If you are planning to change the world, at least sound like you mean it!
Jonathan Norman, FRSA, FAPM
Strategy, knowledge and project management, communities of practice
I am somewhat ambivalent about the UK Government’s 'Government Transformation Strategy'. On the one hand, I am delighted at the ambition and the willingness to wear your heart on your sleeve. We need to transform not just the machinery of Government but the belief, involvement and understanding of all our citizens in government (national, regional and local).
My ambivalence stems from the language of the document, which contrives to say nothing of real meaning. It’s groaning under the weight of jargon; vague in the extreme with few, if any metrics that I could see; and loses sight of the citizen … what are the implications and what is the rationale for many of the aspirational changes expressed. Sure, some of them are self-evident, but others …?
I appreciate the challenge of painting anything like a detailed picture of such a huge undertaking in so few words. But, if we can’t do it then maybe we should resist the temptation and find other ways to communicate or perhaps we need a new vocabulary or a new language for describing transformation? Which is something that means very different things to different people and means absolutely nothing to the vast majority.
IT Programme Delivery Manager | Fortune 500 | Supply Chain Logistics | Cloud | Data Analytics | Cybersecurity | Immediate start
7 年Hi Jonathan, Policy documents can be high and dry. They are often made by scholars fresh out of university or by people who are out of realities of work environment. A good transformation programme manager will try to identify the essence and translate this big picture into small, workable ideas. Even Brexit may seem hazy but people know overall what they want. It is the details that need to be worked out and negotiated. Thank you.
Really enjoy helping organisations improve strategy and project outcomes and learning from them while I do it.
7 年This immediately clarified everything for me - found in the Vision and Scope section "Transformation generally refers to making step-change improvements to whole services and whole organisations, as distinct from incremental improvements. " However, the Appendices do go beyond the 'aspirational vision statement' fluff at the high level to provide some specific objectives and meaningful (measurable) targets, including a list of digital services to be completed by 2020 and several projects in the GMPP which I assume have clear definitions in terms of deliverables and performance and governance. Possibly the higher level 'vision' stuff could be re-labelled 'Approach' and a more useful summary for general public provided that talks directly and simply about what changes they will see by 2020, with links to relevant details, and expected value and costs for such changes, and a set of meaningful indicators for the general pubic to assess progress towards delivery of these specific changes. I have not tried to check, but the key clues to likely success for this strategy would be in the degree of correlation to this digital strategy reflected in the individual strategic plans (specific objectives for 2020) in all the government agencies/units, and the availability of any credible measures affording a clear indication that all stakeholders are not only equally committed but delivering 'transformation' as planned.
Scenario based strategy author, consultant and lecturer
7 年I see it, Jonathan Norman, doc talks about data, but contains no numbers. I guess underneath this text is a clear plan, somewhere.
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7 年Jonathan, I expect this document would look pretty weak if tested against OpenStrategies’ PRUB?