"So you think you're special? All organisations share the same issues"

Ultimately it's all about people, according to Public Digital CEO, Ben Terrett .

Speaking to an audience of Agile specialists at Product London today, hosted by 英国电信集团 , Ben suggests that while every organisation tends to believe it’s different or special, facing unique challenges, essentially they're large groups of people, and they all have the same problems.

Bureaucracy applies to both public and private sector

"Ultimately being successful with digital transformation is about managing and responding to human behaviour, and the issues you see in large government departments are just the same as we see in huge private companies," says Terrett. "In fact, the bureaucracy in business is often worse than in governments. We've certainly seen this in some of the private organisations we've worked with.

Take a test and learn approach

"Organisations which were established before the internet often struggle to adapt to the different ways of working of the digital era, applying 'waterfall' approaches to project management, rather than adopting a more effective 'test and learn' approach. It's why an organisation like Amazon can be so successful. It applies internet-era ways of working to delivery at scale. It tests scores of bets and enough of them win.

"In contrast, an organisation like the NHS can lose billions of pounds on a single failed IT procurement, because it applies usual government ways of working to delivery at scale. It made one huge bet, and it lost.

Prioritise agility

"Agility is the skill all organisations need to prioritise; even those with final salary pension schemes.

"Focus on outcomes, not outputs; avoid ‘Big Bang’ delivery; test and learn, gathering feedback from reality. Empower your teams to solve problems - give them the agency to do what works best and the tools they need to deliver them; and finally it's all about trust - work at the speed of trust rather than the speed of progress. Invest in your teams before investing in costly tech."

Get in touch with Public Digital to learn more about how we help pre-internet era organisations adapt themselves to reap the benefits of digital.