Good questions get to the essence of the problem you are exploring, provide a way of understanding what is happening now and give us the tools we need to measure whether or not we are making progress in developing an answer. Good questions help people convene around problems and when the right question gets under …
I was talking the other day about potential visions for future public services. I was asked what mine was and I didn’t give one. Instead I talked about culture and method and behaviours because how we go about shaping the future is critical, how we work will determine what is within reach. I have passionate …
We’re all travelling across an uncertain ocean between the industrial and network society – and different strategies are in play. If you look at how commercial organisations respond to disruptive change from new technologies there are a number of identifiable approaches. I call them row harder, go pirate or build a rocket. Row harder: this …
The political landscape has still not got its act together – and I am too impatient to wait for it to change. As the post-industrial society unravels and something new emerges we need to focus on equipping people to participate in what comes next. Our tools to shape these changes are limited so we need to hone …
This is an action research post and very much me thinking in public. As I write this it occurs to me that I am perhaps less of an innovator and more of an experimenter – at the moment I am experimenting with ways to get things done. I’ve been thinking about collaboration a lot – …
When it comes to leadership I believe in zero tolerance for digital ignorance. The more I work with senior teams and around digital transformation projects the more strongly I believe that leaders need to make sure that they have relevant and robust skills around technology because without these they are making decisions with at best …
These are my notes on the session I pitched at UKGC16 on the relationship between networks and system change. I tend to use these sessions to work on problems which I am currently thinking about and at the moment I am spending a lot of time thinking about how to drive system change. My fairly …
I was at the Solace conference recently and one of the topics which came up repeatedly (along with finance and devolution) was “digital”. This post is a combination of my reflections on this and an attempt to move the discussion on a bit. I also think that there is something in the ether at the …
I’ve been a methodology geek for a while and I am now moving on from development methods to wider programme and change methodologies – fun for some of us I can assure you. This post is an anchor for some work I am doing in this area as I am thinking about the methods and …
This is part of a bigger project that Solace are looking at around a policy landscape for local government on the digital agenda (hopefully covering all 7 tribes of digital!!!). I’ve been asked to sketch out the critical questions and issues that I see under the broad heading of digital by design. Hopefully colleagues working …