{"id":23558,"date":"2018-07-18T15:03:31","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T14:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/?p=23558"},"modified":"2018-07-18T15:04:15","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T14:04:15","slug":"iterating-digital-principles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/iterating-digital-principles\/","title":{"rendered":"Iterating our digital principles"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece was co-authored with Myra Hunt, CDO at Defra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

More than a year ago, mine and Myra Hunt’s predecessor\u00a0Sally Meecham\u00a0<\/a>wrote\u00a0about<\/a>\u00a0Defra\u2019s digital principles, saying how they acted as a useful way of setting out our approach to simplifying services and cutting out complexity.<\/p>\n

A lot\u2019s happened since then. In the last few months, we have been working hard to re-think how Defra\u2019s digital function is structured and how it works. As we said in\u00a0a blog post<\/a>\u00a0back in November of last year:<\/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><\/blockquote>\n

The new digital function is designed to bring those changes about, and make them stick.<\/p>\n

Consequently, we think it\u2019s time to re-evaluate the digital principles. We want them to better reflect where we are now.<\/p>\n

So at the moment, they look something like this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Focus on\u00a0teams, not projects<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Develop in-house capacity wherever possible, helped by specialist external experts and suppliers where necessary<\/li>\n
  3. Be agile by default, and deliver in line with\u00a0GDS standards<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Build digital teams in line with the\u00a0GDS Digital, Data and Technology profession framework<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Budget for continuous iterative improvement<\/li>\n
  6. Deliver using a common technology stack that\u2019s flexible enough to help teams deliver<\/li>\n
  7. Encourage teams to re-use common platforms and service patterns wherever possible<\/li>\n
  8. Challenge work that does not have a clear or persuasive business case, or which appears to add complexity, or that doesn\u2019t meet user needs, or that simply replicates poor non-digital processes<\/li>\n
  9. Keep things simple<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And there\u2019s a final, meta principle that goes alongside all of these:<\/p>\n

    We will empower teams and individuals to call us out when they see these principles being ignored, sidelined or mis-used.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    That\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s 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\u2019ve got their backs, and we\u2019re here to support them. Keep going.<\/p>\n

    \n

    This article was originally published here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This piece was co-authored with Myra Hunt, CDO at Defra. More than a year ago, mine and Myra Hunt’s predecessor\u00a0Sally Meecham\u00a0wrote\u00a0about\u00a0Defra\u2019s digital principles, saying how they acted as a useful way of setting out our approach to simplifying services and cutting out complexity. A lot\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":23560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-23558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","region-defra","topic-government","topic-transformation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIterating our digital principles | Digital Leaders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There\u2019s a great deal of work to do. 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