SIGN AHEAD - Adjustments, Assumptions & Accolades

Hey, it's been a minute!

Welcome back! I took some time away while the BC election did its thing, but now we're back. It's the November update of the Digital Road Ahead, a space where I share my thoughts and experiences as Product Director for DriveBC Modernization, and assist in the digital transformation of the BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit . This will include our journey, learnings, and what we're bringing to the table that's working (or not) around topics like leadership, agile, SCRUM, change management, communication, relationship building... all the things. Hopefully, it’ll help others on their journeys.

Please share with anyone you think it might be useful to.

It’s a meaty one this month (hey, we've been away). Now, on to the ideas, lessons, and musings...

Moving from 2 to 3

The move from 2-week to 3-week sprints had come up frequently over the course of this product. There were definitely pros and cons to making this shift, but since we were doing well with a 2-week rhythm, neither our Scrum Master nor I felt particularly inspired or motivated to change it. That changed at our most recent Compass Day. The reason? Public trust. Though we were doing well with the beta site, the complexity was growing as more and more features and enhancements were being added. And that means the possibility of more bugs. After consulting with the team, I determined we needed to focus on a Zero Defect approach as we moved toward replacing the legacy site because nothing erodes trust like a buggy website. So, to ensure our work velocity continued while also prioritizing bug fixing, we moved to 3-week sprints. It's only been a few sprints, but it’s working extremely well for the team and the quality of the product.

Lessons from Cancelling a Feature

One of the features we had included in our roadmap was Turn-by-Turn navigation — essentially a step-by-step guide for users from their current location to a specified destination, offering specific instructions at each intersection, turn, or change in direction. We had it in our backlog, I prioritized it, and the team did visual design around it… until a team member asked a brilliant question just before we dug into the heavy work. Why? Why were we doing this feature? I paused. I looked to our UX research. I reviewed our documentation. I checked my (now aging) memory. No one had asked for it. For some reason, we had assumed it was a necessary feature, and it just kept being included in our journey. That’s on me. I’m glad that team member felt safe enough to push back. So, I decided to drop it — at least for now. If the public provides overwhelming requests for it and it adds significant value, we’ll absolutely reconsider. But for now, with all the work still ahead, I was happy to clear the space and not be precious about something I couldn’t back up with user research.

The Challenges of Assumption

It’s an interesting experience supporting a well-known legacy platform while also moving toward its modernization and replacement simultaneously. When you have a digital tool like DriveBC that’s been around for two decades, people get used to it and the information it provides — including our own organization. One of my challenges as Product Director is to introduce new ways of considering and strategizing what goes on the new site, what should be left out, and whether the things from the old site should be replicated. Not just assuming they should. It comes down to questions: Who does it serve? What value does it provide? Is DriveBC the best place for it? Could it better serve its users through a different tool or a different approach? It’s not a NO. It’s a "maybe, but I need more information to ensure it's providing the most value." Just because it’s a journey we’ve traveled before, doesn’t mean it’s an automatic YES for the journey ahead. And that’s on me to communicate — with active listening and compassion, while continuing the ongoing dialogue.

Sweet Sweet Recognition

And another bit of cool news! Our DriveBC Modernization team's work was one of the products highlighted in the Ministry of Citizen Service’s Digital Plan Progress Report. This report marks the first anniversary of the Public Sector’s Digital Plan, recognizing the significant progress made across the BC government and the "efforts in improving digital services, delivering innovative solutions, and enhancing digital experiences for the people of B.C."? Hey, that's us. A huge thank you to our team for their curiosity, creativity, and hard work; for the collaboration we enjoy across government, not only with this ministry including our Information Management Branch but also our partners at GeoBC, DataBC, CITZ, and beyond; and for our executive's support (DM Kaye Matheny Krishna , Associate Deputy Minister Kevin Richter and Assistant Deputy Minister Paula Cousins , DriveBC Modernization Sponsor Deputy Director Katie Ward and Chief Information Officer Alexander Ritchie ) in making it a success.

Lessons Along the Way

Every edition of this newsletter, I'm reaching out to those that I admire in the digital transformation space (so far including these phenomenal folks: Rumon Carter , Jillian Carruthers , Justin Hewitt , Jessie Adcock, ICD.D , Nancy Norris , Savannah Murphy , Stuart Restall , Aaron Unger , Catherine Chernoff , Paula Cousins , Karl Hardin and Alexander Ritchie ) and asking them to share their experiences.

For this month, I reached out to Gary Wong , Senior Product Manager with the Ministry of Citizen Services. I've always appreciated Gary's insight and passion for this work so I was excited to get him to answer the question:

The greatest lesson I've learned in my journey of digital transformation is...

...to think big.? My current team is about to launch a digital product that cuts across ministry boundaries and digital system frontiers. At our Inception session, over a year ago, we asked ourselves ‘what is the biggest pain point for our partners and clients?? What would have the highest value to them?' The team landed on a business problem that would involve external vendors, cross-ministry powers and connections to legacy IT systems.? At the time I thought to myself ‘.. this will never fly..’ but it was a team decision so I respected this decision.? The team succeeded and I’ve never been more happy to be so wrong.?

Really appreciated, Gary! Thank you.

Brain Food

For this month's inspiring brain food, I reached out to one of the brains behind OXD , the organization that's a part of our team in moving DriveBC Modernization forward. Owner and VP Gordon Ross has frequently shared some fantastic insights so what better place to keep that tradition going than in our newsletter.

If you know me well enough, you'll know that picking a single book or resource is pretty much an invitation for a full-blown existential crisis. More helpfully, it's prompted me to think about creating a bibliography of all those stacks of books in my office and sharing that for those inclined. In the meantime, here's two picks - something to watch and something to read.?

CROSSING THE RIVER BY FEELING THE STONES - Simon Wardley

Simon's form of value-chain mapping (Wardley Mapping) and the ideas behind it have influenced how I've thought about our government digital transformation work for the past decade. He's given this talk quite a few times at various conferences, many of which you can find on YouTube - this version is one of the latest iterations from April 2023. It provides a great introduction to his theory and practice of mapping, with the added bonus of his somewhat Monty Python-esque comedic tendencies.?

PLATFORMLAND - An anatomy of next generation public services - Richard Pope

Richard's book is recently published (Oct 2024) and builds on his work at the UK's GDS and contributions at Harvard Kennedy School about the idea of "government as a platform." He suggests a pattern language for how we might design and build modern government digital services, along with a number of strategies that those patterns afford. Policy makers, designers, and technologists should all be able to find some useful ideas in the book as he does a great job developing concepts to describe the intersection of those domains.?

Really appreciate you providing these, Gord. Great resources to help our transformation journey.

Big Shout Out:?Keeping Us Going

This month, I'm sharing a big kudos to our DriveBC Modernization team's Senior Technical Analysts Willem Mulder and James Duyndam. As the big part of our Ops leadership in our DevOps, they've been essential not only keeping our foundation strong but also in sharing their insights into what we can do better in this journey. They'll be key in the transition from legacy to the new iteration of DriveBC to ensure we respect the old platform while supporting the latest one.

Thank YOU, Wim and James! Appreciate your experience and guidance through this.

That'll do it for the November edition of The Digital Road Ahead. Thank you for being so supportive and interested in my journey and lessons along the way. If you think this newsletter would be of value to anyone else, please share and encourage others to subscribe. Love to help anyone who may find this material relevant, even if it's about not feeling alone in their journey.

Until next time, cheers!