How govt can prepare for unknown unknowns

Saturday, 31 July 2010

Central Government

By Kelly Ng | 27 July 2009

Jo Bryson, Executive Director, Public Sector Commission, Government of Western Australia talks about enabling next generation service delivery.

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INTERVIEW

Jo Bryson, as Executive Director, is a busy lady: she is responsible for cultural change and service delivery transformation across the entire government of Western Australia.

She took the time to speak to FutureGov as she prepares to speak at the forthcoming Government Information Forum in Hong Kong.

Bryson tells FutureGov some of the key questions governments need to ask themselves in this new collaborative landscape - and to paraphrase former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, emphasises the importance of planning for ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’.

How are you engaging the right people?

Agencies need to work together to deliver a service. The people who can make that happen must understand the needs of all stakeholders, functions of the various agencies, and what work practices and processes have to be changed within each agency. Generally, these are people who hold senior positions with a view of the bigger picture across the whole government body and can identify potential gains and clashes when departments come together to deliver services.

How are you keeping the project in check?

Having an independent chairperson is also critical to ensure strong governance. Independence is important because the complexity of protecting the interest of one’s agency is taken away. In situations where disagreement on the way forward is expected – which are common since agencies often have competing demands – an impartial moderator can facilitate open and robust discussion. This chairperson will be in the best position to ask difficult questions and should have the authority to stop the project if the business case no longer stacks up.

How are you positioning for the future?

Governments can be certain that there will be new problems in future and this calls for innovative solutions. Note the distinction between best practice today and next practice that is required for tomorrow. Best practice refers to broadening and deploying the use of approaches and techniques that have been proven. Next practice is the innovation that will drive governments towards tomorrow’s best practice. In readying itself for the future, government needs to anticipate not just the possible and probable, but the worst case scenario. To expect the unexpected.

The intensity of the Victoria bush fires in February 2009 was alien to Australia. The risk factor for such an incident was off the scale. Normal practices which were planned for no longer applied. When you plan for it, you need to have one eye on the unknown. You may not get it all right, but if you get several parts of it right, it is better than getting nothing right.

Governments must encourage a strong corporate culture of collaboration among departments to be ready for tomorrow’s level of service delivery. An agency success has to be closely aligned to that of the government – to coordinate and deliver a seamless solution to its citizen.

Meet Jo Bryson and discuss this topic in detail at the Government Information Forum in Hong Kong (August 19-20) which attracts the cream of public sector ICT professionals to share best practice on how to tackle the key challenges of today and the future: - how to manage information overload - improve service delivery to citizens - enable collaborative working - establish an information-centric mindset - plan and drive a knowledge management framework - build a secure and flexible IT infrastructure - and how to align people, information and technology

Local and international experts will share their experiences on how to ensure successful government modernisation:

Dr. the Hon. Samson Tam (Legislative Councilor IT, HONG KONG)

Jeremy Godfrey (Government Chief Information Officer, HONG KONG)

Laurence Millar (Former Government CIO, State Service Commission, NEW ZEALAND)

Dr Chao Han-Chieh (IT Director, Computer Centre, Ministry of Education, TAIWAN)

Dr Kim Seang-Tae (President, National Information Society Agency, KOREA)

Bob Correll (Dty Secretary and CIO, Dept of Immigration and Citizenship, AUSTRALIA)

Prof Eric Tsui (Ass. Director, KM Research Centre, Polytechnic University, HONG KONG),

and many more

Registration for Government Information Forum Hong Kong is open for all public sector officials. If you would like to join this event please download the complete agenda and details here:

Full Brochure - Government Information Forum Hong Kong