tips for optimising your government ICT op model

Tips for success

The path you choose will determine your level of success. Here are our top tips for ICT op model change success:

1. Co-design and communicate for buy-in – When designing your new operating model, communication – and who you’re communicating with – is important. Leadership teams need to be involved from the start, both to ensure that they have skin in the game and in order for them to champion the change, communicating with staff throughout the process. Communication needs to be active and two-way, ensuring all stakeholders – including employees – are consulted early and listened to, with refinements to the design and plan made as necessary. Clarity on the case for change is a must have.
2. Commit change, carefully – Consultation around proposed changes (or the development of proposed changes) needs to happen early and include all the stakeholders involved in making the change a reality. This means bringing in union representatives, as well as workplace relations and change management professionals to ensure that your changes will be signed-off and planned for adequately, well before implementation begins. Without the right people and a proper organisational change management plan, your new model will simply be ignored or worked around.
3. Plan ahead (and behind) – Think about what your operating model needs now and in the future and be realistic about capacity needs. What could future demands of government, and thus ICT services, look like? There is a need to be proactive and forward thinking (QBR planning will help with this) but at the same time, with resources traditionally being project-based and finite, there needs to be planning for future ‘business as usual’ – which includes the maintenance and on-going support costs of all services being implemented now and going forward. Without this resource and capacity uplift built in for legacy solutions, the op model will continue to get bogged down and fail to capitalise on its optimisation.
4. Uplift your capability – To future proof and uplift your team’s maturity, think about areas to invest in as part of future growth. What are the needs of the government in five or ten years? To shape services around those needs (and prevent losing confidence of the wider organisation) now is the time to invest in capabilities that will help you navigate, such as enterprise and solution architecture, DevOps, cybersecurity, cloud optimisation and infrastructure management and business engagement skills.
5. Transform your tech – As technology within your organisation moves to cloud via adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings, dedicated IT resources to manage on-premise infrastructure will be needed less. As the tech evolves so should the tech roles, shifting to relationship management with vendors and, as cloud becomes key, monitoring spend to avoid costly blowouts.
6. Governance for government – Governance is critically important, but it needs to be the right kind and relevant for the organisation. Review established forums and strip away those that have become ineffective. Then ensure that the forums you do have are clear on accountability and decision rights so they meet their intended outcomes. Furthermore, investing in tools to capture data and draw insights will enable you to govern your technology effectively considering costs, adherence to compliance and usage.