Launching FGX
“Our organizations must be models of the world we want to build” — Umair Haque
For quite some time, we’ve wondered what it means to be on the other side of working with us. We deeply value working closely as one team with our partners, because everyone has something to contribute. But, how do we articulate what it means to work with FutureGov? What does the FutureGov experience feel like to staff and clients alike? What actions, behaviours and culture shifts can we point to and say, that’s it.
We’re on a mission to become a model for what we believe 21st-century organisations should be. As we grow and scale, it’s important for FutureGov to stay true to what we value, what we believe being a 21st-century organisation is all about and what our partners value and gain from working with us. Being bold and open, challenging, leading and delivering change, valuing design, working in ways that are modern, agile, and fit for the internet era and putting people at the heart of the work that we do.
To help us do this, we’ve launched FGX
FutureGov Experience, or FGX, will build on all the great things about the experience of working with FutureGov, continuously reflecting and iterating on what the experience of working with us should be, so our work is always focused to amplify the impact we have together.
FGX is a product of who we are, what we do, how we do it and what we believe and value. This is all pretty huge! But we’ve made a start.
Creating the Experience Director role
Part of FGX is my new role in the organisation. Previously, I was Studio Director at FutureGov. As part of my quality assurance responsibilities I spent time going out and listening to our clients about what it is really like working with us. What I was hearing was hugely valuable and we identified the opportunity to feed this across the business from developing our offer, growing our practice and refining our delivery as well as the on-going development of our culture and ways of working.
Joseph Reay at Basildon Council said to me yesterday that I had the most awesome job title and I totally agree! I’m obsessed with experience and quality. I love listening and understanding how different people experience us and flipping from the big picture to the small details. I’m totally excited about taking this on.
Articulating what FGX is
We’ve done some early work articulating what the experience of working with us should be. We don’t want to be too prescriptive or create a checklist because we know that every partner, individual and FutureGover brings their own value and perspective.
At the same time, with our growing team and client base, we want to be really clear what the experience of working with us could and should be. If we are more purposeful about the experience of working with us, we believe we can deliver a better, more consistent experience to clients and together, deliver better outcomes to citizens. Over the next few months, we’ll be working with our wider team and our clients to articulate our goals.
Applying experience design to ourselves
Admittedly, we spend a lot of time looking outwards to help other organisations, with limited time looking inwards. Making space to reflect, iterate and build is something we’re trying to be better at across the business. To help us get started designing FGX, we’ve identified distinct projects where we can dive into understanding and designing the experience of working with us.
By listening and understanding what the experience of working with us is really like, we’re making sure that we apply our values, principles and approaches to ourselves and others. We’re at the beginning of this work and still exploring lots of questions around FGX, like how do we build a culture that focuses on FGX for impact and how do we measure FGX? Asking these questions will help us design improvements and changes to ensure that everyone feels consistently and positively FutureGov’d.
In it together
One thing we know for sure is that we can’t understand what the experience of working with us is like without listening to those who work with us; our clients, our partners, our current and future talent, and most importantly citizens and users.
So if you have ideas, feedback, opinions or suggestions then please get in touch with me.
