{"id":4928,"date":"2014-10-30T14:53:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T14:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digitalleaders.co.uk\/?p=4928"},"modified":"2017-05-22T13:42:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T12:42:06","slug":"digital_leadership_carona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digileaders.com\/digital_leadership_carona\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Leadership & the Northern Ireland Civil Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

I commenced my (somewhat daunting) new role as Director of Digital Services for the Northern Ireland Civil Service at the start of January. The job covers a wide portfolio with focus clearly on making NI public services better through digital transformation.\u00a0 Easy to say however not nearly so easy to deliver!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had to put my leadership skills into overdrive to develop and take control of a Digital Transformation Programme, build my team and provide them with clear direction to drive the programme of work forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a very exciting challenge (which I believe strongly is the right thing to do), and one which has needed me to work closely with many senior service owners to get their buy-in and commitment to meet the very challenging delivery targets for new services through\u00a0www.nidirect.gov.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With financial pressures in public sector getting worse, digital transformation of public facing services will reduce the cost of service delivery whilst improving the service and giving citizens access when, where and how they wish.\u00a0 This pressure bizarrely could have a positive impact in getting more traction on the NI programme with a recognition that\u00a0changes must happen\u00a0to continue to deliver some services at all. The time for leadership in digital service delivery is now.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest changes which I\u2019ve driven is being \u2018Agile\u2019.\u00a0 This is a step change with\u00a0the citizen placed firmly at the centre\u00a0of service design. My team work collaboratively with service owners and suppliers to take projects through Discovery, Alpha and Beta phases before full Live service deployment.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to break down organisational boundaries for true transformation, and I fully support my team and do the difficult conversations with service owners when needed highlighting the benefits of shared platforms, shared data, consistent services and reuse at every opportunity. The NI Digital Transformation Programme excites me as it has a real value, and seeing early results which would not be possible using traditional waterfall methods of delivery makes my job very satisfying.\u00a0 I\u2019m passionate about this programme and look forward to its success…. watch this space.<\/p>\n

By Caron Alexander, Director of Digital Services for the Northern Ireland Civil Service.<\/em><\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I commenced my (somewhat daunting) new role as Director of Digital Services for the Northern Ireland Civil Service at the start of January. The job covers a wide portfolio with focus clearly on making NI public services better through digital transformation.\u00a0 Easy to say however […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","region-northern-ireland","topic-digital-skills","topic-government","topic-transformation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDigital Leadership & the Northern Ireland Civil Service | Digital Leaders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Caron Alexander, Director of Digital Services for the Northern Ireland Civil Service blogs about the leadership challenges she has faced.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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