The Digital Transformation Office (DTO) is only 15 months old. An infant. It’s tough being a new kid. Especially when you’re little. The big kids push you around. Sometimes you just want to flee back home. But there comes a time when little kids need to grow up. Which begs the question, is it time to drop the D from the DTO?

Kindy is fun

I attended the DTO Canberra Open House in July this year, and I have to say it was very enjoyable.

Walking into the DTO takes you into a wonderful world of Kanban boards, user stories and all manner of wonderful visuals. It has the same vibrant feel as a kindergarten – the walls are covered in colours and pictures, and all staff members are alive and enthusiastic with an energy that only people with great passion for their chosen field bring to a room.

Workplaces inside and outside the public sector could do a lot worse than seek to foster this same sense of energy.

So what’s the problem?

While kindy is fun, you can’t stay there all your life. You need to move on from small things to big things, and from fun things to challenging things. As the years go by we lose the luxury of being able to spend lots of time and resources carefully crafting objects that others coo over. We learn about dealing with large, complex issues, and working with insufficient time or resources.

It seems to me that some of the kindy analogy applies to the DTO. It has a loud voice, and has clearly had a beneficial impact in disrupting the ICT development status quo in the APS, and championing a commendable vision for simpler, clearer, faster public services. But what it has achieved so far is small in comparison to the challenges faced when looking at whole-of-government change. Alpha and Beta releases in a few targeted areas are a good start, but there is a need for substantial scale-up, in a governable and manageable way, before it can be said there has been major progress with the digital transformation agenda.

Dropping the D

I can’t blame the DTO for its name, after all, digital transformation is in vogue terminology the world over. And the Prime Minster, no less, has created a cabinet sub-committee called the Digital Transformation Committee.

Well Prime Minister – how can I put this delicately – you got it wrong. The name shouldn’t reflect the technology, the name should reflect what you are trying to achieve.

So here is my proposal: that we drop the D, and replace it with G – the Government Transformation Committee, and the Government Transformation Office. I think that might just capture the public’s imagination right now. By all means press on with digital enthusiasm, but harness and direct it with strong programme management capability.

I look forward to the Honourable Angus Taylor, MP; Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, lobbying to have his title changed!

Want to know more about managing digital transformation?

If you would like to know more about using programme management or project management to manage digital (government) transformation in the APS, please call me personally on 0407 404 688 or email me at john.howarth@tannerjames.com.au. I would be very happy to come to meet you, answer questions and provide further information.

What do you think?

Please feel free to comment on the blog itself or via LinkedIn.