How to get public servants to work outside of their silos
National, International & Research Group | UK Government Digital Service,
9 minute read
A case study in building capability to address Legacy IT
Summary
- All public-facing users and government users of government IT are impacted adversely by the threat of legacy IT. The public sector lacks awareness, knowledge and empowerment to work together to address legacy IT. It is not a single functional responsibility.
- Fixing capability to address Legacy IT needs to challenge the status-quo of written policy and guidance which is not working. Teams are suffering from ‘policy fatigue’.
- Through reaching over 150 participants for user research, testing and stakeholder validation we have created a series of learning and awareness products to support sustained behaviour change for government staff at all levels.
- All public-facing users and government users of government IT are impacted adversely by the threat of legacy IT. The public sector lacks awareness, knowledge and empowerment to work together to address legacy IT. It is not a single functional responsibility.
- Fixing capability to address Legacy IT needs to challenge the status-quo of written policy and guidance which is not working. Teams are suffering from ‘policy fatigue’.
- Through reaching over 150 participants for user research, testing and stakeholder validation we have created a series of learning and awareness products to support sustained behaviour change for government staff at all levels.
The Problem
Digital, data and technology teams can’t solve legacy IT on their own. But those that can help, don’t see it within their remit. We set out to build skills, capabilities and raise awareness of accountability across functional areas to tackle legacy IT - a systemic problem within government.
Digital, data and technology teams can’t solve legacy IT on their own. But those that can help, don’t see it within their remit. We set out to build skills, capabilities and raise awareness of accountability across functional areas to tackle legacy IT - a systemic problem within government.
The Approach
Step One - Audit
Legacy IT has been a problem for decades. There is a wealth of guidance and training available. The team first created a content matrix of what is available and for who.
Step Two - Discovery
Understanding what is and isn’t working with a focus on people as well as content.
- A survey reached 115 people from across functions within central government, local authorities, devolved administrations and arms length government bodies.
- 20 x one to one interviews explored where different job roles and levels of seniority within legacy IT programmes were finding blockers and what they needed from leadership.
- 11 leaders interviewed on film about successful and unsuccessful programmes to address legacy IT
Discovery Findings:
- Non DDaT leadership does not always recognise what legacy IT, why it is a risk or that they have a responsibility to address it.
- Non DDaT leadership has the greatest influence on budget allocation and business case sign off.
- Non digital leadership would not see why they should learn about legacy IT.
- DDaT professionals do not have power to address legacy IT without leadership and funding. Funding is the biggest blocker.
- DDaT professionals are not necessarily aware of all the guidance and standards they should consider on any digital programme including legacy IT.
- Non DDaT professionals need to be invited into multidisciplinary teams, but DDaT professionals don’t always know which function and when to do this.
- When DDaT and non DDaT professionals were presented by the 30 plus documents related to legacy IT we had discovered during audits, they felt overwhelmed and did not feel they had the time to read and understand everything. This was particularly acute for professionals who were contracting or new to government, regardless of their seniority.
Step Three - Alpha
The Legacy IT programme board approved the behavioural change approach.
Stakeholders were invited to online video conference co-design sessions on a weekly basis.
The team utilised the design sessions to develop tested content which led to the development of 5 tangible learning products.
Step Four - Beta
The products have been moved into a business as usual maintenance status, in different parts of government.
Each product has a team who will iterate it based on a feedback loop.
In particular the Digital Standards in Government course is linked to the Service Standards team, who will ask teams going through a service assessment whether they have done the course.
The Team make up -
Governance - Programme Board made up of 5 government bodies:
- Government Security Group
- Government Commercial Group
- Government Digital Service
- National Cyber Security Centre
- Central Digital & Data Office
Skills & Capability team
We worked in a multidisciplinary team which was made up of a; Product Owner, Delivery Manager, User Researcher, Content Designer, Service Designer, Learning & Development Lead.
Stakeholders
There was a concentrated effort to be inclusive of central government departments with weekly communications to all 17 Whitehall departments, interested local authorities, ALBs and the devolved administrations. This included a standing invitation to a weekly online design session where feedback and opinion iterated the development of the products in the alpha stage. On average 20 stakeholders joined each session, representing a different department and skill set.
Step One - Audit
Legacy IT has been a problem for decades. There is a wealth of guidance and training available. The team first created a content matrix of what is available and for who.
Step Two - Discovery
Understanding what is and isn’t working with a focus on people as well as content.
- A survey reached 115 people from across functions within central government, local authorities, devolved administrations and arms length government bodies.
- 20 x one to one interviews explored where different job roles and levels of seniority within legacy IT programmes were finding blockers and what they needed from leadership.
- 11 leaders interviewed on film about successful and unsuccessful programmes to address legacy IT
Discovery Findings:
- Non DDaT leadership does not always recognise what legacy IT, why it is a risk or that they have a responsibility to address it.
- Non DDaT leadership has the greatest influence on budget allocation and business case sign off.
- Non digital leadership would not see why they should learn about legacy IT.
- DDaT professionals do not have power to address legacy IT without leadership and funding. Funding is the biggest blocker.
- DDaT professionals are not necessarily aware of all the guidance and standards they should consider on any digital programme including legacy IT.
- Non DDaT professionals need to be invited into multidisciplinary teams, but DDaT professionals don’t always know which function and when to do this.
- When DDaT and non DDaT professionals were presented by the 30 plus documents related to legacy IT we had discovered during audits, they felt overwhelmed and did not feel they had the time to read and understand everything. This was particularly acute for professionals who were contracting or new to government, regardless of their seniority.
Step Three - Alpha
The Legacy IT programme board approved the behavioural change approach.
Stakeholders were invited to online video conference co-design sessions on a weekly basis.
The team utilised the design sessions to develop tested content which led to the development of 5 tangible learning products.
Step Four - Beta
The products have been moved into a business as usual maintenance status, in different parts of government.
Each product has a team who will iterate it based on a feedback loop.
In particular the Digital Standards in Government course is linked to the Service Standards team, who will ask teams going through a service assessment whether they have done the course.
The Team make up -
Governance - Programme Board made up of 5 government bodies:
- Government Security Group
- Government Commercial Group
- Government Digital Service
- National Cyber Security Centre
- Central Digital & Data Office
Skills & Capability team
We worked in a multidisciplinary team which was made up of a; Product Owner, Delivery Manager, User Researcher, Content Designer, Service Designer, Learning & Development Lead.
Stakeholders
There was a concentrated effort to be inclusive of central government departments with weekly communications to all 17 Whitehall departments, interested local authorities, ALBs and the devolved administrations. This included a standing invitation to a weekly online design session where feedback and opinion iterated the development of the products in the alpha stage. On average 20 stakeholders joined each session, representing a different department and skill set.
The Results
Practical, accessible and user-friendly support which is delivered to meet the user needs and barriers.
This curriculum which has been extensively tested with users in government sets out the skills required at each level of seniority. It is a tool to be used at the recruitment stage to ensure job descriptions and skills checks reflect government’s needs. It is also a tool to support career development.
This guide was developed as a visual infographic to support team’s already overwhelmed by guidance and policy. A visual tool enables teams to identify quickly where they are in the process and which other functions should be included.
- A remote learning course to support digital practitioners working with or within government called 'Applying Digital Standards in Government'. This content cannot be shared online but if you are interested please contact us.
This course merges the key principles of government digital standards including into a series of bite size modules which can be accessed online:
- Technology Code of Practice
- Service Standard
- The Commercial Continuous Improvement Assessment Framework
- Government Functional Standard: Digital Data and Technology (DDaT)
- Spend Controls Assessment Pipeline Criteria
The course includes a strong use of audio files and visual files as well as small bullet point reading. This blended learning approach encourages users to access the content in the way which best suits their learning needs, rather than prescribing a rigid reading guidance technique.
The films can be used in any leadership course or shared via any communication channel. The goal is to reach as many ‘reluctant’ leaders as possible who do not identify that they are responsible for legacy IT.
As with the films the podcasts can be heard in isolation or as part of a wider piece of learning. They have been particularly well received as allowing the audience to be away from screens which accessing the content and the conversational style being an engaging way to hear about the topic.
Practical, accessible and user-friendly support which is delivered to meet the user needs and barriers.
This curriculum which has been extensively tested with users in government sets out the skills required at each level of seniority. It is a tool to be used at the recruitment stage to ensure job descriptions and skills checks reflect government’s needs. It is also a tool to support career development.
This guide was developed as a visual infographic to support team’s already overwhelmed by guidance and policy. A visual tool enables teams to identify quickly where they are in the process and which other functions should be included.
- A remote learning course to support digital practitioners working with or within government called 'Applying Digital Standards in Government'. This content cannot be shared online but if you are interested please contact us.
This course merges the key principles of government digital standards including into a series of bite size modules which can be accessed online:
- Technology Code of Practice
- Service Standard
- The Commercial Continuous Improvement Assessment Framework
- Government Functional Standard: Digital Data and Technology (DDaT)
- Spend Controls Assessment Pipeline Criteria
The course includes a strong use of audio files and visual files as well as small bullet point reading. This blended learning approach encourages users to access the content in the way which best suits their learning needs, rather than prescribing a rigid reading guidance technique.
The films can be used in any leadership course or shared via any communication channel. The goal is to reach as many ‘reluctant’ leaders as possible who do not identify that they are responsible for legacy IT.
As with the films the podcasts can be heard in isolation or as part of a wider piece of learning. They have been particularly well received as allowing the audience to be away from screens which accessing the content and the conversational style being an engaging way to hear about the topic.
The Challenges
The Programme Board and the Skills & Capability team faced three key challenges:
1. Working under Covid critical conditions
This meant that stakeholders and, at times, team resources were needed on critical delivery elsewhere. This meant there was also a heavy reliance on contractors in the discovery stage.
2. Waterfall reporting on an agile development
At the discovery stage of the programme, where learning products had not been scoped, there was a challenge from the Programme Board that the Skills & Capability strand would deliver on time and to budget. There was a further challenge that guidance or policy was not being written. However, the evidence of ‘policy fatigue’ being a major blocker in digital teams understanding the governance and standards, enabled the alpha to test the range of products.
3. Preventing siloed working
The Skills & Capability team was one of three strands under the Legacy IT Programme. The other two were; audit and governance and commercial. The three strands met weekly to ensure that interdependencies were highlighted, including stakeholder communications.
The deliberate breakdown of the strands ensured that the resulting products and policy development are holistic and complementary of each other. In particular the Digital Standards in Government course focuses on ensuring all civil servants understand the audit, governance and commercial considerations when embarking on any digital programme.
The Programme Board and the Skills & Capability team faced three key challenges:
1. Working under Covid critical conditions
This meant that stakeholders and, at times, team resources were needed on critical delivery elsewhere. This meant there was also a heavy reliance on contractors in the discovery stage.
2. Waterfall reporting on an agile development
At the discovery stage of the programme, where learning products had not been scoped, there was a challenge from the Programme Board that the Skills & Capability strand would deliver on time and to budget. There was a further challenge that guidance or policy was not being written. However, the evidence of ‘policy fatigue’ being a major blocker in digital teams understanding the governance and standards, enabled the alpha to test the range of products.
3. Preventing siloed working
The Skills & Capability team was one of three strands under the Legacy IT Programme. The other two were; audit and governance and commercial. The three strands met weekly to ensure that interdependencies were highlighted, including stakeholder communications.
The deliberate breakdown of the strands ensured that the resulting products and policy development are holistic and complementary of each other. In particular the Digital Standards in Government course focuses on ensuring all civil servants understand the audit, governance and commercial considerations when embarking on any digital programme.
Next Steps
The products will be judged through the measurement of their direct impact on two key measures;
- Increased allocation of funding to address legacy IT
- Increased success rate of service assessments
We challenged the status quo of writing more guidance to address a problem. We looked at this from a behavioural change point of creating services and products which support and sustain change by enabling the people who have the power to use it in the right way.
Of course, technology will inevitably always become legacy - what’s new today will be old tomorrow; but we delved into possible ways to encourage and embrace behaviours, governance, teams, processes and cultures that allow for and welcome ongoing digital transformation.
Viewing the products you will see everything has a module or chapter design, which is a deliberate design feature to allow for continued iteration at a low cost. There is also a feedback loop in the Digital Standards in Government Course to encourage all voices to share their real life experiences keeping the content fresh and engaging.
The products will be judged through the measurement of their direct impact on two key measures;
- Increased allocation of funding to address legacy IT
- Increased success rate of service assessments
We challenged the status quo of writing more guidance to address a problem. We looked at this from a behavioural change point of creating services and products which support and sustain change by enabling the people who have the power to use it in the right way.
Of course, technology will inevitably always become legacy - what’s new today will be old tomorrow; but we delved into possible ways to encourage and embrace behaviours, governance, teams, processes and cultures that allow for and welcome ongoing digital transformation.
Viewing the products you will see everything has a module or chapter design, which is a deliberate design feature to allow for continued iteration at a low cost. There is also a feedback loop in the Digital Standards in Government Course to encourage all voices to share their real life experiences keeping the content fresh and engaging.