5 steps towards a government “Citizen Information Officer” — Introduction
The need for changing the job of a government CIO
When I started working for government agencies over 15 years ago, few of these agencies had a dedicated CIO. Decisions were typically made by the agency’s leadership and IT was to follow. Fortunately, times have changed and many of these agencies invested in a good CIO over the years and it is now easier to have a meaningful debate.
But times have changed beyond the dialogue between business and IT people in an agency. Faster than ever, government agencies are digitizing their processes to request or manage a citizen service. This is more than creating a better user interface towards the citizens, but increasingly also means the use of advanced technology to assist in the decision process or automating the entire workflow — for example, using advanced analytics to becoming a data driven government.
“Digital transformation is not a destination, it is a permanent state of evolution across every part of the organization”[1].
My view is that government CIOs need to be more than technical leaders but take active roles in understanding the value of well-designed citizen services, embracing technology. This is broader than designing future systems or applications for the agencies. Government CIOs need to become excellent in understanding all aspects of business, inside-out and outside-in.
In this series of articles, I will provide my own opinion how the government CIO should take the next step in helping to impact citizen services, by taking a different view of what the job content of a CIO should be.
“CIOs need to make the leap from tech leader to business driver” said Amer Baig, a senior partner at McKinsey.[2]
I hereby make the case for converting the traditional role of a Chief Information Officer to a (Chief) Citizen Information Officer. In this updated role, value to citizens becomes the number one driver of selecting technology and optimizing business services.
To achieve this, let me introduce a 5-step program for the CIO to become a Citizen Information officer:
- Become a partner in the transformation of citizen services
- Define and align projects to common citizen goals
- Adopt a “Government as a Platform” approach, avoiding new emerging technical debt
- Make an (agile) IT roadmap, because any transformation needs a plan, not just actions
- Use a playbook approach to deliver on transformation projects
In the next articles, I will detail these one by one. But for now, and to complete the introduction, let me explain why these steps are relevant, what the goal is and how to measure success.
Goal #1: changing the government business operating model together
We all know that many government services were designed a long time ago and have a history of decades. These services were never designed to be digital and largely still operate the same as in the past. Digitizing the existing way of working is not the right approach as you risk keeping the same deficiencies. Citizens, however, have become digital consumers and have embraced services where convenience and personalization matters.
The central point of view here is that it is not wise to digitize existing processes to become a digital government. Digital government services imply designing citizen services towards the new reality of citizens that want convenience. Governments need a 100% digital approach to designing services from the ground on, services that are made for the internet, not enabled by the internet. IT is therefore not only the means to the end, but also the enabler of the business.
The logic that I am suggesting is captured below:
In the past, most processes to request or process citizen services like a grant, subsidy, license request or a certificate were automated inside-out, meaning the agency dictated what the steps needed were to request the service. IT systems were then purpose build to automate the processing of forms and make the final decision. The citizen had to follow the prescribed process, which was usually different per agency. At the end, the citizen got lost finding the right website, reading through all documentation, and having to follow a similar or slightly different approach. For the agency, this way of working helped automated the administrative and reporting side and the operating model was built to drive an efficient workforce.
Many governments have acted. Individual agency websites are being bundled into portals that take a holistic view to citizen services (e.g., per life event). Principles like “no wrong door” or “only ask once” have made the process easier for the citizen. But often, requesting a particular service still involves filling in e-forms and wait for the agency to process them. In many cases, the experience for the citizens is still secondary to the operating model of the agency.
But I recommend taking this one step forward. Government agencies will only become citizen oriented and digital if they dare to redesign the entire processes and operating model, using the principles of the internet as basis for interacting (e.g., omnichannel, always on, personalized, automated processing, convenience, etc.). Good services should reflect what the user wants to do and do not require a working knowledge of the inside of government to use[3]. To citizens, government services are about what the individual wants to achieve — getting a permit to go fishing, getting a school grant for his/her children to go to college.
Technology wise, this implies a lot. Instead of programming custom applications that are designed to last an eternity and can cope with any situation, business and IT must — together — adapt an agile approach. Functionality must be designed to provide a good experience to the citizen. IT can no longer be a facilitator but is to be a part of the business team.
The CIO must thus ensure technology like DEVOPS, Cloud and SaaS is readily available to allow that agility to happen. New development methods like low-code, data integration and APIs suddenly take center stage and challenge existing integration and security mechanisms. The CIO must be an enabler of change here, while still maintaining integrity of the legacy landscape.
The CIO will also need new capabilities inside his own organization to collaborate closer to the business. Technical architecture is more and more taken up by the Cloud vendor as a feature. Technical reusable components are available to the CIO and can be tweaked or configured to the specifics of the agency. Enterprise Architecture becomes business architecture. The new Digital Architect foremost understand the business, the digital ways of doing business and knows how to connect the dots with the Cloud vendors. He or she is now foremost a communicator, understanding two different languages, the one of the civil servants, and the one of the technology experts. Both are often not aligned.
Goal #2: Redesigning citizen services end-to-end
Although the focus is on the changing role of the CIO, there is equally a lot of change needed in the operating model in the government agencies. Agency leaders need to be guided in changing the adapting role of civil servants towards digital, starting with defining and communicating their own vision towards a digital government agency.
Technology is no longer a means to automate administrative processing of forms, it is now a way to improve the service all together. Instead of designing a form to request a service, it is now about providing the citizen a way to get the service in a convenient way, even without asking.
One can say that this is already a common play for many countries, but President Biden of the USA signed an executive order[4] in December 2021 on “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government”. The idea is for the US Government to effectively reduce administrative burdens, simplify both public-facing and internal processes to improve efficiency, and empower the Federal workforce to solve problems. The objective is to design and deliver services in a manner that people of all abilities can navigate.
Other countries are on a similar track. For example:
- The UK has the Services Manual[5] to create and run great public services — many services have been redesigned. For example, getting a fishing permit is a flexible process, redesigned from the citizen’s point of view
- Dubai has made “providing a good experience to citizen” part of its overall digital government program.
The point is that both the CIO and the agency leaders will have to enable a new style of enterprise orchestration, whereby IT is more than a means to automate the process, but the ensemble of systems and processes to organize and manage the request in a digital way.
This is the reason I advocate the CIO to be an integral part of the business — one team, one goal. Hence the 5 steps for the CIO to change into a Citizen Information Officer. Using technology to improve the experience of the citizen and automating the new way of working at the government agency.
Goal #3: Measure success
Whatever change is instituted, the real measurement of success comes from the citizen, in the way they experience the redesigned digital ways of interacting with the government.
To achieve all of this, I recommended to extend the monitoring approach. Typically, CIOs focus on monitoring the performance of the IT Systems. I suggest adding extra layers of monitoring like organizational efficiency and citizen satisfaction. This way, monitoring digital performance includes systems, organization, and citizen aspects.
Once the above is in place, results can be collected per project, monitored, and visualized. The true power of these metrics is in comparing with other governments. To do that, one can align the metrics with the EU DESI Index[6].
The index holds different dimensions, but one can start with adopting the “Digital public services” index. These are:
- Number of e-government users — calculated as percentage of individuals who used the Internet in the last 12 months for interacting with public authorities.
- Prefilled forms — the extent to which data that is already known to the public administrations is pre-filled in forms presented to the user. Also known as the “once-only-principle”). Scored between 0 and 100.
- Digital public services for citizens — the extent to which a service or information concerning service for citizens is provided online, and via a portal. Focused on major life events (e.g., birth, new residence, etc.)
- Digital public services for business — to what extent informational and transactional services for business, when starting a business and conducting regular business operations, are available online and across borders in other EU Member States.
- Open Data — measures the government’s commitment to open data.
- User Centricity — This indicator includes the following three key elements: Online availability, user support and mobile friendliness.
Now that we know what we want to achieve and how to measure success, let us introduce the 5 steps the CIO can undertake to become a successful Citizen Information Officer.
Click on the links below to continue reading:
Step 1 — Become a partner in the transformation of citizen services
Step 2 — Define and align projects to common citizen goals
Step 3 — Adopt a “Government as a Platform” approach, avoiding new emerging technical debt
Step 4— Make an (agile) IT roadmap, because any transformation needs a plan, not just actions
Step 5 — Use a playbook approach to deliver on transformation projects
Links and references:
[1] Based on https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/leadership-and-digital-transformation?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hdpid=2cb85d5e-d287-4793-ae86-dadee028cea1&hctky=10240956&hlkid=a774e1a8976d4a078406df70a8406fd5
[2] See https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/the-cio-agenda-for-the-next-12-months-six-make-or-break-priorities
[3] Lou Downe, see https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2016/04/18/what-we-mean-by-service-design/
[4] See https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/12/13/executive-order-on-transforming-federal-customer-experience-and-service-delivery-to-rebuild-trust-in-government/
[5] See https://www.gov.uk/service-manual
[6] See https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/desi
