{"id":20936,"date":"2017-11-15T11:42:48","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T11:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digileaders.com\/?p=20936"},"modified":"2018-08-02T11:08:44","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T10:08:44","slug":"what-we-mean-by-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/what-we-mean-by-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"What we mean by “digital”"},"content":{"rendered":"

We took over as Defra\u2019s joint Chief Digital Officers back in July. Since then, we’ve spent a lot of time meeting a lot of different people at all levels around the organisation, asking questions and listening.<\/p>\n

One thing that’s emerged is that not everyone shares the same understanding of the word “digital”. Many people are very unsure of what we mean when we use it.<\/p>\n

Since we’re the ones in charge of “digital” here, we thought we should do something about that – so in this post, we’re going to explain what digital means to us and to Defra.<\/p>\n

Digital means changing the way we work<\/h2>\n

This heading is the simplest, most fundamental definition. Former GDS deputy director Tom Loosemore defined digital like this in a\u00a0tweet<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Digital: Applying the culture, practices, processes & technologies of the Internet-era to respond to people’s raised expectations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026 and we haven’t seen anyone else define it as simply, or as clearly, since then.<\/p>\n

Read his tweet again. He lists 4 things: culture, practices, processes and technologies.<\/p>\n

The first 3 of those are about\u00a0how we do things<\/b>. About the\u00a0ways that people work.<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It’s not just computers<\/h2>\n

The fourth thing in Tom\u2019s list is\u00a0technologies<\/b>. Yes, this means we must change how we manage and implement IT, from mission-critical legacy systems to giving our staff access to modern kit and collaboration tools.<\/p>\n

Three out of four things on Tom\u2019s list relate to changing how we think, act and behave.<\/p>\n

That’s why we like the phrase “digital is about people, not just computers”, something that colleagues at Defra have been saying for some time.<\/p>\n

We live in an era of constant change. Rather than trying to predict and prepare for every change that might happen, we need to reshape our organisation so that it\u2019s better equipped to cope with the flow of new challenges and opportunities.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what a digital organisation is: one that can react and respond quickly and effectively to changing needs and opportunities.<\/p>\n

Change is hard<\/h2>\n

We need to make Defra work more like the fast-moving digital organisations that make the rest of the world work. It\u2019s a big challenge, we don\u2019t deny that.\u00a0It\u2019s not complicated; it’s just hard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Agile ways of working aren’t new, but they’re relatively new to government. So we need to come up with ways to help existing teams adjust. We need to hire experts who can support those teams. And we need to recognise that some of our existing staff already know what to do, and give them the freedom to do it.<\/p>\n

Over the last year, the Digital Transformation programme in Defra has made good progress. Among many other things, we’ve:<\/p>\n