Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 20/Jan 04:27

Moving government to digital transformation

BitDepth#1494 Mark Lyndersay Last week's column was described by a reader as "uncharitable." Which is correct, in a strict reading of its intent. It offered no gifts and cut no slack. The national effort to effect tangible digital transformation is critically important and merits continuous evaluation. While blunt assessment has its place, so too does unsolicited advice. The plans of the Ministry of Digital Transformation (MDT) are neither misguided nor inappropriate, but its ambitions so robustly exceed our lived reality that a clearer effort to harness strategy to more clearly stated tactics is needed. Leadership Hassel Bacchus is the Digital Transformation Minister, but the government is led by the Prime Minister and, in some shadow role, the prime minister-in-waiting. Bacchus is guided by collective consensus, so if the goals of the government must be set by the PM and the PM-i-w, the compass there has not been clearly set to a digital future. To be fair, digital is a tough conceptual sell for politicians. Launches of things on screens aren't terribly exciting and digital ribbon cuttings are inevitably a farce. Greater state efficiency is also the nemesis of political patronage. It demands a more refined skillset from public servants, who will, in turn be empowered by technology to do more, reducing staffing requirements. The public sector is the largest single employer in TT, so signals of potential technology-fuelled reductions in state employment are not a rallying cry for the political faithful. Dr Williams' decision to own some of the downstream opportunities of raw oil and natural gas with an industrial estate was a major government intervention in the extraction process. Dr Williams was not a technocrat, but he trusted one РDr Ken Julien, and gave him the force of his good right hand in executing an expensive and dramatic change in the way the country's patrimony was managed. That Point Lisas Industrial Estate was created by a cadre of world-class scientists, analysts and engineers, not politicians. Oversight This ministry's role, as with all ministries, is to set policy and evaluate the execution of the public service. But its role must move beyond that for successful transformation. Government ministries operate as siloed operations, erecting Chinese walls to "own" their projects and achievements. Every playbook for digital transformation in governance emphasise the need for stakeholder buy-in and participation, but local instances of this are invisible, if they exist. Is there a digital transformation unit in every government ministry? An evangelising group dedicated to identifying opportunities for transformation and capable of moving actionable projects to completion? The ministry cannot mobilise enough people to move the corpus of government forward on its own. Hassel Bacchus talks about his ministry's plan to leapfrog to greater transformation, but what's needed is a multitude of small steps that demonstrate the value of transformation of the public sector, stakeholders and the general public. The ministry's goals won't be won with tsunami, but with a steady rhythm of wave surges, each rolling ashore successfully. Effective teams The ministry was built from scratch four years ago. Some staff were imported from existing ministries but many are new to the governance process. If you are a young hire at the ministry, this bit is for you. First up, you cannot win. In government, politics and its related skill, longevity trumps actual technical knowledge every time. You have a choice. You can become political and play the game as defined, you can leave and find merit-based employment in the private sector, or you can learn the fine art of bureaucratic jiu jitsu and find ways to make the system work for you. So document, document, document. Write down every commitment, decision, agreement, and promise. Follow everything up in writing. Use the aide m̩moire like a rapier. Very politely and in measured language, make your voice and suggestions heard. If your bosses co-opt your ideas, feed them regularly and industriously. You will have more ideas. Digitalise by example. You can talk about digital transformation for years on end and get nowhere. Show what happens. Pick the low-hanging fruit and execute mercilessly on each to deliver a process that works and delivers value. When I began writing this column in 1995, I made a pact to never deliver it as text on paper, the way I'd delivered my writing for publication over the previous 20 years. At first, I brought the column in on a floppy disk, but I never reneged on that promise to remain digital. To transform, you have to do it, make mistakes, then wheel and come again. Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. An expanded version of this column can be found there. The post Moving government to digital transformation appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.