More than a year ago, mine and Myra Hunt’s predecessor Sally Meecham wrote about Defra’s digital principles, saying how they acted as a useful way of setting out our approach to simplifying services and cutting out complexity.

A lot’s happened since then. In the last few months, we have been working hard to re-think how Defra’s digital function is structured and how it works. As we said in a blog post back in November of last year:

Digital transformation means changing those working methods. It means: being more agile; putting users first; starting small and iterating from there, based on user research.

The new digital function is designed to bring those changes about, and make them stick.

Consequently, we think it’s time to re-evaluate the digital principles. We want them to better reflect where we are now.

So at the moment, they look something like this:

1. Focus on teams, not projects
2. Develop in-house capacity wherever possible, helped by specialist external experts and suppliers where necessary
3. Be agile by default, and deliver in line with GDS standards
4. Build digital teams in line with the GDS Digital, Data and Technology profession framework
5. Budget for continuous iterative improvement
6. Deliver using a common technology stack that’s flexible enough to help teams deliver
7. Encourage teams to re-use common platforms and service patterns wherever possible
8. Challenge work that does not have a clear or persuasive business case, or which appears to add complexity, or that doesn’t meet user needs, or that simply replicates poor non-digital processes
9. Keep things simple

And there’s a final, meta principle that goes alongside all of these:

We will empower teams and individuals to call us out when they see these principles being ignored, sidelined or mis-used.

That’s important because laying out a set of principles is one thing, but giving them clout is another. We want these principles to have some clout, to be something that guides us and our colleagues across the digital function for the years ahead.

There’s a great deal of work to do. We hope that having a set of clear, simple principles will help give delivery teams across Defra confidence that we’ve got their backs, and we’re here to support them. Keep going.

This article was originally published here.

The post Iterating our digital principles appeared first on Digital Leaders.

I was at Sprint 18 last week, where I got some good news: Defra has won a slice of the £20 million GovTech Catalyst (GTC) grant fund.

There will be 3 more opportunities for public sector teams to apply to the GTC for a slice of the fund – the first of those opens for applications on 21 May 2018 and closes 1 month later.

I thought it would be useful for me to share what I learned about making a successful application to the fund. Then those other public sector teams might be better equipped when the time comes for them to write their own bids.

Lesson 1: start early

I got involved 13 working days before the submission deadline. My brief was to submit 1 good bid and work with Alex Knell, my Defra colleague. We got it done, but it would’ve been less stressful if we’d started earlier. Email the GTC team in the Government Digital Service (GDS) and check when the next round opens and closes.

Lesson 2: get help

Defra works with 33 agencies and public bodies. It’s a complex organisation. Alex and I had to quickly reach out to colleagues from right across the Defra family to find out how they work and what they needed. We had lots and lots of conversations and captured lots and lots of needs, and as a result of that, we were able to draw out several compelling themes and zero in on those to arrive at a preferred Defra Challenge candidate. In the end, it was a real Team Defra effort with many people helping to shape the final bid.

Lesson 3: the GTC team are happy to help, so ask them for help

Alex & I were both new to GTC. We had questions. I called, emailed and visited both the GDS team and the contacts in H.M.Treasury. GDS were great for understanding the process. HMT gave guidance on the content of the application.

Lesson 4: make things open, it makes things better

Last year I worked with the GDS Government as a Platform team to source some information from Defra. I used our internal social media tool to great effect. I basically threw out a question on the main channel which has over 5000 Defra employees on it. This worked wonders. However, I didn’t use this for the GTC bid. If you have internal channels that you know work, use them. Be as open as possible about what you’re doing; it helps bring people along on the journey.

On Monday 19 February 2018 at 4:12pm, I submitted our bid via email. 2 months went by and on Thursday 12 April GDS called me:

Me: “Is it good news or bad news?” (no pleasantries, straight to the point)

GDS: “What d’you think?

Me: “Good news”

GDS: “You’re right”

Me: “BOOOOMMMM”

Lesson 5: warm up the comms team

Once I’d received the call from GDS, it largely became a comms issue. This is so that press releases can be arranged, Ministers alerted and dates set to make announcements. I eventually hooked up the Defra, GDS and HMT comms teams and mostly left them to it. However, it took some time to find the right internal comms person. So find this person early. Let them know what to expect.

What we’re going to use the money for

The focus of our bid was Smart Waste Tracking. Defra needs the ability to track waste movement and waste levels in real-time. We need to do this without placing additional burden upon Waste Carriers or Waste Companies. In a future blog post, we’ll go into more detail about the content of our bid, the scores we received and how we can do better.

The post Lessons from winning the GovTech Catalyst grant fund appeared first on Digital Leaders.

The subject of our talk was “What are digital skills, and how do we develop them?” We think that good digital transformation happens when you invest in people and skills, as well as technology.

This post is a summary of what we said, partly for the benefit of the people who were there, and partly because we thought it would be good to be open about this, because it affects colleagues in many other parts of Defra and beyond, across government.

Why digital skills matter

Let’s start with GDS co-founder Tom Loosemore’s definition of digital:

Applying the culture, practices, processes and technologies of the internet era to respond to people’s raised expectations.

Our joint Chief Digital Officers, Harriet Green and Myra Hunt, explained how this simple statement defines the task ahead of them (and us).

Defra is changing the way it works, in order to become a more flexible and adaptable organisation. To better meet people’s raised expectations.

But it’s important to remember that some of those people are our own staff, or people we will want to hire in future. Their expectations are raised too.

They expect to be able to use modern computers and web-based collaboration tools to get their work done.

They expect to be allowed to work more flexibly, in more locations and while travelling, and for the kit we give them to cope with that.

They expect to be allowed to put their existing digital skills to use, and to be able to develop and grow those skills while they work here.

Why do they expect all these things? Because that’s the norm, these days. That’s what they’d get from a job in the private sector. So if we want them to come and work for us – and stay working for us – we need to go to similar lengths to meet the same expectations.

Building digital skills

The Digital Working team in Defra has been working with teams and leaders to help make transformation easier. At the moment, we’re focusing on three primary areas to help build digital skills:

1. Coaching

We have specialist agile coaches working with delivery teams in Bristol, Warrington, Crewe and Reading.

These agile coaches aren’t just popping in for the occasional visit – they’re embedded with the teams, sitting with them as much as possible, making themselves visible and available.

Each of them is very experienced in making agile ways of working work, particularly when the wider organisation is less agile than the delivery teams themselves. That boundary between “very agile”” and “less agile” is often where the trickiest problems arise. (It’s where we find it useful to think about the agile team onion, a concept developed and explained by former Digital Working team member Emily Webber.)

The coaches have a mandate to get involved. Some teams need more help than others. Each coach has the freedom to find the teams and the problems that need help, and gently (positively) interfere where necessary. They help remove blockers, question traditional behaviours, suggest new ways of doing things, and teams reflect on what’s been done.

The teams tell us that having the coaches around is very helpful for them.

2. Developing Communities of Practice

We think Communities play a vital role in delivery. The more brains you have focused on a problem, the sooner it gets solved. Communities bring brains together.

The nature of Defra’s work means it has offices all over the country. No matter how hard we work to break down our organisational silos, we’re still going to have geographical ones that are much harder to overcome.

Nevertheless, we think it’s worth putting the effort in. Communities create opportunities for people working in the same role to get together (virtually and face-to-face) to share problems and solutions.

Different Defra communities are at different stages. Some are brand new and still finding their feet. Others are growing in membership and maturity, and starting to become a collective voice for people who, individually, would struggle to get their views heard.

3. Investing in learning and development

The GDS Academy is important for building digital skills across government, offering a range of courses across professions.

Recently, the Digital Working team has been setting up a “pick and mix” bag of training courses, mainly covering things that aren’t covered by GDS Academy or elsewhere.

We’ve been helping teams with short courses in things like:

• how to do a retrospective
• how to use kanban
• needs of individuals and delivery teams

Another recent addition to the list is “Agile for everyone”, a short (half day) course aimed at anyone who wants to find out more about agile ways of working. We’ve found it particularly useful for middle management who have heard about agile, and seen teams that report to them implementing it, but who haven’t had an opportunity to learn about it or use it for themselves. The course is as much about stimulating debate as it is about sharing knowledge.

Helping those managers recognise the value of agile working is enormously helpful not just for them, but for the teams that report to them. The better their bosses understand why they’re working in a particular way, the more successful the agile team will be.

Simple things management can do to help

If you’re in a management job, particularly if you have agile teams working for you already, there are 3 simple things you can do to help them:

1. Empower teams to experiment and learn

Establish clear guard rails for decisions the team can take themselves, and decisions that need to be escalated up. That said, make team-level decision-making the norm, rather than the exception.

Protect the team so that they can focus on delivery, and they’re not distracted by noise around them.

Talk to managers above you, to ensure you are suitably empowered and have autonomy to make decisions at the right level. (If they don’t fully understand agile ways of working, maybe they could come to the next “Agile for everyone” session.)

2. Participate as part of the team

You will feel – and be – more detached from the work that’s being done if you limit your involvement to reading progress reports at the end of an email chain. Make sure you visit your teams, attend their show-and-tells and some of their stand-ups. Encourage them to write blog posts about progress, and write some of your own too.

3. Do less, but do it better

Sometimes the best decision you can make is not to do something. Teams that can focus on one thing can deliver faster and better. Effective prioritisation is essential, so make sure you allow time for it to happen, and you involve people so that they know why and how it’s happening. Teams with the freedom to focus are generally more productive.

Trusted teams make better decisions

Too often, there’s a chain of command – or a chain of approval – that was originally put in place to approve the work being done. This piece of work has been done well, so it can continue. That piece of work hasn’t been done well, so it should stop.

Digital delivery puts trust in the teams from the outset, and assumes that they will decide what to do based on the evidence they gather during their research. They are by far the best people equipped to make decisions on what’s the right thing to work on next, and what isn’t.

If they think a piece of work hasn’t produced good results, they will want to understand why. They will be the first people to raise a hand and say: “This isn’t the right thing we should be working on.” And then, if they can, explain what the right thing should be.

The more you can trust your team, and free them from burdens of constantly justifying their own existence, the better they will deliver in the long run.

The more you invest in people and skills, the better progress your organisation will make with digital transformation.

This article was originally published here and was reposted with permission.

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I manage the Geomatics team at the Environment Agency; we use remote sensing to produce leading edge earth observation solutions. For example during an Incident we provide information on the flood extent, pollution risks and infrastructure damage. To carry out these observations, the Environment Agency has a suite of different tools available best suited to different situations.

Planes, Drones and Satellites

During the winter 2015/16 flooding across Cumbria and Yorkshire, we assessed flooding extent using traditional methods of aerial photography taken from aircraft. This method allows extensive information to be captured quickly, with data across the entire area collected within one day.

To get a broader overview, satellite data is used. After a request for information on the extent of flooded farmland, within 36 hours the team downloaded the appropriate data, ran analysis for presence or absence of water and determined the extent of the flooding. Earth Observations were able to provide a free, efficient and low carbon method for determining flood extent in a relatively short space of time.

To assess smaller scale flooding incidents in higher detail, drone technologies have proved useful. We responded to an information request to assess an inaccessible river breach. A drone was sourced and supplied to provide an up close and detailed live stream, allowing quick and efficient assessments and plans to be made.

Right tools for the job…

In an emergency, rapid evidence collection is critical for appropriate actions to be made. To do this, the Environment Agency needs to make sure they have the correct tools for the job. Satellite data gives a broad overview of flooding extent, aerial photography is appropriate if the flooding is discrete but widespread, and if more detailed observations are required a drone may be the best platform.

Although we cannot stop floods from occurring, we can make sure that by using the most up to date technologies available, the Environment Agency is armed with all the information as fast and as cost effectively as possible. With increasing flood risk, our work on harnessing these new innovations will become ever more important.

This blog was reposted here with permission and first appeared on the Defra digital blog here: https://defradigital.blog.gov.uk/2017/03/30/up-up-and-very-far-away-remote-sensing-in-flood-response/

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Our new digital rod licence application service has recently moved from private to public beta.

It’s taken our multi-disciplinary team about 18 months to move through the agile development process from discovery, through alpha and now to public beta. From the start, our goal was to make it as simple as possible for people to go fishing. We wanted to replace the old approach, where anglers had to go through a number of different channels, with a simpler one that’s easy for everyone to use. So: how did we do it?

Fishing matters to lots of people

The law says that anyone who wants to fish for salmon, trout, freshwater fish, smelt and eel with a rod and line in England, Wales and the Border Esk region of Scotland must carry a rod licence. Failure to present it when asked by a Fisheries Bailiff can result in prosecution, and a fine of up to £2,500.

Issuing rod licences is a big deal. We currently issue around 1.2 million of them every year. There are several different types of licence: adult, junior, senior, concessions, short term and annual licences. The income generated is reinvested into initiatives that benefit anglers.

Although we have a diverse group of users of all ages, rod licence sales show a trend towards an aging customer base. People aged 25-55 tend to buy online, whereas over-65s tend to buy at the Post Office counter.

We did lots of user research

During development, we engaged with 50,000 potential users to understand the complete user journey from the start. We looked at why people go to the Post Office for their rod licences, and whether people needed help using online services.

We did user research at angling shows and events – including Great Yorkshire Show, Fish O Mania and Countryfile Live. We made a special effort to focus on the needs of users who are less comfortable with computers and the internet, which included running a testing day at the Digital Accessibility Centre to identify issues around moving to a digital service.

Our user research told us:

• the Post Office counter is seen as easy and convenient
• people don’t want to read guidance before starting
• users don’t want usernames and passwords
• users want confirmation of purchase – an email, a text message, or a print-out

A key part of our channel strategy has been to focus on making the service so easy to use that we drive more people from using the Post Office to using the digital service on gov.uk.

Helping people who need more help

We know that large number of anglers are over 60, and our research showed that some of them struggle to use online services. Some anglers rely on family to purchase a rod licence on their behalf, and that over 50% of licenses are bought over the counter at the Post Office. All of this pointed to a need for some digital assistance for people struggling to use an online service. The vast majority of anglers said a telephone helpline would help them – so we’ve set one up. We’ll monitor feedback to see if we need to provide a face to face support option in the future.

Helping young people to get into fishing

Ours is one of the few services at Defra that engages directly with young people – junior rod licences are available for 12-16 year-olds, and until now cost £5 for an 8 day licence.

As of 1 April 2017, junior rod licences will be free. They will only be available as digital licences via the new online service. As you might expect, our research showed that the younger anglers are quite happy getting their rod licences online.

We didn’t assume that, though. We did make a point of conducting plenty of research with young people – we even took the research team to a school and a college and spoke to young anglers and potential young anglers about their needs.

We’re already planning new features

We’re already planning lots of iterations and new features for the service, including:

• A “multi buy” for people who need more than one licence
• A way for people to replace lost licences
• Fully digital licences that users can keep on their phones (so there’s one less piece of paper they have to worry about)

It’s been a lot of fun building this service, and the team has learnt a lot. We’re looking forward to the next phase, and moving towards moving to fully live.

The post Doing the hard digital work to make fishing simple appeared first on Digital Leaders.

User research, user research, user research

This team did an unbelievable amount of user research. I know that those of us working in digital government bang on about user research a lot, but there’s a reason for that: it matters. It informs the work, and it helps the team understand what to build and how to build it. It helps them avoid building the wrong thing, in the wrong way.

That’s why this new service is doing so well. It meets  user needs, because the team behind it took the time to talk to them in detail.

So simple, a child can use it

The rod licence service is one of the few Defra services – in fact, one of the few government services – that is available directly to young people. Anyone aged 12 to 16 can get themselves a fishing licence using the new service. They don’t need a parent to help or give permission. And the junior rod licence will be completely free after 1 April 2017.

This is important for 2 reasons.

Those teenagers will be adults in a few years, and for many of them, the rod licence application will be their first experience of using a government service online. It will set their expectations for the future, so that in a few years, when they need to use more government services, they will already know what it feels like. Using the rod licence service will set a new standard for what ‘normal’ means to them.

To best meet the needs of those young people, the team building the service didn’t just make assumptions – they actually went and spoke to young people. They arranged visits to schools where they spoke to current and potential anglers. This was just one aspect of the user research done for the entire service, but it proves the point that research matters for all users – even the ones who aren’t yet old enough to pay tax or vote. The result is a digital service that is literally so simple, a child can use it. Because young people are allowed to use it.

An empowered team is a successful team

During the show-and-tell, Claire said: “We’ve been lucky – we’ve had autonomy from the start, we felt empowered and trusted to get on with it.”

That comment really struck me, because it sums up a powerful truth: if you get the right team together in the right place, and give them the freedom to get on with doing the right work, amazing things will result. That’s how things like GOV.UK were made, that’s how dozens of other services have been made since then. That’s the model I want to see spreading further across Defra.

We have lots more teams working on lots of other services. Right now, a lot of them are still in very early stages of development – discovery or alpha. I see it as part of my job to help the teams working on those projects, to give them the freedom to move ahead with their work in the same way that the rod licensing team did.

Mistakes that make us stronger

Claire said something else that got me thinking: the first time this service went through the Digital Service Assessment run by the Government Digital Service, it failed.

Both Claire and Mark pointed out that after the initial disappointment, the team felt re-energised. It was a setback, but it was also an opportunity to learn and move forward. As a result, they built a better service.

An award-winning service

The new service is already gaining traction and recognition.  In a single day (Thursday 2 March), it sold 1,601 licences, generating over £40,000 in revenue. Since Monday 13 February, it has sold 15,124 licences worth over £273,000. It also won an internal Defra Corporate Services award for making things simpler. Congratulations, team – that was well deserved.

To me, all of this is a sign of the positive change, both cultural and organisational, that’s going on in Defra. The fishing service team have been learning from failure, they’ve been doing the hard work to make things simple, understanding context, and designing with data. This is what digital change looks like. This is what’s happening in Defra right now. It makes me very happy to see it.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) new online fishing rod licence service recently moved from private to public beta. You can read more about this in service manager Claire Quigley’s post about the move.

Register for the webinar presented by Claire Quigley on 28 March here: http://digileaders.com/events/webinar-hard-digital-work-make-fishing-simple/

This blog first appeared here.

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They’ve also transcribed the video interview below.

Hello Sarah – would you like to introduce yourself?

Yes, I’m Sarah Hendry, I’m the Defra Director of Floods and Water policy.

Sarah, we are sitting here in Nobel House. Will you be sad to leave this place?

I started work in Defra on the 17 April 1989 – well, it wasn’t Defra it was MAFF in those days, but it was in this building – and I came in through the tubes in the front door and I thought: my goodness! What have I got myself into?

Could you tell me what #DataDrivenDefra means to you?

I would have fallen into the trap of thinking #DataDrivenDefra means that we release lots and lots and lots of sets of data, and that’s all there is to it, but I have since thought about it a bit more and I realise that potentially it’s a lot more fundamental than that to how we do business.

How is it more fundamental? – Is it about how we use data, or is it more about how we think about the fundamentals about how we approach data to start off with?

So, one example from me is going back to a few years ago where we were developing the latest round of Common Agricultural Policy implementation – we were really challenging ourselves to deliver the practicalities and the costs of delivery into the way in which we approached all of the decision-making, and I suppose what my model for #DataDrivenDefra might be is very similar: that you take data, and you think about it, at the very birth of the policy the very earliest stages and think about what can data do for you – what are your data needs – and actually how might data transform your thinking about this policy area?

What is the first step towards data informing a policy area?

I think the very first step is quite a classic thing from a policy maker’s point of view, that you gather up all of the data that you have about the area you are developing your policy on, and you use it to help you define what it is you need to do. I think the next step, or the slightly more sophisticated step for me, which we haven’t really tried yet – to my knowledge -–is actually inviting colleges in who can say to us: ‘here is what data can do for you,’ – rather than here’s your evidence and you can use it to build your policy; have a rather more radical approach to data… and say, well, if you are tying for example to get a group of people together at [river] Catchment level to think about how they could tackle flooding in a different way; how might data either be useful in getting engagement from those people; how might it drive the way they think about it; how might it lead you to thinking about different approaches to solving that problem.

You mention colleagues there, but then you also mentioned a wider group of people – bringing them together to look at the problem at the catchment level. How wide do you think that group needs to go?

I think it could potentially go as wide as you could imagine – so anybody who potentially has an interest in solving the problem could be part of that, could bring their data to bear on it. So I don’t start from the point of view that it needs to be us going away in a secret huddle and thinking about that; I would have thought in principle the wider range of people you have there, particularly the people who might be users of data generated, or might need to use the data in order to deliver the policy on the ground – they or to be involved at the outset.

Do you think there’s any particular thing that Defra can do to enable that kind of innovation among that group?

I think in order to enable that innovation to happen, there is probably a process of education – and I think that there is also probably a process of education in our teams as well, because I think we are still liable to think as data as something that’s there, and we use it in a sort of evidence sense. Sow we probably need to have some fairly open sessions, workshops just on introducing people to the sort of data that either is available, or could be generated – and getting them to think really imaginatively about how that might be used, or how it might help. Otherwise, I think people will come with the sort of preconceptions that I’ve got about this and it won’t be productive as it might be.

And finally: what impact will this have on people living in flood-prone areas once Defra has become data driven?

In a sense, you don’t know until you try it. It could have unimaginable consequences – it could be that transformative thing that really helps to convince people, for example, that they should take steps to protect their own property and install things which, at present, they don’t really want to put in their houses – the sort of protection measures that are rather visible and they think it might lower the value of the property. But if we could find some data-related way to unlock their willingness to do that, it could make a transformative difference to how we think about flood risk and people’s peace of mind.

So there is a role there for communicating data…

Yes

…to the public?

Yes

We kept on chatting about Sarah’s time working at MAFF, and later Defra, in Nobel House

…And I haven’t always worked in this building, but other government buildings as well, but I’ve probably spent the majority of my time here. Yes – in one sense I will be sad to leave it, and when you go around Nobel House there are lots and lots of little features and there is sculpture, stained glass, people’s heads you don’t know who they are… and so that’s why I’ve started my Twitter hashtag of #nobelnostalgia because as I think we approach leaving the building we’ll start to get quite nostalgic and want to share that, but actually I’m quite excited about the possibilities that new bespoke accommodation, modern accommodation, will have to how we can work together. So: sad, yes – but actually I’m quite excited about it.

Thanks very much!

This video and transcript was first posted on the Digital Defra blog here.

The post What does #DataDrivenDefra mean to Sarah Hendry? appeared first on Digital Leaders.

Poor service design serves no one; it’s costly for the business and frustrating for the user.

At Defra we’re prioritising a digital approach to help us simplify our customer’s interactions with us and take out unnecessary business complexity. While we have an operational strategy – the Defra group Target Operating Model – to help us get there, it’s a complex process of change with a multitude of moving pieces.

Managing change in this context is hard work. We do not have the privilege of a blank canvas; we have to transition teams, programmes, and ways of working, while ensuring day-to-day business and operations are maintained to meet our policy needs. Given the inevitable ambiguity and flux, we’ve focused on building a common vocabulary to hold ourselves accountable at a high-level.

The Defra digital delivery principles reflect a working vision of what a digital mindset considers. From a practical standpoint, the principles provide a quick and easy checklist by which to inform and measure decisions at all levels.

These principles are:

1. Being customer focussed

Understanding our customers’ needs, and involving the customer all the way through delivery

2. Following Government Digital Service agile delivery practice

Working in an iterative way using tools and techniques to support distributed working.

3. Working in multi-disciplined teams led by the business

With empowered teams of suitably skilled business and IT professionals.

4. Delivery cross-Defra

Thinking and working collaboratively to implement and re-use common solutions where possible.

5. Following our architectural vision and principles

Using low cost cloud based services, common components and approaches.

6. Work towards delivery of clear business benefits

Taking a shared commitment to secure business outcomes that will deliver our strategic review commitments.

We are what we measure.

If that age old adage has merit, the Defra digital delivery principles have an important role to play in setting ourselves on the right digital trajectory.

This post first appeared on the Defra Digital Blog here.

The post Why principles matter appeared first on Digital Leaders.

Defra’s Chief Operating Officer Betsy Bassis opened the event and she highlighted how important it is to improve the poor technology our people have to use so we can better serve our customers. She mentioned her own experience visiting a farm last year, and how the visits the day before had reinforced the message.

What does this mean for Defra group?

Here are just some of the benefits:

• No paper and clipboards
• Elimination of double/triple entry of data from forms
• Consistent format of data for everyone to use
• More efficient resource planning and task allocation – helping to manage staff better.

Kirona presenting the new Defra Field Service Management Tool at the Farm Digital Event

There was a Field Service Management tool demo

The Field Service Management tool is an online resourcing tool that manages tasks for operations and allocating jobs to field staff. It works by looking at what tasks are available, checks calendars, location and nearest people, and then allocates work to the person best suitable for the job.

What does it mean for our customers?

Our services should improve customer service by making it easier for people to do business with us. The aim is to have a 24/7 Field Service Management System in place by mid-2018.

Embracing digital and data in the field

During the afternoon, the project team asked people to get into groups to look at issues and possible solutions followed by pitches on what innovative changes we could make. John Seglias, Kirsty Shaw and Betsy Bassis got together to discuss the ideas and pick one to take forward.

There was a clear idea from two of the pitches – field staff really want hands free, voice activated system that they can use to record details quickly in the field without having to duplicate work back in the office. The project team will be taking this away to look at in more detail and look for possible solutions that may work.

This post first appeared here on the Defra Digital blog page.

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Transcript below:

Hi Betsy thanks for finding time to speak to us. Do you want to introduce yourself first?

My name is Betsy Bassis. I am the Chief Operating Officer here at Defra.

Could you tell us what Data Driven Defra mean to you?

Having the data, or relevant data, at my fingertips when needing to make decisions. But also ensuring that the data we have, we actually do something with it. Often you get reports and you know what’s going on. You see trends in the data and you have a lovely conversation and then you come back a year later, six months later, and you are still looking at similar insight from the data, and I feel disappointed that we haven’t actually done anything with that insight and driven changes. I want to drive the action and the work of Defra so that we are actually doing things differently as a result of the insights that our data gives about the work that we do.

Where do you see value in data and perhaps where do you not see value in data?

I would say a couple of areas one I want to know that it’s correct. I mean I will value the data if I know that I can count that it’s correct and I know there’s a lot of things that we need to do to make sure that we can rely on our data. Because we collect in so many different places then we have lots of people spend much of their energy trying to agree what the data actually is, and which one we can rely on. I guess, assuming that gets addressed, the next thing that I really look for is trends. Data out of context I find very difficult you know customer satisfaction this month was x – well my question is what was it last month and what was it a year ago? Are we sing it trending up or trending down? 89% maybe really good but if it’s down 5% on last month well actually maybe we have a problem. So data in context in trends is very helpful.

Data in of itself is interesting but insights and recommendations are also very very helpful. So the ‘so what?’; what are we doing as a result of this data, what is it telling us? Actionable insights is what I very much value.

Do you think Defra is well placed to be able to adopt and take advantage of new technologies?

I think we are definitely on our way to getting there. Right now, as you know many of our systems are fragmented across the organisation. As a result we hold data in different parts we can’t see and that fragmentation results in multiple versions of the truth. I know through UnITy [Defra’s project to disaggregate information technbology hardware and service supply] and some of the other work we are doing in the data field we are looking to join up our systems and create single repositories of data so that will enable us to do that going forward.

I am very confident that we are starting to make Defra a destination of choice in terms of the right technology, digital and data specialists and I’m really very confident in both the strategy we have to join up our systems and processes across the organisation, but also the fact that we are making great strides in bringing in the talent and capability to achieve that strategy.

It’s always about the people isn’t it, as well as the technology?

Very much so, and I think it’s incredible what the data team has done over the last year in terms of really generating huge amount of enthusiasm within Defra and across the rest of government about what being a data-driven Department could look like. Something that could be seen as a really dry subject, or something that data scientists do in a corner, but actually actually what the whole programme, the campaign has done in the last year is make this something that has engaged and inspired the whole organisation. I’ve been really impressed with that, and really humbled by how a group of really excited and inspired people have managed to capture the attention of so many people who might otherwise have not have thought a lot about data.

This first appeared on the Defra Digital Blog here.

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