We have been cross-training with a team of elite Treasury and NSW government agency athletes over the past six months to develop a contemporary planning, funding and governance model for digital.nsw.
However, as we get ready for the football season to roll around again, we are hoping that the different approach we've taken in our off-season has prepared us for a game that must evolve.
The government ICT funding season (aka the Treasury budget cycle) has essentially been played the same way for decades. Teams are asked to submit large, speculative capital-funded business cases that expects players to know every problem, solution, timeframe and cost - sometimes four to five years in advance of speaking to real users.
The more skilled players (the veterans who read the game well) know it's all about timing, influence, pressure and sometimes just a bit of good luck. These agencies know what to propose and when to put themselves in a position to score more tries than other agencies or to catch an intercept that was meant for a bridge or road.
So, what's the problem? Why not coach every agency to play the go-big, go-once game?
The problem is that we cannot wait 12 to 18 months (or more) just to start digital programs that citizens need. The problem is that the old game creates false certainty and programs that overrun and, most importantly in the new game we need agencies to play together and with Treasury for citizens to get the best experience from government.
A Game of Three Halves
We have previously shared our blueprint for delivery and discussed how the blueprint, delivery roadmap and funding model work together.
The blueprint proposes a focus on three key areas:
So, the scope of the proposed digital funding model we have been co-designing with NSW Treasury works to enable each of these three areas. That is, an investment vehicle that will:
- Support the delivery of significant whole of government citizen journey improvements,
- Build re-usable solutions to accelerate delivery and create a consistent citizen experience, and
- Contribute to reducing the financial and operational risk of government-wide legacy technologies and promote capability uplift across departments.
Unlike the traditional approach of bidding for investment each annual budget cycle, the digital ârestart' fund is intended to be held by Treasury and exist over budget forward estimates (a rolling four years).
Our preferred approach would be that proposals can be made every three months against the three different scope areas above.
Some of the key changes we are trying to make are to:
- Funding smaller increments tied to delivering value, to reduce risk and incentivise agile delivery,
- Transitioning from only funding discrete multi-year âprojects' towards also funding teams to deliver a pipeline of work aligned to priorities, and
- Funding work that enables discovery to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and establishes product ownership early to ensure sustainability and ongoing improvement.
Kick Off
Like the agile methods and product teams we are advocating in our projects, we are running our Digital Restart Fund through our own digital methodology, starting with a Discovery phase through Alpha / Beta / Live, testing with stakeholders and users throughout and iterating along the way.
So, when the whistle blows on the new digital funding season, we will be ready to hit the field, and in preparation we have developed:
- A backlog of validated Customer Journeys we'd like to improve,
- A sector-prioritised set of core and common digital services
- A prioritised set of legacy solutions that we would like to develop contemporary modernisation approaches for, and
- Ideas for building new skills in the public service to lead these important initiatives.
As always, we'd love your input
The contributions of the NSW Customer Service Commission, Public Service Commission, our partners, ideas from other industries and advice from a number of other jurisdictions have already been critical in developing our game plan.
However, the more input the better - we genuinely are interested in your thoughts on how to make this a success.