Strategies that work: my top ten tips
Over the last year I’ve been working as Head of Strategy in the Parliamentary Digital Service — my main aim, to develop a digital strategy for Parliament.
It’s been an amazing journey and I’ve had lots of fun on the way. One of the most rewarding aspects was getting to talk to so many people, both inside and outside Parliament, about what they think a digital Parliament should look like and what the priorities should be.
Now that the strategy is complete, I thought I would share some of my learning along the way about what makes a good strategy; one that will be useful and not just sit on a shelf having ticked the we’ve got a strategy box. My thoughts here are more about the process and governance around making it work rather than what should be in it.
First a few words about strategy
Strategy is one of those things that when you mention it, you can often see people’s eyes glaze over. They see it as an academic exercise, one that stops them getting on with what they want to do and usually means bringing in expensive consultants and costing lots of money. Which let’s be honest is sometimes the case.
But for any organisation in 2016 it’s important to know, what you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it and how you’re going to get there. It’s about making a change and in essence that’s what any good strategy is all about.
It should cover not just the work required, but also the values, culture and working practices you will need to get there. It answers the question, what do we need to do differently to succeed.
It might be that in 5 or 10 years time, organisations will no longer need a digital strategy. Digital will be a thread that runs right through everything that they do.
Top Ten Tips
So here are my top ten tips.
- Have a clear vision of where you’re going
Having the destination in mind is crucial. Once you know where you are and where you want to be, you can start to think about the route you take to get there, what’s required, what change is needed. The focus in many strategies is too often on the what, rather than the why or the where.
For Parliament the goal is to become a digital by default rather than a print by default organisation. This brings with it so many opportunities; increasing engagement in our democracy, supporting MPs and peers to be more effective and improving transparency — some of the big goals Parliament needs to achieve.
2. Ensure there’s a mandate for change
It’s all very well having a clear vision for the future, and your eyes on the ultimate goal, but without the support at a senior level to make the necessary changes your strategy will simply be words on a page.
In Parliament, a clear mandate for change came from two places: themySociety Review of Online Services and the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy. Both said that Parliament needed to change the way it does things and use technology more effectively. Both articulated very clearly and with the backing of extensive consultation, what that future might look like.
3. Have a supporters club
Without having a champion(s) to support your strategy, you will be set to fail. These are the people you need to tackle the thorny issues your consultation and research will inevitably throw up. They will make the important decisions and set the scene to enable the whole organisation to buy into the strategy. They need to be fluent in the vision and what it needs to achieve.
In Parliament, our sponsors came in the form of the Digital Strategy Board. Not only is it constituted from the most senior people in Parliament, it also includes some notable digital experts from outside. And we made them work. Debating the more controversial elements of our strategy and prioritising the most important pieces of work. How transparent and open should we be, is digital by default what we are aiming for and should security come top of the list. Their thinking around all of these issues needed time to develop so that the strategy that was agreed would have their full support.
4. Get people involved
As well as senior folk in your organisation, getting as many people involved as possible from all areas of the business is crucial to the success of your strategy. Making sure everyone has the opportunity to contribute and that they can see their contribution reflected means that across roles and teams, people can see how they fit.
Strategy is not something that can be developed in a dark room by one person alone. So right from the beginning the biggest part of my role as head of strategy was all about talking to people, engaging them in my work and getting them to think about what the future should look like. We ran 36 workshops over the course of 6 weeks and involved more than 300 people from across Parliament. It was their thoughts and ideas which coalesced to shape the digital vision. We also set up a Digital Advocates group, champions from the two Houses, to meet weekly to discuss and advise on the strategy; everything from digital capability to the development of the new website. Their role is to help shape a strategy the Board could sign off on and champion the strategy in their own areas. It has been energising to see just how much people really care about improving the user experience across all channels and have valuable expertise to help make it happen.
5. Work in the open
Working in the open not only aids transparency but encourages people to participate and share ideas. Transparency is also a key aspect of our vision so it made sense that we should embody that in the way we delivered the strategy. We didn’t just want to say that we were open but to actively demonstrate that by the way we worked.
To that end we published the strategy in the public domain on Hackpad andblogged about our work on it. This meant that people had access to the strategy as it evolved through different versions, ask questions and contribute along the way.
6. Talk about what you’re doing
While you are fully embedded in what you do, others are often not very aware so talking about your work is key. As a digital strategy potentially has an impact on every team and role in your organisation, you want everyone talking about it. This produces ideas but also gets the buy-in you need to make it successful. It’s about building momentum and awareness, because the last thing you want anyone to say is, “I didn’t know we had a digital strategy”.
In Parliament we focussed on two key user groups; our staff and our members. For staff we ran workshops, presented at seminars, published information online and went round team meetings. As members are a key user group we spoke to them both at committee meetings and one on one and had some very productive workshops. This is about people being close to what you’re doing and not remote from it and enabling them to influence the outcome. Many of the ideas produced at these workshops went straight into the strategy.
7. Iterate
The final perfect document belongs to the world of print. A digital strategy should be constantly evolving. The world of technology is constantly changing so the idea that your strategy can be finished is a misnomer. Don’t be afraid to change it, it needs to do that to keep pace with the rapidly changing world. It is something that formulates over time and your initial assumptions could be proved wrong — test ideas out on people and iterate accordingly. Take an agile approach.
The digital strategy for Parliament has been through several iterations over the last 9 months and will have a few more to come in the future I’m sure as the team review what they’ve done and where they need to get to.
8. Make it measurable
To make your strategic digital goals worthwhile, you need to know whether you’re meeting them, or on track to meet them. This requires clear measures, that can be published, are easy to understand and are not onerous to track. That way you’ll be able to evaluate progress and ideally publish how far along the digital transformation road you’ve travelled.
The Parliament digital strategy has some clear goals and some well defined measures that the digital strategy board will track. This is how success will be determined.
9. Deliver something
Strategies are often seen as too much theory and not enough practice;
a box ticking exercise — done the strategy now time for the real work. Delivering some tangible outputs that demonstrate your strategy alongside the words on the page bring that strategy to life and help to convince people why it’s important.
In Parliament we ran a rapid prototyping exercise that produced two great working prototypes now live on the website. But the real added value was that it demonstrated a new way of working. The exercise brought together the digital and business teams in a collaborative environment to work together.The video explains it far better than I can.
10. And finally…
While what I was working on is a digital strategy for Parliament, I think the learning is easily applicable to almost any other organisation. Why’s that? Well ultimately your digital strategy is about people, how they work and what they value much more than it is about technology. And every organisation has those…
I’m sure there are more, but for now these are my top ten tips!
