiple organizations
|
|
Budget alignment mechanisms
enable effective provision of common good platforms and services
|
|
The government defines the
technology and other inputs it wants to buy, and the immediate outputs it
wants these to deliver
|
|
The government defines the
outcomes and service levels it wants to achieve
|
|
Requirements are developed
internally by the government
|
|
Requirements are developed
iteratively, in partnership between customer, commissioner and supplier
|
|
The government brings its
requirements to the market in a piecemeal manner
|
|
Published pipelines of future
requirements help to stimulate the market and enable suppliers to propose new
cross-cutting solutions to deliver multiple requirements
|
|
Government agencies define
their requirements in isolation from each other
|
|
Joint procurement initiatives,
facilitated by shared pipelines, enable shared services across more than one
agency and also stimulate the market for standardized and replicable public
sector solutions (including via Cloud Computing)
|
|
Procurement and contracting is
based around purchaser–provider, client–agent relationships
|
|
A range of more innovative
delivery models are deployed, including joint ventures and partnerships
between government, industry and academia that promote collaborative
solutions while safeguarding the intellectual property of each
|
|
Procurement decisions focus
primarily on price
|
|
Procurement decisions focus
primarily on long-term value for money, including:
·
total
cost of ownership (including costs of exit);
·
the
suppliers’
ability to innovate;
·
confidence
in delivering the expected business benefits.
|
|
IT as a capital investment
|
|
IT as a service
|
|
Long-term, inflexible
contracts
|
|
Appropriate use of short-term,
on-demand purchasing
|
|
Bespoke, vertically-integrated
solutions for each line of business
|
|
Sharing and re-using
standardized components, drawing on best-of-breed building blocks and
commercial-off-the-shelf products
|
|
Government systems are unable
to interoperate, due to over-reliance on proprietary systems
|
|
Interoperability based on open
standards is designed into all procurements from the outset
|
|
Important public data-sets
cannot be opened up because they are owned by suppliers
|
|
Standard contractual
arrangements ensure that all government suppliers make public data available
via open standards and either for free or, where appropriate, on fair,
reasonable and non-discriminatory terms
|
|
No incentives on suppliers to
share, collaborate and innovate with other stakeholders
|
|
Contractual arrangements
encourage collaboration with others to create new value, and the sharing of
common assets, with benefits being shared between the government and its
suppliers
|
|
The government buys from a
limited pool of large suppliers
|
|
The government buys from a
large pool of small suppliers, plus strategic relations with a smaller number
of platform suppliers who themselves integrate with many SMEs
|
|
Government
leaders focus on managing relationships with a few large vendors
|
|
Government leaders focus on
nurturing and managing an innovation ecosystem
|
Figure 9 – Towards
transformational supplier
partnerships
v v
v
The Solution
TGF programs should
therefore:
a)
take an integrated view of the
program’s procurement requirements, establishing
governance arrangements that enable a government-wide overview of major
procurements;
b)
review procurement policies to
ensure they align with smart contracting principles:
·
focus on procuring business
outcomes: specify what the
supplier should achieve, not how it should achieve it (in general, this
includes procuring services not assets);
·
build open data into all
procurements: be clear that all
data is to be owned by the government not the supplier, or establish clear
requirements for the supplier to make data available via open standards and
fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms;
·
incentivize innovation and
collaboration: ensure that
contractual arrangements encourage collaboration with others to create new
value, and the sharing of common government assets;
·
avoid supplier lock-in, by integrating interoperability requirements into
all ICT procurement, using commercial-off-the-shelf products and open standards
wherever possible, and factoring in the costs of exit from the outset;
c)
work to nurture an innovation ecosystem across the government
and its suppliers, including by:
·
publishing the government’s
procurement policies, ensuring
that all changes following the review are widely known;
·
publishing and updating a
pipeline of major procurement
opportunities;
·
early and iterative
engagement with potential
suppliers, including local and other SMEs, to benefit from innovation
and stimulate the market;
·
stimulating SME-led
innovation, including through use
of competitions and placing SME-engagement requirements on large suppliers;
·
driving forward the internal cultural and behavioural
changes entailed by the above recommendations.
v v
v
Linkages
Successful supplier
partnerships require specific skills sets to effectively manage the
relationship. Attention should be given to this as part of the wider focus on
ensuring the requisite [B8] Skills
are available to the program. The need
to nurture an innovation ecosystem of suppliers should be a major theme of [B5]
Stakeholder Collaboration, and
will be facilitated by adoption of the [B4]
Franchise Marketplace. In
reviewing procurement and contracting policies, program leaders should seek to
align contracting principles with the strategy for open,
service-oriented, IT architecture set out in [T2]
Technology Development
and Management.
[B8] Skills
Context
Implementing
a Transformational Government program and establishing [S2] Brand-Led Service Delivery involves taking a holistic,
market-driven approach to service design and delivery, which in turn often
requires new skills. Part of the responsibility of [B2] Program
Leadership is to ensure that program leaders have the skills needed to
drive all aspects of the program. This focus on skills has of course to be part
of an effective HR Management discipline.
v v
v
The Problem
Governments generally lack the key skills to manage
service development. Where they do exist there is often reliability on a small
number of individuals with no continuity plans in place for when those
individuals are either absent for any reason or leave the team.
The full range of business change, product and marketing
management, program management, and technology skills needed to deliver transformational
change does not already exist in the organization.
Many of the policy products required for the
Transformational Government program will take governments into new territory
and it is unlikely that they will have all the skills necessary to develop
these in-house.
v v
v
The Solution
Ensure the right skills mix is available to the program,
particularly in the leadership team but also throughout the whole
delivery team.
Map out the required skills together with a clear
strategy for acquiring them and a continuity plan for maintaining them.
Be prepared to buy-in or borrow the necessary skills in
the short term to fill any gaps.
Ensure that the program leaders, i.e. the
senior accountable leaders, have the skills needed to drive ICT-enabled
business transformation, and have access to external support.
Ensure there is skills integration and skills transfer by
having effective mechanisms to maximize value from the skills available in all
parts of the delivery team, bringing together internal and external
skills into an integrated team.
v v
v
Linkages
The development of a Transformation Competency Framework is
a good way of producing a taxonomy of the competencies required to deliver
ICT-enabled transformation, which should then be underpinned by tools enabling
organizations to assess their competency gaps and individuals to build their
own personal development plans. Deployment of a formal competency framework
such as [SFIA] can be helpful in identifying and building the right
skill sets. As an example see the UK’s Competency and Skills Framework which is
available at http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/networks/government-it-profession/framework.
See also [B6] Policy
Product Management, [B7]
Supplier Partnership and [CSF1]
Critical Success Factors.
[B9] Common Terminology and Reference Model
Context
In any change program of the breadth and complexity that the
TGF supports, it is vital that all stakeholders have a common understanding of
the key concepts involved and how they interrelate, and have a common language
to describe these in.
v v
v
The Problem
Leadership and communication both break down when
stakeholders understand and use terms and concepts in very different ways,
leading to ambiguity, misunderstanding and, potentially, loss of stakeholder
engagement.
In everyday life, we use terms – ‘citizen’, ‘need’,
‘service’ – as common, often implicitly accepted labels for concepts.
The concept is the abstract mental idea (which should be universal and language
independent) to which the term gives a material expression in a specific
language. Particularly in an international environment such as global
standardization initiatives, the distinction is important as it is common
concepts that we wish to work with, not common terms.
This distinction also helps avoid common modeling pitfalls.
Terms that may seem similar or the same across two or more languages may
actually refer to different concepts; or a single term in one language could be
understood to refer to more than one concept which another language expresses
with discrete terms: For example, the English term ‘service’ can refer
to different concepts - an organizational unit (such as ‘Passport
Service’ or ‘Emergency Services’) or something that is performed by one for
another (such as ‘a dry cleaning service’ or ‘authentication service’), whereas
discrete terms are used for the discrete concepts in German (‘Dienst’ or
‘Dienstleistung’ respectively for the two examples above). As the TGF is
intended for use anywhere in the world, it is important to ensure that
(ideally) global concepts can be transposed and translated and thus understood
in other languages: we therefore need to associate an explicit definition with
each concept as we do in a dictionary. The TGF uses a standard structure and
methodology to create its terminology
and we recommend that such an approach should be maintained in any extension of
the terminology.
Concepts do not exist in isolation. In addition to clear
definitions and agreed terms, It is the broader understanding of the
relationships between concepts that give them fuller meaning and allow us to
model our world, our business activities, our stakeholders, etc. in a way that
increases the chance that our digital systems are an accurate reflection of our
work. Any conformant agency should be able to use a common terminology without
ambiguity and be sure that these terms are used consistently throughout all
work.
The Solution
Ensure that all stakeholders have a clear, consistent and
common understanding of the key concepts involved in Transformational Government;
how these concepts relate to each other; how they can be formally modeled; and
how such models can be leveraged and integrated into new and existing
information architectures. To this end:
Seek agreement among stakeholders to establish and
maintain an agreed and shared Common Terminology and Reference Model. Develop
and maintain that terminology using an agreed standard.
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Linkages
Introduction to Terminology
A core terminology is proposed below
and any program should consider this as a basis for its own terminology and
reference model. The TGF does not include a formal ontology but is sufficiently
clear in its concepts, definitions and relationships between concepts that
subsequent ontology development is possible if so desired.
Each entry below consists of a preferred
Term followed by the Definition (indented). Words in bold
within a definition refer to other terms defined within this core terminology.
Occasionally, a definition is followed by a note to clarify some element of the
definition or term.
Core Terminology
accessibility
requirement ensuring that people with disabilities
and the elderly can use public services with the same service levels as any
other customer
business change
change to processes, procedures, policies,
organizational structures, etc. necessary to realize benefits
channel
means and path of delivery of a service to a customer
customer
natural or legal person (a citizen or a business) who uses
a public service
Note: Standard SOA terminology refers to “consumer”.
Customer is the preferred term used in this document in order to highlight a
more active role than is implied by (the more passive term) consumer.
customer franchise
collaborative organization created by the government geared
to understanding the needs of a specific customer segment
Note: Examples of customer segment are parents,
motorists, disabled people, land and property. A customer franchise understands
and champions, within government, the needs of that segment for government
services; aggregates content and transactions for that segment from across
government and beyond; and delivers that content and services as part of the
wider Franchise Marketplace.
delegate
person or agent acting with authority on behalf of another
person
delivery roadmap
detailed multi-year plan for the delivery of an overall
cross-government vision for service transformation
ecosystem
set of ICT systems and stakeholders together
with the environment and context within which they all operate
franchise marketplace
virtual business infrastructure within which customer
franchises collaborate with each other and with other stakeholders in
order to deliver user-centric, trusted and interoperable content and
transactions to customers
Note: The Franchise Marketplace is the business
model recommended by the TGF for best delivery of the TGF Guiding Principle of
“Build services around customer needs, not organizational structure”.
goal
desired Outcome
Note: A goal is broadly stated and unmeasured,
possibly unmeasurable. It is not to be confused with objective.
governance
method or system by which an organization's strategy,
policies and processes are directed, monitored and evaluated
input
resource to be processed
to produce an Output
Note: It can be any resource - document, artifact - anything.
interoperability
ability of disparate and diverse organizations to interact
towards mutually beneficial and agreed common goals
Note: Interoperability involves the sharing of
information and knowledge between the organizations, through the business
processes they support, by means of the exchange of data between their
respective ICT systems.
leadership
key people and governance structures needed to
develop and implement a Transformational Government program
metric
measure that is used to help
manage any service, plan, project or other activity
Note: For example Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used to measure the achievement of critical
success factors.
need
general statement expressed by a stakeholder of
something that is desired
Note: Not to be confused with a Requirement
objective
specific, measurable and achievable Outcome that a
participant seeks to have realized
one-stop service
service designed around the needs
of customers enabling them to be integrated as a single point of service
delivery, according to common service standards and with common marketing and
communication
Note: Such a service
brings content and transactions from a wide number of different government
agencies, and from different layers of government enabling them to be requested
by and delivered to the customer without the customer requiring any
knowledge of agency or government service structure or procedures.
outcome
net result of an activity being
carried out, following a process, or delivering an IT service etc.
Note: An outcome is a measure
of the impact of the program to which one or more stakeholders attribute
value. Outcomes generally contribute to Strategic Purpose. In some Benefits
Realization Management methods Outcomes are referred to as Benefits.
output
product that is the result of a planned activity
Note: This can be a tangible or intangible artifact.
Examples of tangible outputs are enablers or some system capability; an
example of an intangible output is a business change.
policy product
document that has been formally adopted on a
government-wide basis
Note: A Policy Product aims at helping achieve one
or more goals of transformational government.
process
set of proposed activities
designed to accomplish a specific objective
Note: A process takes one
or more defined inputs and turns them into defined outputs. It
may include any of the roles, responsibilities, tools and management controls
required to reliably deliver the outputs. A process may define policies,
standards, guidelines, activities and work instructions if they are needed.
requirement
formal statement of a desired result that, if achieved,
will satisfy a need
security
set of mechanisms for ensuring and enhancing trust and
confidence in a system
service-orientation
paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities
that may be under the control of different ownership domains
stakeholder
person inside or outside an organization who has a vested
interest in a given ecosystem
stakeholder governance model
model and process in which key stakeholders
are identified, and engaged and who in turn buy-in to the transformation
program
strategic purpose
overall goal and objective which TGF Outcomes
are designed to achieve
Note: This will be the core rationale for
undertaking the TGF program.
system
collection of processes and capabilities that are
related together in order to deliver an outcome
transformational government
managed, customer-centred, process of ICT-enabled change
within the public sector and in its relationships with the private and
voluntary sectors
[B10] Roadmap
for Transformation
Context
It is essential that the vision
of the [B2] Program Leadership, and the associated [B3]
Transformational Operating Model and process of [B6] Policy Product
Management are translated into an effective Roadmap for Transformation.
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The Problem
TGF programs need to
develop a roadmap that is practically deliverable: that is, not some
all-encompassing master plan – which is likely to be brittle and prone to
failure – but a pragmatic framework for delivering clearly identifiable results
in achievable stages.
Since everything can clearly not be done at once, it is
vital to map out which elements of the transformation program need to be
started immediately, which can be done later, and in what order. The "big
bang" approach to implementation has been shown not to work or be
effective. By its nature it is heavily reliant on significant levels of
simultaneous technological and organizational change. Instead, a
transformational government program will develop a phased delivery roadmap
which balances quick wins with the key steps needed to drive longer term
transformation.
There is no one-size-fits all strategy which governments can
use, since strategy needs to be tailored to the unique circumstances of each
government's situation. However, all governments face the same strategic
trade-offs: needing to ensure clear line-of-sight between all aspects of
program activity and the end outcomes which the Government is seeking to
achieve. In the early days of the Transformational Government program, the
major strategic focus should be on safe delivery - that is, prioritizing
high benefit actions which help to accelerate belief and confidence across the
Government and the wider stakeholder community that ICT-enabled change is possible
and beneficial - but which can be delivered with very low levels of risk. As
the program develops, and an increasing number of services become available,
the strategic focus can move towards building take-up: that is, building
demand for online services and creating a critical mass of users. Once that
critical mass starts to appear, the strategic focus can start to shift towards
fuller transformation: in other words, to start driving out some of the
more significant transformational benefits that high levels of service take-up
enables, for example in terms of reducing the cost of government service
delivery.
As the diagram below
makes clear, these strategic foci are not mutually exclusive, but overlap.
Crucially, in the Safe Delivery phase there will also be some vital steps
needed in order to pave the way for longer term transformation, particularly in
respect of establishing the business case for transformation, and embedding the
strategy in effective governance processes. But the diagram shows how the
strategic weight between each consideration should shift over time.
Figure 10: Roadmap priorities over time
Guided by the strategic trade-off framework described above,
experience shows that a phased approach is the most successful. Typically, an
effective Delivery Roadmap will cover five main phases.
Plan
The preparation and planning needed to
develop a tailored Delivery Roadmap for the Government, to ensure that the
business case for transformation is fully articulated, and that all key
stakeholders are on-board. Key outputs from this phase should include:
·
[GP1] Guiding Principles: the agreed set of
principles that stakeholders and delivery partners seek to work towards in
delivering the TGF program;
·
[B1] Vision for Transformation: Transformation
vision: a high level document setting out the agreed future vision for the
program;
·
Benefits Realization Framework, including:
-
[BR1] Business Case:
the key costs and benefits associated with the Transformation program;
-
initial high level plans for [BR2] Benefits Mapping, [BR3]
Benefits Tracking, [BR4] Benefits Delivery and [BR6]
Benefits Reviews, setting out the actions needed to ensure full downstream
delivery of the intended benefits from the transformation program.
·
[B10] Roadmap for Transformation: a multi-year
transformation plan, covering, among other things:
-
establishing the [B2] Program Leadership people and
governance processes;
-
a [B5] Stakeholder Collaboration workstream;
-
development and delivery of a [B7] Supplier Partnership
strategy;
-
plans for mapping IT and digital assets, and moving towards the open,
service-oriented, IT architecture described in [T2] Technology
Development and Management, and using this to enable the [B3]
Transformational Operating Model;
-
a risk management strategy, to ensure that the delivery process
effectively addresses the [CSF1] Critical Success Factors.
Initiate
In this first phase of delivery, the
focus is on building the maximum of momentum behind the Roadmap for the minimum
of delivery risk. This means focusing in particular on three things:
-
some early quick wins to demonstrate progress
and early benefits, for a minimum of delivery risk and using little or no
technology expenditure, in
order to accelerate belief and confidence across key stakeholders;
-
embedding
the Roadmap in governance structures and processes which will be needed to
inform all future investments, notably the frameworks of enterprise
architecture, customer service standards and issue/risk management that will be
required;
-
selecting
effective delivery partners.
Deliver
In this phase, some of the more significant investments
start coming on stream - for example, , an open data platform to support SME
and community-led innovation with public data, the first version of the major
"one-stop" customer-facing delivery platforms, and the first wave of
transformation projects from "champion" or "early adopter"
agencies within the Government.
Consolidate
In this phase, the focus shifts towards driving take-up of
the initial services, expanding the initial one-stop service over more
channels, learning from smart data and user feedback, and using that feedback
to specify changes to the business and technology architectures being developed
as longer term, strategic solutions.
Transform
Finally, the program
looks to build out the broader range of e-transformation projects, drive
forward the migration of all major customer-facing services towards the new
one-stop channels, and complete the transition to the full strategic IT
platform needed to guarantee future agility as business and customer priorities
change.
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The Solution
TGF programs leaders
should therefore:
·
Establish a phased Transformation Roadmap.
·
Work with citizens and businesses to identify a set of
services that represents a ‘quick win’ for government and its customers alike.
·
Give priority to services that can be delivered quickly, at
low cost, and low risk using ‘off the shelf’ (rather than bespoke) solutions.
·
Establish systems to learn from early customer experience, to
improve services in the light of this, and then to drive higher levels of
take-up.
·
Work with early adopters within the government organization in
order to create exemplars and internal champions and thus learn from experience
and drive longer-term transformation.
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Linkages
The Roadmap for Transformation should be pursued with
due attention to risk management, and should therefore include checkpoints at
key stages to allow regular, independent review of performance against the [CSF1] Critical Success Factors.
This section of the TGF
focuses on service management: that is, the way in which services for citizens
and businesses are planned and delivered. The focus is on the changes that are
needed in cities to align service delivery more closely with the [GP1]
Guiding Principles, and with the changes
described in [B3] Transformational Operating Model.
At the heart of the TGF
approach to service management is a belief that a twin track approach needs to
be taken to the smart transformation of city services:
·
first, the increasing digitization of government
services and assets presents a huge opportunity to make the government more
open to externally-driven innovation. So a TGF program
should seek to accelerate this, by facilitating and incentivizing the
development of a new marketplace for public sector information, within which public
systems are opened up to SMEs, social entrepreneurs and individual citizens to
design and deliver public services themselves, mash up public data with other
data, and create new sorts of value. This is addressed below in [S1] Stakeholder Empowerment
·
second, the government itself (together with other
major public service deliverers) has a responsibility to drive improvements to
its own services through the application of smart data and more citizen-centric
ways of working. This is addressed below in [S2]
Brand-led Service Delivery.
Both elements of this
twin-track approach are supported by the other patterns in the TGF Service
Management Framework:
·
[S3] Identity and Privacy
Management
·
[S4] Channel Management
Framework, and the further more detailed guidance on this
provided by [S5] Channel Mapping
and [S6] Channel
Transformation.
Context
The [GP1] Guiding
Principles highlight the importance
of opening up the government’s data to
drive innovation and create new value, and empowering
citizens and businesses to create services and value themselves through public
data.
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The Problem
Many e-Government programs have failed because the
citizen and business customers of public sector services are seen as simply
passive recipients of those services rather than active stakeholders in their
design and delivery. Successful service transformation is done with
citizens, businesses and organizations, and not to them
Stakeholder empowerment involves a set of changes which are
much more fundamental than the online consultations and
"e-participation" initiatives which characterized the first wave of e‑Government
programs. It is also more fundamental than the application of the latest
generation of technologies to government - although such technologies do have a
role to play.
The key shift is to think of
service delivery not as something which is done by government to citizens and
businesses but as something in which they are active co-creators of services -
or even where public services are delivered directly citizen-to-citizen with no
or minimal government involvement. Innovators in government who are making that
shift are starting to develop a wide range of new ways to create public value
and enhance services, as illustrated in the figure below:
Figure 11: Examples of Service Innovation
Such changes are beginning to
happen whether governments plan for them or not, driven by the increasing
adoption of social media and by rising expectations from citizens on the degree
of interactivity they want from services (expectations that are constantly
being raised by the best digital offerings from the private sector globally).
TGF programs can seek to
embrace and accelerate those changes through measures such as those illustrated
below.
Figure
12:
Accelerating Service Innovation
A key enabler is the
establishment of an open data platform or platforms for the government: aimed
at putting public data in the hands of
citizens, entrepreneurs, social enterprises, public service providers, and
businesses. Developing a sustainable
business model and funding approach for the establishment, maintenance and
development of such open data platforms is vital. There are a range of options,
such as pooling resources from public sector bodies as a cost-effective, shared
service route to complying with their open data obligations, generating revenue
from the platform itself through subscription and value-add services, and
leveraging investment on the basis of future efficiency savings in government
and economic growth generated by the platform.
However, while open data platforms have the potential to
unleash significant amounts of innovation, experience from governments around
the world is that the technology alone will not do so. Business change is
critical, and this needs to be addressed at two levels, as illustrated above:
•
first, action on the supply side within government, to help
create a culture of open innovation within the public sector. Such a culture
change - which reflects an increasing trend in the private sector to see
external ideas and Collaboration as being the key to successful innovation - is
particularly challenging in the public sector given the strong tradition of
internal control over decision-making and policy development. So pro-active
change management is essential, working with data owners across the government
to ensure a willingness and capability to provide data into the platform, and
to tackle barriers to opening up data. These barriers are as much cultural ones
as they are technical ones (given the strong tradition of internal “silo-based”
control of public data) and require sustained leadership over several years.
Illustrative actions, which may be built into a [B10] Roadmap for
Transformation, include:
-
building a shared vision and
business case for the value that smarter, more open and more interoperable
public data can create;
-
agreeing a set of principles for
the future management of data that data owners commit to working towards,
including use of open data standards;
-
developing a prioritized map of
key data assets across the government, and a roadmap for converging these with
the agreed principles and standards;
-
promoting demonstrator projects
and championing the benefits being achieved by early adopters.
-
second, action to enable demand-side pull by
customers and third party organizations outside of Government. Particularly
important here is the principle that all non-personal data held by government
should be open, public, easily reusable, and available at marginal cost - which
for digital information means free. By opening up government data, content and
services for reuse and repurposing by others, government can enable a level of
service innovation and market reach that it could not hope to achieve on its
own. Most governments also find that simply making data and content available
in theory is not sufficient: in practice they also need to pro-actively
facilitate market-based public service delivery. Illustrative actions which might be built into a [B10] Roadmap for Transformation, include:
-
establishing a clear and easily
understandable policy framework of rights and responsibilities around open public
data, which:
o
puts protection of personal
privacy at its heart;
o
creates a level-playing field
between public, private and voluntary sector organizations that develop
services based on public data;
o
ensures compliance with relevant
regulation and with government open data policy;
-
establishing a service-oriented technology architecture based
around open standards and technologies which makes it easier in practical terms
for third parties to re-purpose and repackage Government content;
-
developing and documenting a suite
of sustainable business models for supply and use of public data (including
publication of free public data, publication of public data with additional
charges to cover the cost of value-add services, and publication of data on a
commercial subscription basis);
-
enhancing the open data platform
so it provides tools to facilitate exploration and experimentation with public
data by application developers;
-
pump-priming the market with
seed-corn funding and/or incubation facilities to stimulate innovative,
service-related application development aimed at solving public sector challenges;
-
supporting stakeholder and
community-led Collaboration and programs to enable individuals, communities and
businesses to learn about, use and benefit from digital technologies;
-
supporting Social Crowdfunding
approaches that support and enable citizen-initiated ideas for change within
their communities as opposed to government-initiated ideas
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The Solution
TGF programs should empower stakeholders to create new sorts of services and
value by opening up public data via open platforms, and by driving forward the
internal culture changes and the external market enablers which are needed to
create a flourishing marketplace in public sector information, in particular by:
·
Engaging service customers directly in identification,
initiation, service design and delivery of services as active stakeholders.
·
Encouraging and enabling service innovation in the
Citizen-to-Citizen, Business-to-Citizen, Citizen-to-Government, and Business-to-Government
sectors.
·
Giving people access to the technology tools that enable them
to create public value themselves. Giving them ownership and control of their
personal data.
·
Making all non-personally identifiable data that is held by
government, freely open for reuse and innovation by third parties.
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Linkages
The approach to stakeholder
empowerment described above is a key element of the broader shift towards
establishing a [B3] Transformational Operating Model. Key
enablers of the approach are [B5]
Stakeholder Collaboration and use of a [B6] Policy Product Management. To succeed, the approach also needs to be closely linked with work
on [S3]
Identity and Privacy Management, and the more integrated approach to specifying,
purchasing and managing government services recommended at [B7]
Supplier Partnership. Further
details on the technology and data asset management processes needed to support
the approach are set out at [T1] Digital Asset Mapping and Management and [T2] Technology Development and Management.
Context
The [GP1] Guiding
Principles
highlight the importance of building services around customer needs, not
organizational structure. The [B4] Franchise Marketplace sets out an
effective operating model to enable this, but it needs to be supplemented by
skills and tools that enable insight into
citizen and business needs and a detailed and segmented understanding of citizens
and businesses as customers of government services.
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The Problem
A lack of focus on customers often leads to duplicated
and inefficient government services delivered through inappropriate channels.
Understanding customer needs, and how to design and deliver
services that users will engage with, requires a brand-led approach. A brand is
something much deeper and more fundamental than logos, badging and corporate
identity. It is the underlying promise made by an organization to its customers
about the products and services it delivers, as reflected in the reality of how
customers experience those products and services. Branding is a discipline in
which governments lag behind the best of the private sector. Whereas brand
development in the private sector is an explicit and vital driver of overall
product and service strategy, the public sector has largely ignored a painful
fact: that its services constitute a brand, whether they acknowledge this or
not, and one that is all-too-often perceived negatively.
In a brand-led company, customer insight informs all aspects
of the product development process, and involves a comprehensive program of
qualitative and quantitative research to understand and segment the customer
base. Lessons learned from this are fed into a brand-led product management
process - not as a one-off input of initial research, but through a continuous
process of iterative design and customer testing. A key output from this is a
set of brand values for the product or service, which then need to drive all
aspects of service delivery, support, and marketing. This is all managed as an
iterative process of continuous improvement.
Marketing is critical to effective transformational
government, yet is something at which government traditionally does not excel.
Often, marketing is fundamentally misunderstood within government - as being
equivalent to advertising or perhaps, more broadly, as being equivalent to
communication.
Properly understood, however, marketing is
the process of:
- Understanding the target market for government services
in all its breadth and complexity;
- Learning what is needed in order to meet customer needs;
- Developing an offer for citizens and businesses that
they will engage with;
- Establishing a clear set of brand values for that offer
- a set of underpinning statements that adequately describe what the
product or service will deliver and how;
- Delivering that offer though appropriate channels, in a
way which fully delivers on the brand values;
- Generating awareness about the offer;
- Creating desire/demand for the offer;
- Reminding people;
·
Changing the offer in the light of
experience.
This is the process that a brand-led consumer product
company such as Proctor and Gamble or Virgin would go through when developing a
new product. However, it is not typically how governments manage their own
service development, and governments generally lack the skills to do it.
Moreover, the challenge faced by governments is significantly more complex than
any private sector company, given the greater range and complexity of services
and governments need to provide a universal service rather than pick and choose
its customers. Yet if governments are to succeed in the ambition of shifting
service delivery decisively away from traditional channels to lower-cost
digital channels, then these marketing challenges have to be met.
And given the fact that a) customer needs cut across
organizational boundaries in government and b) the skills for delivering an
effective brand-led marketing approach to service transformation will
inevitably be in short supply, it is important that these challenges are
addressed at a government-wide level.
A TGF-conformant Transformation Program will establish
government-wide processes for managing the three core elements of the TGF Brand-led
Service Delivery Framework illustrated below:
- Customer insight
- Brand-led product management
·
Marketing communications
Figure 13: Brand-led Service Delivery Framework
Customer insight must inform all aspects of the process, and
involves a comprehensive program of qualitative and quantitative research to
understand and segment the customer base for government services. The lessons
learnt from this need to be fed into a brand-led product management process -
not as a one-off input of initial research, but through a continuous process of
iterative design and customer testing. A key output from this will be a set of
brand values for the service, which then need to drive all aspects of service
delivery, and marketing communications for the service.
This is an iterative process of continuous improvement, not
a linear one. Continuous customer insight research is needed to ensure that
both the service delivery experience and the marketing and communications
activity remains aligned with the brand values, through successive phases of
release deployment. As the service is implemented, across a range of channels,
best practice management information systems can be deployed to ensure that the
Government now has real-time, event-level management information about the
experience of all customers - which in turn provides a powerful feedback loop
into further innovation in the service design.
Often, this will require the Government to bring in
specialist resources, because typically it may face significant gaps in terms
of the people and skills needed to manage brand-led product development and
marketing cycles of this nature.
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The Solution
Establish a culture of Brand-led Service Delivery across
government, based around three key pillars of (i) Customer Insight, (ii)
Product Management, and (iii) Marketing and Communication:
(i)
Customer Insight: Don’t assume to know what customers of a
service think. Be obsessive about understanding the needs of customers – both
internal and external – on a segmented basis. Invest in developing a real-time,
event-level understanding of citizen and business interactions with government.
(ii) Product
management: Establish a brand-led product management process covering all
stages of government service design and delivery, agreed and managed at a
whole-of-government level, which gives citizens access to "one-stop
services” available over multiple channels.
(iii) Marketing
and communication: Use the brand values for one-stop government to drive all
aspects of marketing and communications for government services.
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Linkages
Often, governments may face significant gaps in terms of the
people and skills needed to manage brand-led product development and marketing
cycles of this nature, so identifying and addressing these gaps as part of the [B8] Skills strategy is vital. It is
also vitally important that the drive to brand-led service delivery is led at a
whole-of-government level: the element of the [GP1] Guiding Principles which
points to the need to “own the customer at the whole-of-government” level is
therefore of particular significance for this pattern – and [B4] Franchise Marketplace
provides the overall operating model to help drive this transformation. The
cultural change required by brand-led service delivery will be facilitated and
accelerated through [S1]
Stakeholder Empowerment.
Context
A key element of the [GP1] Guiding
Principles is that “Service transformation is done with citizens,
businesses, and organizations and not to them”. One of the consequences of
this is that an effective identity management strategy needs to give people –
whether acting on their own behalf as a citizen, or on behalf of another
citizen or of a business – ownership and control of their personal data.
v v v
The Problem
Transformational government requires trust. Significant
benefits can be achieved by making data more open, more interconnected and
available in real-time. But it is essential that any moves in this direction
retain the trust of citizens and businesses, by placing the security and
privacy of their personal data at the heart of the government’s approach to
Service Management.
Identity is a complex, and by definition deeply personal,
concept. As the following figure illustrates, a single person may in fact have
multiple, overlapping "identities" ", often referred to as personas.
Figure
14:
Complexity
of identities
These identities often overlap, but in some cases the
individual may want to keep them separate in order to protect privacy. At other
times, the individual may want them to be joined up, and be frustrated at constantly
having to furnish government with the same information over and over again.
This reflects an increasing trend for customers to want to take back control of
their personal data, and proactively choose when and where to release it.
Governments have often struggled to manage this complexity.
Historically each silo-based government service agency defined the identities
of its own customers. Even countries which have traditionally had the
simplicity of a single citizen identifier (such as Finland, where there has
been a single population register since 1634), have tended to build up separate
and inconsistent business processes for identity verification. Although the
advent of e‑Government held out the promise of significant simplification
of identity management - bringing service improvement gains for the customer
and efficiency savings for the Government - significant barriers remain.
Legislative barriers to some agencies releasing data, privacy law inhibiting
the use of common identifiers in different domains and the nascent technical
responses to surmount these issues, have slowed progress.
A wide range of agencies, standards bodies and advocacy
groups are deeply involved in transforming many aspects of this work, from
business, legal and social models to develop identity ecosystems to engender
trust, security, privacy and a great customer experience (such as promoted by
NSTIC )
and interoperable technical and privacy standards for authentication,
authorization and privacy management (such as OASIS [SAML, XACML and PMRM])
through to the business, legal and social issues around online identity
assurance (such as promoted by [OIX]). These are supported by emerging
standards for identity proofing, binding identities to credentials, and
pseudonmyising them for privacy protection.
Deployment of identity management at scale is not yet
mature, and the approaches and standards that support them are still evolving
to reflect changes in customers’ social habits, ubiquity of mobile devices and
the move to cloud computing.
It is not the purpose of the Transformational Government
Framework to address the details of identity management but rather to give
high-level guidance on the main issues that a conformant program should seek to
address. Increasingly a set of best practices is emerging around the world
which we believe represents a way forward for transformational government,
which is broadly applicable across a very wide range of governments. The
following key aspects outline some identity-specific focus areas to enable the
process of transformation:
Business Architecture
Firstly, a business architecture for identity management
which is based on federation between a wide range of trusted organizations (the
Government, banks, employers etc), and a clear model for cross-trust between
these organizations.
Technical Architecture
Secondly, a technology architecture to support this which
does not rely on monolithic and potentially vulnerable large databases, but
which, in line with the SOA paradigm, uses Internet-based gateway services to
act as a broker between the different databases and IT systems of participants
in the federated trust model.
Customer-centric Identity Model
Thirdly - and perhaps most importantly - a customer service
model for identity management which places individuals themselves directly in
control of their own data, able to manage their own relationship with
government – whether on their own behalf as citizens or in another identity
relationship or intermediated role – and with clearly visible controls to
reassure them that this is the case. This customer-centric approach to identity
management is illustrated in the figure below.
Figure 15: Overview of
Customer-Centric Identity Model
No single Government has implemented all features of this approach,
but all are being successfully deployed around the world, and together they
represent our view of the approach to identity management which will best help
deliver Transformational Government.
v
v v
The Solution
Establish an Identity and Privacy Management Framework
and within this:
-
Develop a federated identity trust framework between a wide
range of organizations that the customer has existing relationships with and
who manage identities on their customers’ behalf (e.g Government, banks,
employers, online businesses) with a clear business model for mutual trust
amongst all parties for the customers’ benefit and improved online experience;
-
Deploy a supporting technology architecture with designed-in
security and privacy features (e.g. pseudonymisation and customer consent
management) which does not rely on monolithic and potentially vulnerable large
databases but which, in line with the SOA paradigm, uses Internet-based gateway
services to act as a broker between the different databases and IT systems of
participants in the federated trust model;
-
Deploy supporting identity management lifecycle processes
(e.g. creation, enrolment, verification, credential management, authentication,
authorization, suspension, archiving and deletion);
-
Put people directly in control of their own data, able to
manage their own relationship with government – whether on their own behalf as
individual citizens or in another identity relationship or intermediated role –
and with clearly visible controls to reassure them that this is the case.
v
v v
Linkages
This pattern
is important in order to deliver integrated, citizen-centric services as part
of a [B3] Transformational
Operating Model and the [B4]
Franchise Marketplace, as well as to enable the customer-led service
innovation envisaged by [S1]
Stakeholder Empowerment. At a technology level, the approach is
underpinned by the SOA-based [T2] Technology Development and Management. Key
actions to be taken to deliver the identity and privacy management framework
should be built into the [B10]
Roadmap for Transformation.
[S4]
Channel Management Framework
Context
Government services are delivered
through a wide range of channels. One of the core aims of a Transformational
Government program is to ensure that these are managed in the most
cost-effective way at a whole-of-government level, and meet the needs of
citizen and business customers.
v v
v
The
Problem
Channel management is often a
weak spot in government service delivery, with widespread duplication,
inefficiency and lack of user-focus.
Experience has shown the common
pitfalls in channel management by governments include:
·
Managing new, digital channels as
"bolt-ons", with business and technical architectures which are
entirely separate from traditional face-to-face or paper-based channels;
·
No common view of customer service
across multiple channels;
·
Operational practices, unit costs
and service standards for many channels which fall well below standards set for
those channels in the private sector;
·
A reliance on government-owned
channels, with insufficient understanding of how to partner with private and
voluntary sector organizations who have existing trusted channels to government
customers;
·
Unproductive and costly competition among
service delivery channels.
Transformational Government
programs seek to avoid these pitfalls, by building a channel management
approach centered on the needs and behavior of its citizen and business
customers. This means that delivery of services needs to be customer-centric,
with services accessible where and when citizens and businesses want to use
them, including through both "one-stop" services and a wide range of
private and voluntary sector intermediaries. Services should be offered over
multiple channels, but with clear policies to shift service users into
lower-cost digital channels (including a digital inclusion strategy to enable
take-up of digital services by those segments of the customer population
currently unable or unwilling to use them).
v v v
The Solution
Establish a Channel Management Framework, which includes:
·
a clear audit of what existing
channels are currently used to deliver government services, and the costs and
service levels associated with these (‘Channel Mapping’); and
·
the vision and roadmap for
developing a new channel management approach centered on the needs and behavior
of citizens and businesses (‘Channel Transformation’).
v v v
Linkages
This pattern helps deliver
integrated, customer-centric services as part of a [B3] Transformational Operating
Model and the [B4]
Franchise Marketplace, as well as to enable the service innovation
envisaged by [S1] Stakeholder
Empowerment. It is extended by two further patterns, [S5] Channel Mapping and [S6] Channel Transformation.
A high level view of the logical relationships between these components is
illustrated below.
Figure 16: Overview of the Channel Management Framework
[S5] Channel
Mapping
Context
A vital first step in developing
a [S4] Channel Management Framework is to carry out a mapping of
existing delivery channels across government, and to put a cost to each
transaction delivered through these channels based on standard industry
assumptions.
v v v
The Problem
Government service delivery organizations often do not
have a clear and quantified understanding of which channels their customers
use, what the average and marginal costs of delivery through these channels is,
or how service levels and customer satisfaction vary by channel.
A vital first step in developing a customer-centric channel
management strategy is to carry out a mapping of existing delivery channels
across government, and to put a cost to each transaction delivered through
these channels based on standard industry assumptions.
When government organizations carry out a full channel
mapping for the first time, a common finding is that much customer contact
between governments and citizens/businesses is:
·
unnecessary - because the user is
struggling to find the right place to get the service they need, resulting in
multiple contacts before their need is finally resolved;
·
hidden and un-costed - because
only some of these customer contacts are caught by existing management
information systems. The rest are just lost within the broader operational
structure and budget of the organization.
And when channel mapping is undertaken at the
whole-of-government level, it typically highlights significant duplication
across government (for example: having multiple high-street locations in the
same town serving different government departments or agencies; thousands of
contact telephone numbers; hundreds or even thousands of web-sites). There is
significant scope for delivering both cost savings and service improvements by
joining government services together through channels managed on a shared
basis, and through channels managed by private and voluntary sector
intermediaries.
A clear map of customer interactions by channel, and the
true costs of these, therefore provides essential data in building the business
case for service transformation.
In undertaking this mapping it is advisable
that a holistic approach is taken to understanding the range of channels
through which government services are and could be delivered. Government
services can be delivered through a wide range of different channels. It can be
helpful to think of that range as varying across two key dimensions, as
illustrated below:
·
Channel mix: that is, the physical type of channel being
used. Traditionally, channels for government service delivery have included the
face-to-face channel (through high-street and other locations), traditional
mail and the traditional telephone. More recently, interactive voice
recognition (IVR) and the Internet have become important channels. A key
distinction is the extent to which the channel is based around self-service by
the customer, or requires some form of intermediation - either in person (e.g.
the customer visiting a government office or an official visiting the citizens
in the community) or remotely (e.g. by telephone or email).
·
Channel ownership: it
is important to understand, too, the variety of "channel ownership"
options which are available. Traditionally, channels for government services
have been branded as belonging to a specific government agency. Increasingly,
governments looking to develop a customer-centric approach have also started to
badge these on a government-wide basis: either covering a single channel (such
as a national government portal), or multiple channels (such as Service Canada,
which spans walk-in offices, contact centres, and the web).
Figure 17: Overview of Channel
Mapping
v v v
The Solution
Establish a clear map of customer interactions by
channel, and the true costs of these, in order to provide essential data in
both building the business case for service transformation, and in highlighting
priority areas for reform.
Take a holistic approach to understanding the range of
channels through which government services are and could be delivered,
including both “Channel Mix” (that is, the physical type of channel being used,
including face-to-face, mail, e-mail, Internet and telephone) and also the
variety of "Channel Ownership" options that are available (including
service delivery through private and voluntary sector channels).
v v v
Linkages
This pattern is needed to inform development of a [S4] Channel Transformation Framework.
[S6] Channel
Transformation
Context
The [S4] Channel Management Framework requires a TGF
program not only to undertake [S5] Channel Mapping of existing channel
usage and channel costs, but also to develop a Channel Transformation strategy
that sets out the vision and roadmap for developing a new channel management
approach centered around the needs and behavior of citizens and businesses.
v v v
The Problem
Government can learn a lot from the best of private
sector approaches to channel management, but also needs to recognize unique
challenges and opportunities that apply to channel management in the public
sector.
Once a full [S5] Channel
Mapping exercise has captured the current channel mix and cost base, it is
important to map out a strategy for the future desired channel mix, and the
future customer experience over different channels. Successful private-sector
businesses tend to be more effective at this than government. They understand
that each channel opens up different ways to create value for customers, so
they differentiate services across channels. They also take a hard-nosed
approach to channel management, with customers being encouraged to use the
channels that are most efficient from a business point of view. They also
realize that channel shift is a complicated process, which needs planning over
a multi-year period.
Transformational Government programs adopt a similar
approach, setting out clear strategies for channel transformation. Typically
though they recognize two distinct differences between the public and private
sector:
·
first, government has an obligation to provide services on a
universal basis, so is not able to pick and choose which customers it will
engage with through different channels. "Directed choice" towards
cheaper channels is therefore the strategy selected for most citizen-facing
services (although a number of governments are increasingly looking to make
Internet-only services the norm for businesses).
·
second, in terms of the online channel, government is in a unique
position compared with any other online service provider. Whereas an online
bank or retailer is limited by the size of the online population in the market,
a government can take action significantly to increase that online population.
"Digital inclusion" policies, aimed at increasing the proportion of
potential customers who have access to and confidence in using online channels,
are therefore an important part of government channel strategies which would
not normally be seen in their private-sector counterparts.
As well as seeking to shift future
service delivery to an optimal channel mix, Transformational Government
programs seek to optimize the performance of each individual channel. In the UK
for example, a government-wide review of customer contact found
that contact centre performance lagged significantly behind private sector
benchmarks, and that on average operational savings of 25% could be achieved in
public centre contact centres over a 3 year period by adopting best practices. However,
it is vital not to think about channel optimization solely on a
channel-by-channel basis. There are two imperatives for taking a cross-channel
approach to service delivery:
·
first, to improve service to
customers. Customers do not want simply want services to be available through a
choice of channels. Rather they want services to be delivered in an integrated
way across channels. Transformational Government programs therefore focus on
achieving an integrated view of customer interactions across all channels.
·
second, to reduce costs. A shared service
approach to channel management can deliver significant efficiency savings. By
building channel support services around a common, web-based infrastructure,
governments can both reduce costs while also facilitating joined-up services.
Finally, it is essential to recognize that a customer-centric
approach involves delivering services where customers want to receive them -
and this may often mean that it is important to deliver services through
private or voluntary sector intermediaries.
This is particularly important as services become digitized,
potentially reducing the marginal costs of delivery to near zero and hence
making it easier for third party organizations to bundle public sector services
with their own service offerings. This can be challenging for governments,
however, since for the first time it means that they are "competing"
for customers with other organizations. Establishing clear ground rules for how
this sort of mixed economy of service provision should work, on a basis that
will encourage private and voluntary sector organizations to become actively
involved, is therefore an important task for government in creating the policy
framework for Transformational Government and SHOULD be addressed using the [B4]
Franchise Marketplace Model.
In addressing these issues, it is important to recognize
that government service delivery cannot be divorced from what is happening in
the broader market: the expectations of citizens and businesses are shaped by
their experiences of other services. Demand for e-services across society will
continue to grow while other market players (in the private, voluntary and
community sectors) will have a significant influence on the attitudes and
behavior of public service customers.
v v v
The Solution
Develop a Channel Transformation Strategy which:
·
is centred on the needs and behavior of citizens and businesses;
·
identifies the opportunities for current services to be “engineered
out” through the introduction of new smart connectivity directly between government
assets and digital devices;
·
shifts customers where appropriate
to lower cost digital channels;
·
encourages access and use of digital services by groups
currently excluded from these for
whatever reasons, by:
o
using the benefits from future
universality to fund the costs of ensuring digital inclusion now;
o
ensuring adequate “assisted
digital” provision for the digitally excluded;
·
taking a proactive approach to the digitally excluded in terms of
training, access and education, and the identification of channels to allow
their views and voices to be heard and incorporated into decision-making, optimizes the cost and performance of each channel,
using public and private sector benchmarks to drive improvement;
·
improves cross-channel management,
by building channel support services around a common, web-based infrastructure
in order both to improve customer service and reduce costs;
·
facilitates development of a
thriving mixed economy delivery of services;
·
builds partnerships which enable
the market and others to work with the government to deliver jointly-owned
objectives.
v v v
Linkages
The Channel Transformation Strategy must be informed by [S5] Channel Mapping, and must
address how to shift customers into lower-cost channels while maintaining and
reinforcing [S1] Stakeholder
Empowerment. The mixed economy of delivery of government services is
developed with private and voluntary sector intermediaries and SHOULD be
addressed using the [B4] Franchise
Marketplace pattern. A significant effort is needed to include all
stakeholders in the governance of the Transformational Government program at an
appropriate and effective level: see [B5]
Stakeholder Collaboration. Further detail on the technical and semantic
interoperability issues which need to be managed in supporting channel
integration are given at [B6] Policy
Product Management and [T2]
Technology Development and Management. The key milestones and
accountabilities for delivery of the Channel Transformation Strategy
should be embedded within the [B10] Roadmap
for Transformation.
6
Technology and Digital Asset Management
This part of the TGF
addresses how changes to the way in which technology and digital assets are
managed can help to accelerate, de-risk and lower the cost of transformation programs
(and in particular to align service delivery more closely with the [GP1] Guiding
Principles,
and with the vision described for establishing a [B3] Transformational
Operating Model.
Digital assets’
can be either data or the technologies that process them. These two asset
classes represent distinct value chains (depending on whether the technology
itself; the data; or both; are of value to a particular stakeholder) but are
often treated as an indistinguishable whole, if they are treated as assets at
all.
There are two core patterns
within the TGF Technology and Digital Asset Management Framework:
·
[T1]: digital asset mapping
and management;
·
[T2]: technology
development and management.
[T1] Digital
Asset Mapping and Management
Context
All too often, technology
resources - and the digital data they incorporate - are seen simply as a means
to a specific end; and so are procured and managed by a single organization for
a single purpose. As systems become more complex and organizations mature,
resource re-use becomes ever more important and prevalent. Establishing a [B3]
Transformational Operating Model involves a set
of significant changes to this silo-based approach to managing technology and
digital resources.
This need for governments to
get a grip on the effective management of their digital assets is being
increased dramatically by the growth of the “Internet of Things”. Buildings,
roads, places and a huge range of things and devices are becoming smart and
internet-connected, multiplying hugely the potential sources of government
data (but also the potential for inefficiency, duplication and lack of
“citizen-centricity” if that data is not effectively managed).
v v
v
The Problem
The prevalence of digital
assets presents growing challenges. Opportunities will be limited if those
assets are not understood and managed on a government-wide basis.
Transformational Government demands a single view of the
citizen or business, delivered inside an integrated business and channels
architecture. In terms of ICT, all of this requires governments to learn from
private-sector best practice. Industry is moving towards a model of
company-wide, service-orientated enterprise architecture, where common building
blocks using open standards can be re-used to enable flexible and adaptive use
of technology to react quickly to changing customer needs and demands.
Increasingly, companies are gaining even greater efficiency benefits by
managing these building blocks as a service, provided not only from within
their own ICT architecture but also from within "the Cloud" - the
dynamically-scalable set of private and public computing resources now being
offered as a service over the Internet.
Governments are increasingly
taking this 'building block' approach to technology development. A key starting point is to map out key assets and
establish governance processes that enable them to be managed as an asset
separately from their original intended use. In order
to be reused effectively, resources need to be:
·
identified and managed as
distinct, valued assets by explicitly designated owners;
·
identifiable across ownership
domains;
·
associated with clear policies and
processes for reuse, particularly across ownership domains.
This entails the explicit identification and management of
all resources as valued assets, whether information resources (data sets,
documents, models, processes, etc.), or technology ‘soft products’ (systems,
applications and services) or other aspects of the overall service ecosystem.
The ability to identify a resource is important in system
interactions, in order to determine such things as rights and authorizations,
as well as to understand what functions are being performed; what the results
mean. Within large-scale, SOA ecosystems, interactions take place across
ownership boundaries and the combination of interactions can be unpredictable.
Identifiers provide the means for all resources important to a given SOA system
to be unambiguously identifiable at any moment and in any interaction.
Establishing resource identity and subsequently managing
those resources and their identities thus become an important part of technology
management.
v v
v
The Solution
- TGF programs should therefore map
out major information and ICT system resources across the government,
prioritize those with the greatest potential for reuse, and establish
governance processes and usage policies aimed at maximizing asset reuse.
This should involve:
- managing information and ICT system resources as distinct,
valued assets;
- managing issues related to the Identification,
ownership, stewardship and usage policies for each asset type;
- producing a clear model and understanding of the
stakeholders, actors and systems that comprise the overall service
ecosystem and their relationships to each other.
v v
v
Linkages
Moving towards
effective government-wide management of technology and digital assets will be
an incremental process over time, not a one-off change. This process should be
built in as a core element of the [B10] Roadmap for Transformation. Priority in that process should be given
to assets that stakeholders identify as critical for:
·
opening up high-priority
government data assets to wider use as part of [S1]
Stakeholder Empowerment;
·
providing a government-wide “view
of the customer” as part of the multi-channel,
service delivery approach required by [B3]
Transformational Operating Model
and subject to the citizen-centric
trust model within [S3] Identity and Privacy Management;
Further detail on
the long-term architectural vision that this resource management process should
aim to move the government towards is described in [T2]
Technology Development and Management.
Section 3.1.3 of the [SOA-RAF] looks at the issue of
resources and how they should be identified and
managed.
[T2]
Technology Development and Management
Context
In order for [T1] Digital Asset Mapping and
Management to be effective in aligning government technology and
digital assets with the integrated, non-silo based approach set out in [B3]
Transformational Operating Model, it is essential to have a top-level
vision and architecture for future technology use across the government.
v v
v
The Problem
Technological change is more rapid than organizational
change and yet governments often find themselves locked-in to particular
technology solutions. Governments need to protect themselves against the
downside of technology evolution by developing a strategic approach to IT
that guarantees future agility as markets develop and government priorities
change.
Transformational Government needs a strategic IT platform to
guarantee future agility as business and customer priorities change. Such a
platform cannot afford to be locked-in to specific technologies or solutions
that prevent or limit such agility.
·
a commitment to the paradigm and principles
of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and
SOA-based infrastructure, as defined in the OASIS ‘Reference Model for
Service-Oriented Architecture [SOA-RM]. Service-Oriented
Architecture must be understood in its broadest sense – as a paradigm for
organising and using capabilities distributed and managed across different
ownership domains. In this sense, SOA is technology and platform agnostic and
thus provides an appropriate foundation for the technology management
framework.
·
modular design,
including the realization of discrete services that can perform work on behalf
of other parties, underpinned by clear service descriptions and contracts for
any capability that is offered for reuse by another party;
·
clear ownership and governance for all blueprint elements;
·
shared services: managing
key ICT building blocks as government-wide resources available as re-usable,
shared services - in particular common customer data sets (e.g. name, address);
applications and application interfaces (e.g. authentication, payments,
notifications); and core ICT infrastructure.
·
published standards to enable safe exchange of information between modules (all open,
exportable, and based wherever possible on international standards) and which
cover: services; data outcomes; rules;
KPIs; interoperability.
·
a commitment to enable both privacy and openness: all personal
data held securely, and under the ownership and control of the individual
citizen; all non-personally identifiable public data open for reuse and
innovation by third parties;
·
tools and resources: standards, metadata, tools, incentives and business models to
facilitate transition towards the blueprint architecture by stakeholder
organisations.
v v
v
The Solution
TGF programs should
therefore work with stakeholders (including government agencies, IT suppliers,
SMEs and other delivery partners) to establish and maintain an open,
service-oriented, government-wide IT architecture, and to develop a phased
migration plan towards that architecture, which:
- concentrates technology resources and efforts around
leveraging open standards and SOA Principles so as to ensure development
and deployment agility, and support all customer interactions, from
face-to-face interactions by frontline staff to online self-service
interactions.
- uses the Reference Model for Service-Oriented
Architecture [SOA-RM] as
the primary source for core concepts and definitions of the SOA paradigm realizes
discrete services that can perform work on behalf of other parties, with clear
service descriptions and contracts for any capability that is offered for
use by another party.
- manages key ICT building blocks as government-wide
resources and make them available as re-usable, shared services - in
particular common customer data sets (e.g. name, address); applications
and application interfaces (e.g. authentication, payments, notifications);
and core ICT infrastructure.
- wherever possible prefers interoperable, open
standards, particularly when these are well supported in the market-place.
- pays due attention to the total cost of ownership and
operation of technology and consider the possible value of open source
when making technology choices.
v v
v
Linkages
Shifting from the current set of legacy IT systems and
contractual arrangements to a more integrated, SOA-based approach will be a
multi-year process of change. That process should be built in as a core element
of the [B10] Roadmap for
Transformation and,
in particular, to work on [B7]
Supplier Partnership (which is essential in order to ensure that
new procurements establish requirements and supplier relationships that help
build towards the future vision). And the process will need proactive
governance, as described in [T1] Digital Asset Mapping and Management.
The [EIF] has a useful definition of “open” in 5.1.1
“Specifications, openness and reuse”.
This part of the TGF gives guidance on how to ensure that
the intended benefits of a TGF program are clearly
articulated, measured, managed, delivered and evaluated in practice. Benefits
realization is an integral part of the [CSF1] Critical Success
Factors.
Many organizations often fail to pro-actively
manage the downstream benefits after an individual ICT project or program has
been completed. Often, ICT programs are seen as “completed” once the
technical implementation is initially operational. Yet in order to reap the
full projected benefits (efficiency savings, customer service improvements
etc.), on‑going management is essential, often involving significant
organizational and cultural changes. The Transformational Government Framework
does not seek to specify in detail what benefits and impacts a Transformational
Government program should seek to achieve – that is a matter for each
individual government - however, the TGF does set out a best practice approach
to benefit realization.
This approach is based around the five part
framework illustrated below:
1. First,
the overall Business Case for the TGF program, which needs to be
kept refreshed through the life of the program rather than seen simply as a
tool to secure initial funding and agreement to proceed. This is supported by
the three pillars of…….
2. Benefit
Mapping:
which sets out all the intended outcomes from the transformation program and
gives visibility of how the outputs from specific activities and investments in
the program flow through to deliver those outcomes;
3. Benefit
Tracking:
which takes this a step further by baselining current performance against the
target output and outcomes, defining “smart” success criteria for future
performance, and tracking progress against planned delivery trajectories aimed
at achieving these success criteria; and
4. Benefit
Delivery:
which ensures that governance arrangements are in place to ensure that benefits
are delivered in practice, including after the initial transformation program
is implemented.
5.
Finally,
the whole framework is supported by a process of Benefits Reviews.
Reviews will be required at various points, and consideration should be given
to some of them being done independently of the TGF program team.
Figure 18: Overview
of TGF Benefits Realization Framework
The
TGF Core Patterns for each of these elements are set out below. In operation,
there will be feedback between each of these elements, and for large programs,
some or all of these steps may also be applied to individual sub-programs or
projects.
[BR1]
Business Case
Context
A vital first step in developing
a Benefits Realization Framework is to produce the Business Case for the
overall TGF Program.
v v
v
The Problem
If a Business Case is seen
simply as a tool to secure initial funding and agreement to proceed, then the
program may not be designed to capture everything it needs to achieve the
objectives, and may contain work that is not necessary. Furthermore, if it is
not reviewed as the program progresses, then there is a chance either that the
program will drift from the original intentions, or that the Business Case
itself becomes out of date and loses relevance.
Early on in the development of a
TGF program it is vital to document a business case which outlines the
objectives of the program, gives the strategic context, sets out the benefits
to be realized and how delivery of these benefits will be measured, along with
the costs of achieving them and the risks associated with delivery.
The TGF Business Case must be captured in a single document,
which provides both guidance and authority for subsequent Benefits Realization
Management activity. It must be approved at the highest governance level of
the program.
The content should address:
- Strategic purpose: the vision and
strategic aims of the program, and how it will help deliver any broader
strategic objectives of the government.
- Benefits to be realized: the benefits
that the program will deliver, who will be responsible for them, when they
will occur and how they will be measured. This should cover both tangible
benefits (financial and non-financial) and intangible ones.
·
Priorities: this is
vital for any TGF program. As the program starts to be delivered, not all
anticipated benefits may prove to be deliverable within time and budget. It is
therefore essential to understand relative priorities from the outset in order
to manage any trade-offs that may be needed.
- Resources required to deliver
the benefits: the business case should articulate the resources
needed to deliver the program, across all key organizations involved.
- Deliverables and timeline: normally,
the business case will also include a high-level summary of the delivery
plan set out in more detail in [BM8] Roadmap for Transformation.
- Scope: the areas to which
the document applies, in particular if there are any relevant parts of
government activity where it does not, or a different strategy applies.
- Governance: the business case should
set out functions, roles and accountabilities – both for delivery of
specific benefits as the program moves forward (example: Benefits
Ownership) and also for measurement of benefits. Also, the role of any
existing organizational units responsible for performance measurement
should be clarified.
·
Methods
and processes for measurement: the approach to measurement has significant
implications for resourcing and costs. The business case should set out the
high-level approach to this, and specify where there are particular
requirements. For example, if the views of end users are going to be one source
of measurement, there are a range of methods and techniques to gather and
analyse this; the business case should indicate the level of importance to be
attached to this.
- Risks and Mitigation: the business case
should set out the key risks and proposed mitigation strategies associated
with the program. Where any significant assumptions have been made in
developing other aspects of the business case, these should be highlighted
as risks and managed as such through the program until the business case
can be refreshed with definitive data.
·
Dependencies and relationship to other initiatives:
a TGF program is unlikely to proceed in isolation. It will interact with other
programs across government and within partner organizations, at infrastructure,
business and policy levels. Dependencies between these programs at the
benefits level need to be captured here; most particularly, if the TGF program
and another one are feeding into the same overall cost saving target, it must
be clear what each program is contributing. As a TGF program may have an
extended duration, other initiatives will come and go, so this area will need
to be reviewed and updated as the program progresses.
·
Terminology
and method: if an organisation already has a standard for Benefits
Realization Management, it may be sufficient to refer to that. If not, then
the strategy must make clear the approach to be used and the meaning of any
BRM-specific term. Bear in mind that as a TGF program will cross
organisational boundaries, other partners may not be familiar with the selected
standard; they may also have different levels of maturity with respect to
Benefits Realization Management.
The business case should be
maintained as a living document through the course of the program, which is
refreshed with new data as assumptions are validated and which is used as a
management tool to ensure all program activity remains firmly fixed on
delivering the strategic purpose of the program. An initial business case
will contain early estimates of the outputs from planning of the other benefits
realization steps – benefits mapping, benefits tracking and benefits delivery –
but should then be iteratively improved as delivery of each of these steps
moves forward.
v v
v
The Solution
Produce a Business Case that demonstrates clear links to approved
strategic objectives, and clearly identifies and quantifies the impacts and
outcomes that implementation of the TGF aims to achieve.
Capture the Business Case in a document approved at the
top level of program governance.
Use the Business Case as a major input to the Program
Design.
Review the Program against the Business Case at key
points and update the Business Case if necessary.
In addition it is advisable to:
Ensure that the Business Case shows a clear line-of-sight
between every investment and activity in the program, the immediate outputs
these produce, and the final targeted outcomes.
Ensure that the
business changes required are identified in the Business Case and given
appropriate emphasis and resource.
v v
v
Linkages
Work to develop the Business Case should form an integral
part of the initial planning phase of the [B10]
Roadmap for Transformation, and should be developed through [B5] Stakeholder Collaboration.
Benefits realization is an integral part of the [CSF1] Critical Success Factors,
and review of progress against the business case should therefore be part
of the checkpoint process recommended in [CSF1] Critical Success Factors. From
the outset, the Business Case should contain high level summaries of the
approach envisaged to, [B2] Benefits
Mapping, [B3] Benefits
Tracking, and [B4] Benefits
Delivery. As work on delivery of those patterns gets underway
through the roadmap implementation process, any significant changes to initial
analysis and assumptions should be fed back into a revised version of the
Business Case.
Context
An important step in developing a
Benefits Realization Framework is to produce a map of the benefits that
need to be delivered as part of the overall TGF Program.
v v
v
The Problem
In complex programs, it is important to understand the
logic of how the outputs lead to Intermediate Outcomes and finally on to the
achievement of the Final Outcomes and Objectives. In this way, it is clear
whether all areas are covered and that all activities support the required
Outcomes. If this is not done, it is difficult to verify the program design
and also to make “solution engineering” decisions, if trade-offs are required.
It is not sufficient simply to list the intended benefits of
a TGF program. Rather, it is vital to map out the different types of benefit
in graphical form, to ensure clarification and convergence of perception of the
aims of the program and the contributions of its components. Specifically,
three key elements need to be mapped:
·
The
benefit chain: there are multiple approaches to developing benefit
maps. However, they all have broadly similar approaches, and contain similar
elements:
− The TGF
program will be undertaken to achieve a Strategic Purpose, as set out in
the Business Case, and the aim of the benefit chain is to give clear line of
sight between all program activities and investments and the ultimate delivery
of that Strategic Purpose.
− Feeding
into delivery of the Strategic Purpose will be a set of End Outcomes for
the program, which will usually be driven by Intermediate Outcomes. The
Objectives and Outcomes represent the “results” end of the map – the benefits
part of the business case.
-
The map should then be extended to capture those activities which
contribute to the achievement of that purpose. In general these fall into two
types, Enablers and Business Changes. In the terminology of
Benefits Realization, Enablers tend to be artifacts or systems of some kind –
buildings, IT systems, equipment, etc. – but in a TGF program they may also be
of a less tangible nature, such as a relationship. Business Changes are such
things as changes to processes, policies, organizational structure, and even
behaviors and values. Enablers on their own – which are not then followed up
by any Business Change – cannot deliver benefits, so it is vital that these
changes are effectively understood and mapped. Many projects with significant
IT content suffer from a focus on delivering enablers at the expense of
outcomes, and so a key purpose of the TGF Benefits Realization Framework is to
ensure that the required business changes are identified and given appropriate
emphasis.
It is important that this benefit
chain is underpinned by a clear and evidence-based theory of change, giving
confidence that there is a genuine cause and effect flow from activities to
outputs to outcomes. In some TGF programs, which are aiming to impact at a
strategic socio-economic level, it will not always be possible or cost-effective
to prove full causality at all points in the chain, but it is
nevertheless important to demonstrate a credible case for impact.
·
Stakeholders: mapping
the relationship between stakeholders and Outcomes (End Outcomes in particular)
is extremely important. It informs the understanding for all parties of the
case for their involvement in the program, provides significant guidance in
determining benefit ownership, and guides communication planning.
Understanding the relationship between stakeholders and Enablers and Business
Changes can be of considerable use in program planning and communication.
·
Risks
and opportunities: it is important once you have identified
the End Outcomes that the program starts to consider the risks and
opportunities associated with them. Risk management often focuses on delivery
risk; while this is an important area, what really matter are risks (or
opportunities) as they relate to the benefits being sought.
The development of the maps must
involve close collaboration with the appropriate stakeholders. The objectives
and benefits should be developed with senior management and the enablers and
changes with operational management, SMEs and those developing/providing the
enablers. As well as contributing to the efficacy of the maps, this will also
encourage contributors to buy in to the output.
v v
v
The Solution
Produce a map of benefits which sets out all
the intended outcomes from the transformation program and gives visibility of
how the outputs from specific activities and investments in the program flow
through to deliver those outcomes.
v v
v
Linkages
This pattern is needed to ensure that the high level
objectives for the TGF program as set out in the [BR1] Business Case are underpinned
by clarity about how program activities will deliver outputs and outcomes that
achieve those targeted objectives. It will set out the detailed measures and
performance indicators needed to track progress against all stages of this
benefit chain through the process of [BR3]
Benefits Tracking.
Context
An important step in managing a Benefits
Realization Framework is to track the realization of benefits that need to be
delivered as part of the overall TGF Program.
v v
v
The Problem
There is often a
lack of adequate tracking of benefits within business transformation programs.
Benefit Tracking should baseline current performance against the target output
and outcomes, define “smart” success criteria for future performance, and track
progress against planned delivery trajectories aimed at achieving these success
criteria.
Benefits tracking involves planning and delivering the
measurement systems needed to track progress against the business case.
Key elements to be addressed when planning for
Benefits Tracking are:
·
Measures: measures
to underpin the End and Intermediate Outcomes must be identified. Generally,
all End Outcomes should have at least one associated measure, and some Intermediate
Outcomes may also be worth measuring, for example to provide leading indicators
that indicate whether the benefits realization is developing as expected.
·
Success
criteria: the
scale and pace of change which the program is expected to be deliver should be
identified for each measure. That is, clarity is needed not just about what
will be measured, but what sort of change in performance against that measure
is positive and what level of change will be regarded as a successful outcome.
·
Trajectories:
for
all of the measures put in place, it is essential that the timing and profile
of the expected realization is defined, so that stakeholders know when to
expect to see the benefits. Improvements will usually only start to happen
after the implementation of relevant Enablers and Changes, and may experience
an initial “dip” before recovering and heading in the intended direction. Some
will experience steady progression, some will move in steps. All of this
information needs to be available so that stakeholders know what to expect, and
to support reporting and monitoring.
·
Costs:
it
is important to note that measurement is never free; even if the source data is
already being produced, the analysis and interpretation will still take
someone’s time and effort. The following principles should be borne in mind:
− The cost
of measurement needs to be included in the costs of the program. If
measurement is expected to continue as part of the new service, cost and
resources should be included in the budget for the service.
− Use
existing data sources where available – do not re-invent the wheel.
− Existing
KPI’s may be appropriate, either as they are or with minor adjustments, again
minimising cost.
− If the
organisation has a group responsible for monitoring organisational performance,
their involvement needs to be defined and agreed; it is likely that this group
will take over some or all of the responsibility for on-going measurement when
the program closes.
− Distinguish
between those measures that need to continue after the program, and those that
are specific to the program; stop measuring the latter as soon as the purpose
has been achieved.
·
Measurement
methodology: in some instances, this may be relatively
straightforward, but in other cases will require some thought. For example,
cashable financial benefits should be relatively straightforward to track, but
assessing changes in sentiment in a stakeholder or user group may require the
use of proxy measures.
Key elements to be addressed when implementing
Benefits Tracking are:
·
Baselines: to be
able to measure the progress, it is first essential to establish what the
pre-change baseline is. If this is not currently known, it needs to be
established as soon as possible.
·
Reporting
and monitoring: on the measures themselves, but also the impact of any
schedule slips with respect to enablers and changes on the schedule for the
benefits.
·
Stakeholders: the
interaction and communication with stakeholders with respect to benefits
realization must be addressed. It must also be coordinated with other TGF
program communication to avoid overloading stakeholders or risking confusion.
·
Handover:
monitoring and reporting on benefits may need to continue after the program
organisation is closed down. In this case, it should be clear where this will
be done, and at what point the handover will be made.
v v
v
The Solution
Set measurable success
criteria and track the progress towards these criteria.
In addition it is advisable to:
Track progress against
planned delivery trajectories for each of the targeted outputs and outcomes.
v v
v
Linkages
Benefits Tracking implements a pragmatic approach to
measuring in practice delivery of the TGF benefits outlined at a strategic
level in the [BR1] Business Case
and at more detailed level in [BR2]
Benefits Mapping. The information gathered through Benefits Tracking
is essential to inform effective in [BR4]
Benefits Delivery.
Context
An important step in managing a Benefits
Realization Framework is to ensure the benefits that need to be
delivered as part of the overall TGF Program are delivered.
v v
v
The Problem
Change programs, especially long term ones, can suffer
from a lack of focus on the intended outcomes once the implementation starts.
There is also the risk that this focus will be lost once the program structure
starts to be dismantled, which often occurs before full realization of the
benefits is scheduled to be achieved.
While [BR4] Benefits Tracking activity may often be
managed at a program level, perhaps through a program management office,
Benefits Delivery needs to be a core responsibility of business leaders within the
government organizations impacted by the TGF Program. Key elements include:
·
Benefit
ownership: for each intermediate and end outcome identified in the
benefit maps, a senior and empowered manager should be accountable for
championing the delivery of that outcome – even where that individual does not
have personal responsibility for delivering all the elements of the [B10] Roadmap
for Transformation.
·
Corrective
action:
if a threat to an Outcome is identified, alternative responses and associated
costs should be evaluated so that program governance can decide on the
appropriate action.
·
Risks
and opportunities: although this information was initially
captured during [BR2] Benefit Mapping, this information should be
regularly reviewed and updated. New risks and opportunities may emerge along
the way.
v v
v
The Solution
Establish clear
accountability and governance structures to manage benefit delivery during and
after the life of the program.
v v
v
Linkages
Ensuring that these Benefit Delivery accountabilities and
processes are established and effectively managed is a core responsibility of [B2] Program Leadership.
[BR5] Benefits Reviews
Context
An important step in managing a Benefits
Realization Framework is to undertake regular reviews at various points in the
TGF program.
v v
v
The Problem
The whole Benefits Realization Framework needs
to be supported by a process of Review. Reviews are necessary to ensure that
plans are well thought-through, to address issues as realization progresses,
and to assess the final position.
Benefit realization is identified as one of the [CSF1]
Critical Success Factors for the TGF, and therefore needs to be
subject to regular review. In particular, the following review steps are
important:
·
Capture
previous lessons: this can be from any relevant program –
other TGF programs, or similar programs within the contributing organisations.
·
Plan
review:
once the Benefits Realization Plan is available, this must be reviewed critically.
This is the point to look for problems caused by optimism/overconfidence bias
or the shared assumptions of “groupthink”. For example, are the targets really
achievable? Are the Enablers and Changes sufficient to produce the Outcomes?
·
Progress
reviews:
Outcomes should be reviewed at appropriate points during the program. The
reviews should take place at meaningful points where substantial new
information about progress is available – for example, the first measures on a
leading indicator where a difference is expected. This should include a review
of risks and opportunities - the status of those already identified, and
whether any new ones have emerged. These
points may or may not coincide with other general program review points, which
should include a general review of benefits material along with other program
information.
·
Closure
review:
it is important that the closure review includes an assessment of the
effectiveness of the benefits realization approach, as well as an
assessment of performance against benefits targets. (Note: this review is
likely to take place around the time of program closure; it is likely that some
benefits realization is still in progress, so any assessment must account for
this.)
·
Independent
reviews:
a TGF program should consider whether it is appropriate to use independent
reviews at all points. This has particular value at start-up.
v v
v
The Solution
Hold reviews at
appropriate points in the TGF program plan.
In addition it is advisable to:
Consider using reviewers
independent of the program team.
v v
v
Linkages
This pattern is needed as part of the overall management of the
Benefits Realization Framework.
There is one TGF Core Pattern on Critical Success Factors.
This is set out below.
Context
In delivering a [B10]
Roadmap for Transformation, TGF programs
should ensure that they are managing the major strategic risks effectively. Typically, these
risks are not related to the technology itself – which is largely mature and
proven – but rather to business and cultural changes. Such changes are integral
to the the business management, service management and technology management
transformations required as part of a Transformational Government program.
v v
v
The Problem
Programs and projects which seek to deliver
Transformational Government face significant risks to successful delivery.
Clarity and insight into the consequences of transformation are needed.
It is unrealistic to expect to get everything right first
time and moving forward will be a process of continuous improvement. Systems
are needed which allow the government organization to understand the current
position, to plan, to move quickly, and to learn from experience.
A conformant program needs to keep track of a core set of
critical success factors throughout the lifetime of the program.
There is now an increasing body
of research which seeks to understand why some ICT‑enabled transformation
programs succeed and why others fail. The TGF therefore recommends the
following nine Critical Success Factors that reflect and respond to the findings
of such research, validated with OASIS members around the world. More detail on
each of these CSFs is contained in a checklist at Appendix C. These Critical
Success Factors need to be taken on board by any
government seeking to develop and deliver an effective Transformational
Government program.
1. Strategic
Clarity
2. Leadership
3. User focus
4. Stakeholder
engagement
5. Skills
6. Supplier
Partnership
7. Future-proofing
8. Achievable
Delivery
9. Benefits
Realization
v v
v
The Solution
Develop then manage and measure a clearly defined set of
Critical Success Factors.
Seek regular, independent review of performance against
those critical success factors.
Have mechanisms in place to assess risk and handle
monitoring, recovery and roll-back.
v v
v
Linkages
Monitoring of progress against the critical success factors
is a core task for [B2] Program
Leadership. Regular external health-checks of the program against the critical
success factors should be built in to the [B10]
Transformation Roadmap.
The following statements indicate whether, and if so to what
extent, each of the above patterns is to be used in a conformant
transformational government program.
All conformant Transformational Government
programs:
1.
MUST collaborate with stakeholders to develop and agree a
set of Guiding Principles for that program that cover, as a minimum, the
core TGF [GP1] Guiding Principles.
2.
MUST
produce a Vision for the TGF program that:
−
is developed in an iterative and
collaborative manner;
−
embraces the opportunities opened
up by new technologies and delivery channels, open data and effective
collaboration;
−
does so in a way which integrates
these with the core socio-economic, political and environmental vision for the
future, rather than seeing them as somehow separate from the government’s core
strategic objectives;
−
is measurable.
3.
MUST have Program Leadership that ensures:
-
clear accountability at both the
political and administrative levels for the program as a whole;
-
engagement of a broad-based
leadership team across the wider government;
-
effective governance arrangements
at both the strategic and delivery levels;
-
deployment of formal program
management disciplines, and
prioritization of activities and program changes, based on performance and
feedback criteria;
-
a clearly identified mix of
leadership skills;
-
an ability to manage organizational
evolution among partner organizations, and to deliver continuity through
political changes;
-
openness and transparency in the
governance process, including through digitally-enabled models of wider civic
participation.
4.
MUST have a Transformational Operating Model which
is built around citizen and business needs, not just government’s
organizational structure. This MUST include:
-
providing citizens and businesses with services which are
accessible in one stop and ideally offered over multiple channels;
-
enabling those services also to be delivered by private and voluntary
sector intermediaries;
-
an integrated business and information architecture which enables
a whole-of-government view of the customer;
-
incentives and business processes that encourage the internal
cultural change and cross-silo collaboration needed to drive the integration
and joining-up of services;
-
a cross-government strategy for shared development, management
and re-use of common customer data sets, applications, and applications interfaces
(e.g. authentication, payments, and notifications).
5.
SHOULD consider the [B4] Franchise
Marketplace as the recommended approach to implementing the Transformational
Operating Model;
6.
MUST demonstrate Stakeholder Collaboration by establishing, and giving high priority and adequate
resources to a formal managed stakeholder engagement program which is led by a
senior executive and integrated into the roles of all involved in delivering
the TGF program, and that SHOULD:
-
identify
and map the relationships between all key stakeholders in the program, then maintain
and update this stakeholder model on a regular basis;
-
establish
a clear set of structures, processes and incentives through which the Program
Leadership
and
the different stakeholders will interact;
-
ensure
that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of the TGF program, how they
can engage with it, and how they will benefit from it;
-
engage
effectively with stakeholders from the private, public and voluntary sectors to
deliver the program in a way that benefits all sectors;
-
engage
with other transformation programs to learn lessons and exchange experiences.
7.
MUST create a Policy Product Map (using the matrix
as a tool to help identify the Policy Products required) within the relevant
government as outlined in [B6] Policy Product Management, and MUST
establish policies and actions to address
gaps identified through this mapping, which SHOULD draw on
international, European and national standards where possible.
8.
MUST establish a Supplier Partnership Framework
which:
-
takes an integrated view of the
program’s procurement requirements;
-
ensures that procurement policies are aligned
with the TGF (focusing on procuring business outcomes,
building open data into all procurements, incentivizing innovation and collaboration,
avoiding supplier lock-in);
-
works to nurture an innovation
ecosystem across the government, including through:
-
publication of its procurement
policies, and publication and updating a
pipeline of major government procurement opportunities;
-
early and iterative engagement
with potential suppliers, including SMEs;
-
stimulating SME-led innovation,
including through use of competitions and placing SME-engagement requirements
on large suppliers;
-
driving forward the internal
cultural and behavioural changes entailed by these changes.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
MUST
address Skills issues by: mapping out the required skills for the
program; establishing a clear strategy for acquiring them and a continuity plan
for maintaining them; ensuring skills integration and skills transfer across
the internal and external elements of the delivery team; and SHOULD
consider using a formal competency framework to inform this work.
9.
10. MUST agree
and use a Common Terminology, and SHOULD consider using
the TGF recommended terminology at [B9] Common Terminology and Reference
Model to inform this.
11. MUST have a Roadmap
for Transformation.
12. MUST have a Stakeholder
Empowerment framework, which:
-
encourages and enables service innovation in
the Citizen-to-Citizen, Business-to-Citizen, Citizen-to-Government, and
Business-to-Government sectors;
-
opens up public data via open
platforms;
-
drives forward the internal
culture changes and the external market enablers which are needed to create a
flourishing marketplace in public sector information.
13.
MUST have a Brand-led Service Delivery
Strategy, which is agreed and managed at a whole-of-government level and which
addresses:
-
Customer Insight
-
Product Management
-
Marketing and communication;
14.
MUST have an Identity and Privacy Management Framework,
which:
-
uses a federated identity trust framework
comprising approved identity, credential and attribute service providers;
-
uses a service-oriented architecture (as part
of the wider SOA described in the TGF Technology Management Framework) which
evidences features that support designed-in security and privacy with customer
control over the management and release of personal data;
-
evidences information management
and graphical design features that deliver a seamless and uplifting online
experience for customers.
15.
MUST have a Channel Management Framework which
includes:
-
a clear audit of what existing channels are
currently used to deliver government services, and the costs and service levels
associated with these (‘Channel Mapping’); and a Channel Transformation
Strategy, which;
-
is centred on the needs and
behavior of citizens and businesses;
-
identifies the opportunities for
current services to be “engineered out” through the introduction of new smart
connectivity directly between government assets and digital devices;
-
shifts customers where appropriate
to lower cost digital channels;
-
encourages access and use of digital services by groups
currently excluded from these;
-
optimizes the cost and performance
of each channel, using public and private sector benchmarks to drive improvement;
-
improves cross-channel management,
by building channel support services around a common, web-based infrastructure
in order both to improve customer service and reduce costs
-
facilitates development of a
thriving mixed economy delivery of services;
-
builds partnerships which enable
the market and others to work with the government to deliver jointly-owned
objectives.
16. MUST undertake
Digital Asset Mapping and Management, by mapping out major
information and ICT system resources across the government, prioritizing those
with the greatest potential for reuse, and establish governance processes and
usage policies aimed at maximizing asset reuse.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
17. MUST address
Technology Development and Management by working with stakeholders to establish and maintain an open,
service-oriented, government-wide IT architecture, and to develop a phased
migration plan towards that architecture, which:
- concentrates
technology resources and efforts around leveraging open standards and SOA
Principles so as to ensure development and deployment agility, and support all
customer interactions, from face-to-face interactions by frontline staff to online
self-service interactions;
- uses
the Reference Model for Service-Oriented Architecture [SOA-RM] as the primary source for core concepts and definitions
of the SOA paradigm;
- realizes
discrete services that can perform work on behalf of other parties, with clear
service descriptions and contracts for any capability that is offered for use
by another party;
- wherever
possible prefers interoperable, open standards, particularly when these are well
supported in the market-place;
- pays
due attention to the total cost of ownership and operation of technology and
considers the possible value of open source when making technology choices.
18. MUST have a Business
Case that:
- is
approved at the top level of program governance;
- clearly
identifies and quantifies the impacts and outcomes that implementation of the
TGF aims to achieve, and demonstrate clear links from these to appropriate
strategic objectives;
- ensures
clear line-of-sight between every investment and activity in the program, the
immediate outputs these produce, and the final targeted outcomes;
- is
kept under regular review and updated as necessary.
19. MUST address
Benefits Mapping by underpinning the initial business case with a more
detailed map of benefits which sets out all the intended outcomes from the
transformation program and gives visibility of how the outputs from specific
activities and investments in the program flow through to deliver those
outcomes.
20. MUST undertake
Benefits Tracking, including through:
-
establishment of clear and quantified baselines for current
performance of target outputs and outcomes;
-
setting measurable success criteria;
-
tracking progress against planned delivery trajectories for each
of the targeted outputs and outcomes.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
MUST manage Benefits Delivery, establishing clear
accountability and governance structures to manage benefit delivery during and
after the life of the program.
21.
22. MUST undertake
regular Benefits Reviews.
23. MUST measure
and manage Critical Success Factors and SHOULD consider using as
a minimum the [CSF1] Critical Success Factors.
The following individuals have participated in the creation
of this specification and are gratefully acknowledged:
Participants:
Oliver Bell, Microsoft Corporation
John Borras, Individual Member
Peter F Brown, Individual Member
Nig Greenaway, Fujitsu Ltd
Jenny Huang, iFOSS Foundation
Gershon Janssen, Individual Member
Arnaud Martens, Belgian SPF Finances
Chris Parker, CS Transform Ltd
John Ross, Individual Member
Colin Wallis, New Zealand Government
Joe
Wheeler, MTG Management Consultants, LLC
Mark
Woodward, Individual Member
Acknowledgement is also
given to the British Standards Institution (BSI) for permission to take into
account in this specification the results of its work and stakeholder
consultation in its Publicly Available Specification 181, “Smart city framework
– Guidance for decision-makers in smart cities and communities” [BSI-SCF],
which itself drew on the original TGF.
A number of relationships need to
be managed by a franchise to enable it to develop, maintain and deliver
transformational customer-centric one-stop services. These represent different
viewpoints that can be broadly classified as:
Customers:
Those citizens and businesses to whom the franchise delivers content and
services, plus those internal stakeholders to whom the franchise provides a
service within the government.
Partners:
Those who are actors in the normal operation and delivery of the service, both
internally and externally to the government.
Influencers:
those who have a political, business or altruistic interest in the service and
the part that it plays in broader government, business and social scenarios.
Internal Customers: Those who
work with the franchise to develop and maintain the service.
Figure 19:
Relationships
in the Franchise Marketplace
The Franchise
The franchise is based around a customer segment. It may
contain bodies drawn from central, regional, and state government and others
that contribute to serving that segment.
It MUST have a lead organization that ensures its interests
are represented to other franchises and bodies. It MUST also have sponsoring
organizations that with a responsibility for the full range of service
perspectives across the segment.
The franchise is responsible for ensuring that all
relationships with external bodies are managed and for the provision of
supporting assets necessary to allow organizations within the franchise and
working with it to discharge their responsibilities in an open, consultative
and transparent manner.
Despite the importance of the franchise concept, it is not
intended to add unnecessary bureaucracy – rather, it is intended to provide a
lightweight framework within which participants can work naturally and
cooperatively.
Customers
Customers are the most important actors in operational
services as the services MUST address their needs and those of the people that
they represent.
Thus, as well as being users, it is essential that they are
consulted during the proposal stage for all services. Once operational, this
group SHOULD to be involved in customer satisfaction exercises and the
development of any service enhancements to ensure that their needs continue to
be met.
It is vital that Franchises identify their internal
government customers and apply similar customer research and customer
satisfaction measurement to these internal customer relationships as well as to
external ones.
Partners
Many partners will be involved in helping the
Franchise effectively to deliver the requirements of its customer segment. The
partnership may involve:
·
working with the franchise to
develop and maintain the service;
·
providing the supporting assets which give a
technical underpinning for this and other services.
The supporting assets provide the technical underpinning for
project delivery. Where they are publically owned, it is intended that they
will provide light-touch governance and facilities (primarily technical) to
support franchises and inter-working between them and with standards bodies.
It is essential that they ensure the provision and
availability of assets that are universal (i.e. fundamental items that are
required by all public sector organizations) or common (i.e. assets used across
multiple franchises).
Tooling SHOULD to be provided with the aim of supporting all
stakeholders and facilitating their collaboration.
Influencers
The influencers are those who identify, and possibly
mandate, the need for a service. Accordingly, it is vital that they are able to
steer developments within and across franchises. They also have a
responsibility to ensure that all stakeholders are aligned and are organizationally
capable of discharging their responsibilities.
This
annex provides a checklist giving more detail on the nine critical success
factors referred to in the [CSF1] Critical Success Factors.
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1) Strategic
clarity
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a)
Clear vision
·
Our vision has been developed collaboratively.
·
All stakeholders have a clear and
common understanding of what our program is seeking to achieve.
·
This vision is underpinned by guiding
principles on how we work together to deliver the vision in practice.
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ü
ü
ü
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b)
Strong business case
·
We know what outcomes we want to achieve, and have established
clear, evidence-based measures of success.
·
There is a clear and quantified
baseline of the costs and performance of current service delivery systems
across the government, against which we can compare the impact of the program.
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ü
ü
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c)
Focus on results
·
We focus on taking concrete, practical steps in the short to
medium term.
·
The program is delivering significant
benefits to stakeholders (including citizens and businesses) now.
·
We are not spending money on
technology before having identified the key organizational and business
changes needed for it to help deliver our vision.
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ü
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2) Leadership
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a)
Sustained support
·
Political leaders and senior management are committed to the program
for the long term.
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b)
Leadership skills
·
Our leadership team has the skills needed to drive ICT-enabled
business transformation.
·
Our leadership team has access to
external support, including engagement with leaders of other transformational
government initiatives
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ü
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c)
Collaborative governance
·
Leaders from all parts of our and other organizations involved
in the program are motivated for it to succeed, and are engaged in clear and
collaborative governance mechanisms to manage key risks and issues.
·
There is unambiguous accountability
as to which partner has the lead role on each aspect of roadmap delivery.
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3) User
focus
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a)
A holistic view of the
city’s citizen and business customers
·
We have a whole-of-government view of the customers for our
services, and understand their needs on a segmented basis.
·
Customer insight is informed by both
on research and analysis of customer data.
·
Customer insight is pooled at a
government-wide level, not managed within individual silos.
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ü
ü
ü
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b)
Customer-centric delivery
·
Citizens and businesses can access all our services through a
one-stop-service.
·
This is available over multiple
channels, but we use common web-based services to join it all up, provide a
single view of the customer and reduce infrastructure duplication.
·
We are proactively working to
encourage take up of services through digital channels, and to help those who
are currently digitally excluded to benefit from these services.
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ü
ü
ü
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c)
Stakeholder empowerment
·
We engage customers directly in service design and delivery.
·
We provide all stakeholders with
access to public data and support to use it to create new commercial and
public value.
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ü
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4) Stakeholder
engagement
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a)
Stakeholder participation
·
All our stakeholders (users, suppliers, delivery partners
elsewhere in the public, private and voluntary sector, politicians, the
media, etc.) have a clear understanding of our program, how they can engage
with it and how they will benefit from it.
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ü
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b)
Cross-sectoral
partnership
·
The program is engaging effectively with stakeholders in the
public, private and voluntary sectors.
·
The program is delivering clear
benefits for all stakeholder groups.
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ü
ü
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c)
Engagement with other
transformation programs
·
Our program is engaging systematically with other
transformation programs to learn lessons and exchange experience.
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5) Skills
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a)
Skills mapping
·
We have mapped out the skills we need to deliver the program,
and have established clear plans for acquiring and maintaining them.
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b)
Skills integration
·
We have effective mechanisms in place to maximize value from
all the skills available across the partners involved in delivery of the
transformation roadmap.
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6) Supplier
partnership
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a)
Smart supplier selection
·
Our procurement and contracting policies are aligned with smart
procurement principles (focus on outcomes, open data, incentives for
innovation and collaboration, avoidance of lock-in).
·
We select suppliers based on long-term value for money rather
than price, and in particular based on our degree of confidence that the
chosen suppliers will secure delivery of the expected business benefits.
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ü
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b)
Supplier integration
·
We manage the relationship with strategic suppliers at the
level of top management on both sides of the partnership, aiming to develop
win-win alignment behind our vision and roadmap for transformation.
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7) Future-proofing
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a)
Interoperability
·
Wherever possible we use interoperable, open standards that are
well supported in the market-place.
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ü
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b)
Web-centric delivery
·
We use SOA principles in order to support all of our customer
interactions, from face-to-face interactions by frontline staff to online
self-service interactions.
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ü
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c)
Agility and resilience
·
We deploy technology using common building blocks that can be reused
to enable flexibility, resilience and adaptability.
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d)
Shared services
·
We manage key building blocks as government-wide resources - in
particular common customer data sets (e.g. name, address); common
applications and application interfaces (e.g. authentication, payments,
notifications); and core ICT infrastructure.
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e) Support and maintenance
·
We have support and maintenance arrangements in place that can
take over responsibility for assets developed and/or managed by stakeholders
who leave the smart city’s ecosystem for whatever reason.
·
We have a process in place that can engage with replacement
stakeholders when existing stakeholders deemed to provide value leave the
smart city’s ecosystem or become disengaged.
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ü
ü
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8) Achievable delivery
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a)
Phased implementation
·
We avoid a "big bang" approach to implementation,
reliant on significant levels of simultaneous technological and
organizational change.
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ü
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b)
Continuous improvement
·
We expect not to get everything right first time, but have
systems that enable us to understand the current position, plan, move quickly
and learn from experience.
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ü
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c)
Risk management
·
We have clarity and insight into the consequences of
transformation and mechanisms to assess risk and handle monitoring, recovery
and roll-back.
·
Our program benefits from regular
external health-checks.
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ü
ü
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Revision
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Date
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Editor(s)
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Changes Made
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01
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10 Dec 2013
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John Borras
Peter Brown
Chris Parker
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Initial draft.
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02
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18 Dec 2013
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John Borras
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Consolidates changes agreed by the TC to date plus some
outstanding issues still to be resolved.
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03
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22 Dec 2013
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John Borras
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Final draft for TC approval.
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