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Portfolio - Digital Strategy for a Government Department

on portfolio, digital strategy, government

alt=digital strategy mind map
Initial digital strategy mind map for strategic plan

Introduction and disclaimer

This strategic plan provides an example of my ability to analyse and make recommendations on digital strategy. Originally my analysis was for an academic study of a specific government department. I have revised it so it can be applied to generically to government departments or large organisations with a hierarchical management structure and divisions competing for budgeting and resources.

This strategy is theoretical and all thoughts are my own unless quoting someone else’s brilliance.

Update: I need to tidy up the tables to be be responsive and accessible but I have decided to publish anyway. Also need to sketch up the service design blue print model More of an incentive to complete those changes

1. Executive Summary
2. Context – The Current state
Government websites – have an opportunity to move beyond the print paradigm and deliver a service experience
The challenge of distributed publishing
Web content – An opportunity to measure success and consider content life cycle
Web governance – An opportunity for a coordinated approach
3. Trends
4. Vision for digital services
Assumptions for services
5. Critical success factors (CSF) and issues
Two critical success factors for digital strategy
Recurring issues for many web teams in large organisations
Current state, transitional improvements, and future state
What to focus on – how to move from current to future state
Be visible and demonstrate value to the executive
Be responsive
Increase web governance and supporting systems
6. Strategic actions
7. Risks
8. Appendices
Appendix A - Bibliography
Appendix B – Research Notes
Front end website architecture explained
Engaging stakeholders
How you could measure success/demonstrate value
Commodification of IT
Customer focus
Environmental scan
Responsive design won’t solve our content problems
Create designs from content, not device
Content Strategy
Content value is derived from understanding what users want to do
Executive visibility and web council
Appendix D - Competitive analysis
Stamford Interactive
OPC
Gotomedia

1. Executive Summary

A Department’s web presence is the primary contact point for many Australian Government services. Therefore it is crucial that the technical, design, and most importantly content enable users to meet their needs. If not there is a risk that the Australian Government departments will fail to demonstrate their value and become marginalised.

Often the web publishing and content creation processes are overlooked and putting a document on a department website is considered a ‘tick a box’ exercise. However websites are not filing cabinets they are your primary and often first touch point with customers. There is an opportunity to engage in conversation with your customers and co-design services that achieve both business and user needs.

To move from the current tick a box model you should focus on four things:
1. Being visible and valuable to your executives – without the costs and benefits of good and bad web publishing processes known there is no incentive to move beyond tick a box publishing.

  • Does your website reduce call centre calls;
  • Are people paying for your services online, how many give up half way through;
  • How many minutes does it take to find a colleagues details, can you find them easily;
  • What does it cost you to maintain a page, has it been viewed, is it accurate.
    These are all reasonable questions. If you can answer them then your web presence will become a more visible and valued part of your department’s service strategy.

2. Being responsive – to your customers’ needs, in terms of design, and in terms of time

3. Increase governance and supporting systems – to coordinate and collaborate with the many stakeholders involved in web publishing can only be achieved with clear departmental governance and supporting systems.

4. Evidence based decision making – you can’t measure success without evidence. Collecting and sharing data to questions described above is critical and allows your decision makers to have greater confidence in their decisions.

With some effort and executive support you can deliver a contemporary web service that aligns with organisational priorities and the demands of ‘digital service by default’ world.

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2. Context – The Current state

Government websites – have an opportunity to move beyond the print paradigm and deliver a service experience

“Today most Federal Government websites have a range of fairly serious technical and design issues, including slow load times, missing page descriptions, broken links and conflicting labels. They remain incredibly basic. Few allow you to sign up for any information other than media releases and certainly don't allow you to tailor your information requests.”

“Government sites are stuck in time - serving an audience that no longer exists. In functionality, in social media services, in mobile services and in the design - the 'personality' of the site - they are completely anachronistic. Australians have moved on and continue to move on but these sites have not.”

-- Government communications: online but out of touch, O’Rourke (2011)

It is telling that this opinion piece from 2011 still resonates today. Many people view creating website as similar to print production. They think of pages, and ‘below the fold’. Web content needs to be created and considered as part of the many channels of communication that are used in a department.

There is a need to consider more deeply design aspects of websites (look, feel, emotional response). Departments need a considered approach to web content, and web design to enable mobile usage, and integration with social media services.

You are now producing a service experience not a print brochure equivalent, or desktop app.

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The challenge of distributed publishing

“They spend more time on what is less important to the customer, and less time on what is more important to the customer…A lot of organizations today have the crazy situation of uncontrolled distributed publishing. On the surface it looks like a cheap option because it removes the ‘bottlenecks’ of professional editors. But its results are absolutely disastrous. Bloated, ungoverned, unnavigable, unsearchable, unusable websites are the result.”

-- When content audits are not a good idea, McGovern (2013)

Government departments have a lot of people involved in servicing web publishing requests however there is often little authority provided to the digital teams to allow them to veto content creation requests.

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Web content – An opportunity to measure success and consider content life cycle

Often no business case or business benefit needs to be demonstrated to create a web page and no effort is expended to document the success and/or failure of the web page in achieving its goal. Little thought is generally put into an exit strategy for a page. As a result in many departments the number of pages requiring maintenance but serving little business purpose is increasing. The number of pages without success measures and lifecycle plans mean:

  • Each additional page added, and each existing page containing Redundant, Outdated, and Trivial (ROT) content adds to maintenance requirements and affects the performance of the useful content and ultimately costs departments time and money.
  • Decreases the ability of staff to find information either via searching or browsing your site navigation structures
  • Content may be produced by different line areas on the same topic without them being aware of it. Leading to redundant, conflicting, and confusing content
  • Also leads to additional/unnecessary work for content editors, during web redesign/rebranding efforts, and when content migration to a new platform is undertaken

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Web governance – An opportunity for a coordinated approach

“Governance is made up of four key parts:

  • Authority: Who is empowered to make and enforce decisions?
  • Planning: How do you decide what projects to take on and how do you prioritize them?
  • Measurement: How will you determine if your digital things are getting you the results you set out to achieve and how will you make adjustments when necessary?
  • Tools: What kind of support do the people working on your digital things need to be successful?”

-- It’s not your (insert digital thing), it’s you, Meghan (2013)

Often a department’s web presence consists of many websites, applications, and social media elements but without a central authority coordinating them. They are often shared by IT, Comms., and line area teams, leading to disparate user experience.

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3. Trends

Network age

We have passed the Information Age and entered the Network Age. The value is no longer in information - it is in knowing the network:

  • Knowing who or what holds the information you need
  • Being able to aggregate and filter the information effectively
  • Delivering the information across a range of channels

More devices

We are no longer designing content for one digital format.
alt="more operating systems, devices, resolutions to cater for: browsers, desktop, tablet, portrait, landscape, retina display, big tv screens, etc. "
Source: The Rise of Content Strategy—Trend #2: More Devices! More!, Merrill (2012)
Also considering different device orientations as amusingly illustrated:

Source: Internet, unknown origin.

More modes of use

People are using their smartphone while watching tv. They expect their calendar to sync from their desktop, to their tablet, to their phone. More examples of modes of use:
alt="modes of use including: coherence, syncronisation, screen sharing, device shifting, complementarity, simultaneity"

Source: Multiscreen patterns, Stoll (2011)

Source: The story behind the bbc mobile accessibility guidelines, Swan (2014)

More social

There has been an increase in the way people digitally record and share their lives, including ‘Working out loud’ in the workplace.

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4. Vision for digital services

Your digital team needs to enable users of your digital services to understand what business objectives they can achieve with IT and demonstrate the enormous value they can add to their business.

You should treat web content and design as an asset and consider the purpose and outcome desired by publishing from your digital presence. There has to be a content strategy and business reason underpinning the release/creation of new content.

With the Australian government advocating a move to digital first service delivery, educating and demonstrating how to design digital experiences and supporting strategies is becoming critically important.

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Assumptions for services

“First of all, any e-government services needs to be easy to use”

“Any attempt at [digital] transformation must also encompass back-end processes and platforms: digitising paper forms and records.”

41% of Australians identified online is their preferred channel when it comes to accessing government services, more than those who prefer phone or in-person at a government office combined.”

-- Could e-Government get Australia back in a surplus, Cogswell 2014. [data from Fuji-Xerox Survey]

As indicated above we can assume Citizens:

  • Prefer online services
  • Value ease of use
    To achieve this digital transformation must be supported with changes to physical world processes and practices and this is where the greatest challenge lies.

Source: AIIA SmartICT 2014 Infographic [pdf] - quoting 14. Policy Exchange, (2013) Smaller, Better, Faster, Stronger, Remaking government for the digital age. p33

You can assume that digital services will be cheaper, but only when they meet user expectations. You should also be wary of converting all services to self service. Many services are inherently complex.

“[The] ...expectation of external partners and users that services will be delivered through multiple channels... e.g. telephone, shopfront, online...the expectation is that they will receive a consistent level of service across these channels and, should they change channels in the course of a lengthy interaction, they will not need to back-track or start again”

-- Service design: from insight to implementation, Polainte, Lavrans and Reason (2013)

Your service should be:

  • Digital by default - Applications are now expected to be delivered through a browser, consequently websites become the front door of your organisation
  • Consistent regardless of communications channel (e.g. call centre, website) users choose
  • Responsive and modular
  • Cater for mobile use

Internally this means services need to be collaboratively developed and opportunities opened up by new technology need to be sold and explained to the executive.
These expectations are in line with improvements being progressed through the Australian Government’s forthcoming Digital Transformation Office (DTO).

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5. Critical success factors (CSF) and issues

“A talented leader identifies... the pivot points that can multiply the effectiveness of the effort.“

As explained in Good strategy bad strategy: the difference and why it matters, Rumelt (2013)
The key pivot points are:

  • Demonstrating value/cost of web services to executive/users
  • Increasing the responsiveness of digital teams and services
  • Providing evidence of cost of page/site maintenance, search effectiveness created by content
  • Separating presentation, design, and user interface from the backend IT infrastructure

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Two Critical Success Factors (CSF) for digital strategy

CSF – Your organisation must have a workable web governance model with shared objectives, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

This will allow content, design, and functionality to be considered by cross disciplinary group of expert stakeholders and meet business needs more efficiently

CSF – You must provide evidence of cost of page/site maintenance created by decentralised publishing

This significantly impacts redesign and migration projects. It is assumed that many pages that have to be migrated and/or redesigned are no longer delivering business benefits for your organisation.

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Recurring issues for many web teams in large organisations.

Many web teams are focused on lengthy redesign and migration projects in which they have little control over the content and governance.

“...in many cases no one is empowered to look holistically at the customer experience or to focus on cross-disciplinary ways to improve it.”

-- The Rise of Content Strategy- Trend #4: Silos still suck, Merrill (2012)

Problems resulting include:

  • “Leadership may have a hard time changing the positioning and messages from the top down. They may wonder, ‘Why isn’t everyone getting it / doing it?’
  • Content producers may feel they don’t have the authority to quickly respond to audience needs
  • People may feel stymied by the [Content Management System] CMS or brand groups, or seek ways to work around them (hello, microsite!)
  • People may fight for digital “real estate” rather than working together to meet audience needs (hello, cluttered home page!)
  • Redundancies and gaps in content creation occur across the organization
  • Managers have a hard time getting budget for additional content resources since they’re all working autonomously
  • Many different voices and messages are expressed to the outside world”

-- The Rise of Content Strategy- Trend #4: Silos still suck, Merrill (2012)

Costs of decentralised and siloed authorship - results in content value not being visible, and not known

“Decentralized decision making can’t do everything. In particular it may fail when either costs or benefits of actions are not borne by the decentralized actors”

– p. 93 Good strategy bad strategy : the difference and why it matters, Rumelt, Richard P (2013)

Approval for content must go through many service touch points, each with limited authority, and little incentive to work cooperatively to deliver a consistent service. Costs are pushed back onto line areas leading them to outsource content design, avoid engaging digital teams, or competing politically for organisational funding.

“Work that is not seen or valued is also not costed. The true cost of publishing online is often unknown. Many organisations just assume that distributed authoring saves them money.”

“Business units create content and manage sub sites as though they are distinct entities, rather than part of an organisation-wide information system. Content can be duplicated and information inconsistent.”

-- Managing distributed publishing, part 1: The challenges, Dey (2013)

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Digital Strategy - Current state, transitional improvements, and future state
Domain Current state Transitional improvements Future state
Digital team metaphors We do IT plumbing – once the pipes are in our job is done You get to choose the fittings We work with you to design your dream bathroom
Digital team metaphors (continued) Typing pool – we type it up and publish it Commercial print shop – we typeset it and it will look pretty ‘Mad men’ ad agency – we design, connect, and communicate our content and services so well that people enjoy using them
Content – authority and life cycle Most of the authority for content and design decisions with Line area. Line area: ‘Get it up for the minister today’ Digital team: ‘Um can we tweak this bit’ Line area: ‘No my boss wrote it’ Content is written for the web and line areas work with digital team to consider measurements for success and content life cycle plan. ‘This is a media release that is important this week, but can be removed after three months’

‘This request for policy submissions is critically important this year, but will not be needed next year’

 Line areas understand the importance of writing for the web. They have clear measures for success and have a plan to manage the life cycle of their content.
Content – written for the web Static ‘fire and forget’ content is authored in Word, with little design consideration, not often written for web environment Content Strategy in place – Digital team provide tailored editorial advice, require the audience and purpose of content to be defined. A KPI is determined for each piece of content A Create Once Publish Everywhere (COPE) content strategy is possible. Content is adaptive, responsive, and reusable
Content – consideration of existing content Existing content is not reviewed to see if the topic already covered(as there is a lot of content, line areas focus on limited content areas) Content is placed in a manner which considers the existing content Metadata and site organisation processes allow ‘automagical’ identification and grouping of similar content
Design - Advice Limited design advice provided – Sometimes some from Comms. but with a focus on the print perspective Design advice – for web, with consideration for other channels Service Design advice – including service blueprint showing multichannel strategy
Design – Site experience Design – no advice, standards, or authority on web design Some agreed standards to allow coherent and consistent web design User testing and evidence drive user centred design. Engineered from the outset to serve the needs of a diverse customer base with a configurable but standardised solution
Design - Standards Design – no advice, standards, or authority on web design Some agreed standards to allow coherent and consistent web design User testing and evidence drive user centred design. Engineered from the outset to serve the needs of a diverse customer base with a configurable but standardised solution
Design - Authority Authority for design decisions, Either: - not be considered important Or - Decided by HIghest Paid Persons Opinion (HIPPO) In the absence of an evidence based reason for custom design , agreed standards and heuristics will drive design decisions Goal driven design development. User research provides basis for design. Design and digital teams work together with business areas to deliver a design brief which has defined measurements of success relating to user goals.
Technology Decided by IT only Decided by Web Council Includes consideration of users both line areas (e.g. authors) and customers
Capabilities – technology and systems Digital teams know the capabilities of their current system well. They also know its limitations Digital teams have a process to recommend updates to technology, and are resourced to future proof systems i.e. allow for responsive design, mobile development, etc. Digital teams scan the environment and have time/resources to take on pilot projects. This builds organisational expertise in digital e.g. in mobile development, cross-browser support, responsive design, etc.
Social Media Social media is driven by Comms. and media teams mostly for external broadcast (i.e. one way) communication. Internal social media usage is minimal Organisation executive have started to encourage internal conversations and sharing of knowledge amongst staff on social media. Both business and social dialogues are encouraged just like the physical workplace A shared digital culture and community managed by digital staff with expertise in the discipline of community management
Governance Warring states – power, access to senior leadership and divisional priorities lead agenda Web Council – With informed departmental executives setting direction at departmental level Cooperative states with shared vision and a strong preference for evidence based decision making
Governance – Attitudes towards knowledge Knowledge coveted and hidden Knowledge increasingly shared Sharing of knowledge encouraged to allow informed decision making
Governance – Agenda setting Driven by subjective taste and organisational power We know what we want to deliver as a department (we understand our own needs clearly) and have developed and documented a shared understanding of them In addition to our needs we understand our user needs both internal (business) and external customers
Measurements - of success Content published or ‘up live’ is the defining measurement. Sometimes number of ‘hits on a page’ are reported but not acted upon Basic quantitative analytics and some qualitative user testing Process in place to remove pages with low value/high cost.

Business and web use these measurements to inform strategy, design and content decisions
Measurements – cost of maintenance Cost of page maintenance unknown Cost page maintenance estimated in terms of effect on searchability, redesign, and migration efforts. Compared to evidence of success to calculate ROI Cost of page maintenance known and considered regularly as part of overall content strategy
Teams (Cross IT, Comms., and line areas Separate teams with linear work flows and little sharing of capabilities Co-operating (virtual) teams to deliver a suite of web services. Some cross pollination of capabilities Shared pool of resources with capabilities and cross skilling the norm. Pick and choose range of staff to deliver a particular digital service
Users We think we know who they are but don’t talk with them We research our users and test our sites with them We have a relationship with our users and have built a community allowing co-design of our digital services
User research Not considered or very limited research User research drives decisions on design User research drives service design
Executive understanding We have a website it works We have a beautiful website it looks better than other similar organisations or competitors We deliver web services that are beautiful and loved by our users both staff and customers
Executive understanding (continued) I assume our website is cost effective I know our website is somewhat cost effective, and what parts may be appropriate to cut back on I have a clear understanding of cost of the content, data, and applications underpinning this service... hot damn this digital service delivery is saving me money and providing great example of reducing costs through increased efficiency

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What to focus on – how to move from current to future state

Be visible and demonstrate value to the executive

Often websites are unvalued by the Executive. Providing demonstrations of how the website can reduce call centre calls, help users self service, etc. should be a primary part of your role. You do this by:

  • Providing leadership on digital strategy, backing it with evidence, and selling it to the Executive
  • Communicating what you are doing and why, and celebrating your successes (as most web shops do with testimonials and a portfolio of good projects)

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Be responsive

Focus on responsiveness as it impacts your customers and customer service. Responsiveness enables collaboration and allows you to cater for emerging business needs. This will be done by:

  • Responsiveness of design – need to ensure design caters for multiple modalities of use, tablet, keyboard only, touch, visual, online, offline, etc.
  • Responsiveness of content – applications and websites developed should focus on meeting a performance budget. Content that fails to load in under X milliseconds will be considered unresponsiveness
  • Responsiveness of service - to your colleagues, getting back to them promptly, taking things from concept to test and production promptly

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Increase web governance and supporting systems

“Most organizations address low Web quality by redesigning their Web site or installing expensive infrastructure technology. The real reason your Web site keeps falling into disrepair is because your organization’s management practices don’t align with the 21st century business dynamic.”

– p.12 The Digital Deca: 10 management truths for the web age [PDF - no longer available] Welchman (2010)
Systemic improvements and coordinated governance will allow your organisation to design usable, useful, and emotionally appealing sites and systems to let users engage with our services.

“Good strategy and organization lie in specializing on the right activities and imposing only the essential amount of coordination”

-- p. 94 Good strategy bad strategy : the difference and why it matters, Rumelt, Richard P (2013)

Impose only the essential amount of coordination.

Do this by:

  • Encouraging the flattening of hierarchies and subsidarity (pushing authority for decision making out to lowest competent role) where appropriate.
  • Introducing and improving web governance systems for sustainable improvements of your organisation’s digital presence. As Adams (2013) states ‘systems trump goals’. In other words systemic improvement is more desirable than reaching a one-time target

Become providers of evidence based advice

Do this by:

  • Including analytics, testing, and working whenever possible with real users. Also consider third party research
  • Providing evidence of cost/benefit of web pages and insist content owners judge web content effectiveness by how effectively it delivers business outcomes

Contribute to Service Design with ‘plug- and-play’ digital services and sites

Do this by:

  • Ensuring digital services and sites are considered, designed, and governed as one element in a larger service delivery channel mix
  • Designing websites and applications in a way that complements other service delivery channels
  • Having a digital team to act as a hub linking content authors (line areas), to developers (IT), and content/editorial experts (Comms.)

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6. Strategic actions























Examples of strategic actions
Focus Outcome wanted Strategic action Priority Responsible parties Measurable performance indicators
Governance Web Council to make decisions regarding governance - act as conduit to show visibility and value to organisational executive Establishment of web council as described by Welchman (2010) High IT, Comms, Departmental Executive Regular meetings of council Number of actions and outcomes generated from council
Communication Increased visibility and demonstration of the value of digital transformation work Testimonials and success stories shared Pull rather than push technologies for comms. Encouraging externalisation of work - increase ambient flow of information - whilst allowing people to filter and discover based on their interests - This could be achieved using social intranet components like an activity stream similar to Twitter Medium Digital Team Pull technology such as RSS feeds, activity streams implemented No. of testimonials and success stories shared
Team Regularly consider the following and log ideas and contributions. Build a learning culture
  1. Environmental Awareness - as it enables responsiveness
  2. Site development and maintenance (i.e. sustainability of web services) - consider how much resourcing is given to new vs. maintaining old content.
  3. Analytics and Tweaks - measuring the performance of web team, how long to build a new site, respond to tickets, etc.
  4. Selling value and providing evidence of value
  5. Teams and systems (is our team structure and our work processes merely efficient, is there a way we can be more effective)
  6. Professional networking - build a broader understanding of the industry and emulate the front runners.
 Medium Digital Team Digital Team Track contributions and ideas of the team on each of the numbered points by quarter
People User centred approach to activities - A better understanding of internal business owners and their needs Dedicate more resources to tech adoption (communication, meeting and talking with people, training, maintenance) and less to implementation.

Use design thinking to leverage behavioural economics and increase user satisfaction, adoption, and usage of ICT

Iterative, evidence based development focused on solving user/business problems rather than delivering features

 Medium Digital team User satisfaction levels, Number and depth of stakeholder engagements
Performance Responsive sites - improved page load speed Performance budget specification listed. Sites performance tested High IT and Digital Team Page load speed
Content value Content value, effort to create and maintain known Authors provide clear business reason, user desire for their content
Have method in place to measure value
Have an exit strategy or plan for content maintenance

 High Comms., Line Areas Value metrics, New content with deletion date, No. of documented maintenance plans
Decisions informed by best practice Evidence based decision making driving web services. Educated and informed stakeholders leading to design for the user not by the user Provide best practice semantic and interactive components through a contemporary web shop service structure Components include: Search Primary navigation Information Architecture Search engine optimisation Low Digital Team Documented advice and maintained links to professional reading on web service components
Evidence based decision making 'Know' rather than assume how our users behave and use our website so we not what works for the user and what doesn't Commit to user testing High Digital Team, Comms. User testing reports and observations Satisfaction/Completion/Conversion metrics
Authoring experience Changes to functions, design, and content should make a content authors job demonstrably easier Design a great authoring/publishing environment by using user testing and testing workflow as a whole. High Digital Team, Comms. Line area Content Authors (especially frequent ones) Staff satisfaction Processing rates using the application or service compared to older version Number of fields, steps in process compared to older version Time to complete task compared to older task Satisfaction/Completion/Conversion metrics
Service design Coordinated, consistent, service experience across multiple divisions of a department. Breaks down silos see tables in Research Appendix for comparison of traditional siloed approach to service delivery vs. using a service design blue print.

 Use a service design blue print to define digital services

Developing ICT to support peer to peer communication to take advantage of knowledge networks and the social capital that comes with responsive, shared peer to peer comms.

Develop virtual cross divisional teams to integrate ICT as part of an end-to-end solution or service to a particular business problem.

 Medium Digital Team Web presence and various components e.g. sites and applications documented in a service blue print.
Appropriate communication tools and team structure to deliver the service as documented


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7. Risks

These could could impact your organisation if digital strategy and presence is not considered holistically and aligned with organisational business objectives.

“Rather than listing out everything that could possibly go wrong with something that you build, and then protecting against every single one of those, think about what, would the outcome be if that thing went wrong? Think about how likely is it that that’s going to happen? And take appropriate steps to prepare for those situations.”

Source:Striking a balance between security and usability| GOV.UK | Government digital service blog Turnbull (2014)

	<tr>
        <td data-title="Risk">Awareness and consequent cooperation with stakeholders not obtained</td>
        <td data-title="Description">Without close cooperation and engagement of stakeholders business needs can’t be met. Stakeholders need to understand how their priorities fit in with the department, and also what is important to users. Digital team must explain pros and cons of various technological approaches</td>
        <td data-title="Risk Scope" >Departmental</td>
        <td data-title="Likelihood, Impact" >Medium, Medium</td>
        <td data-title="Mitigation strategies">Testimonials, Working aloud, Appropriate Comms. channels and dialogue maintained with stakeholders<br>Web presence considered as a service component. - If not considered in tandem with other content channels may not integrate well and achieve intended benefits for example driving users towards self service for a large number of services</td>
      </tr>

	<tr>
        <td data-title="Risk">User expectations not met<br>Fail to anticipate and cater for changing business needs, business growth</td>
        <td data-title="Description">If the department is not able to anticipate current and near future expectations. This  could lead to extra time and cost issues in budgets, not serving users needs, not delivering to contemporary technology expectations.<br>May take too long to deliver things so they are out of date on arrival</td>
        <td data-title="Risk Scope" >IT</td>
        <td data-title="Likelihood, Impact" >Medium, Medium</td>
        <td data-title="Mitigation strategies">Less resources devoted to technology implementation more devoted to product adoption, communication, and trainin.<br>Iterative development, focus on user business needs and outcomes. Not feature driven development <br>User testing and research and collection of usage data.<br>Changing business needs - Focus on continuous improvement and environmental scanning; track team member contributions and ideas on environment and tech.<br>Business growth - Scalable and modular architecture in platforms</td>
      </tr>
	<tr>
        <td data-title="Risk">Whole-of-Govt. issues not addressed systemically. These include: Freedom Of Information (FOI), Senate List of Archived Files, Privacy, Copyright, and Accessibility requirements</td>
        <td data-title="Description">If these issues are addressed in an ad-hoc fashion it will duplicate a lot of work and raise the risk that one of these governance requirements are not met</td>
        <td data-title="Risk Scope" >Departmental</td>
        <td data-title="Likelihood, Impact" >Medium, High</td>
        <td data-title="Mitigation strategies">Develop web governance policy, standards and guidelines to ensure these issues are met<br>Ensure they are included in the web publishing process</td>
      </tr>
	<tr>
        <td data-title="Risk">Responsive design not delivered</td>
        <td data-title="Description">Without a Responsive Web Design (RWD) approach websites and applications won't work consistently on modern browsers, devices, and cater for varied modes of use (online, offline)</td>
        <td data-title="Risk Scope" >IT</td>
        <td data-title="Likelihood, Impact" >High, High</td>
        <td data-title="Mitigation strategies">Develop and use responsive design guidelines and policy outlining browser and device support<br>Develop standards compliant development approaches<br>Develop browser support policy</td>
      </tr>
    <tr>
        <td data-title="Risk">Digital content cost/value not known/visible</td>
        <td data-title="Description">If content is not assigned a cost and success metric then there is no way to assess its value and make it known to stakeholders</td>
        <td data-title="Risk Scope" >Departmental</td>
        <td data-title="Likelihood, Impact" >High, High</td>
        <td data-title="Mitigation strategies">Audit content, assign a success metric, report on it to relevant stakeholders.<br>Develop a rough cost estimate model, apply to web presence and report to executive</td>
      </tr>
<tbody>
Risk register
Risk Description Risk scope Likelihood, Impact Mitigation strategies
No digital governance at departmental level Without a web council there will be no coordination of activities across web presence, executive value or visibility may be diminished. The department will have an ad hoc web presence with unknown cost/benefit Departmental High, High Establish web council
Develop shared metrics
Collect evidence of success/failure of approaches and use to drive decision making
No strategic plan for digital With no evidence based digital strategy to drive decision making - Politics and assumptions may drive development. Meaning business objectives and user needs may not be met and project scope may not be clear. Departmental High, High Document shared understanding of web presence scope and purpose.
Provides a documentary framework to assist web council
Executive have low understanding of the value and usage of a digital presence Without visibility and value demonstrated to departmental executive. They may not provide sufficient resourcing and/or capitalise on the benefits offered by the department’s web presence Departmental High, High Briefings and information of successes documented on an executive dashboard
Web Council outcomes and testimonials and project case studies to demonstrate cost/benefits

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8. Appendices

Appendix A - Bibliography

Adams, Scott 2013, Goals vs. systems | Scott Adams Blog

Brown, Austin 2013, The Artangel Longplayer Letters: Nassim Taleb writes to Stewart Brand, Blog of the Long Now – This explains how systemic risk is fundamentally different from the classical understanding of risk (classifiable outcomes and probabilities).

Bracken, Mike 2013, Digital transformation in 2013: The strategy is delivery. Again | Government Digital Service [GOV.UK]

Casey, Meghan 2013, It’s not your (insert digital thing), It’s you: when a lack of governance takes it’s toll | Inside the Nerdery [site]

Dey, Alexander 2013, Managing distributed publishing, part 1: The challenges | 4 Syllables

Di Fiore, Alessandro 2013, The art of crafting a 15 word strategy statement | Harvard Business Review

Edelman, David and Banfi, Francesco (2014, The funnel is dead: Long live the consumer decision journey| McKinsey on marketing & sales

Feldman, Susan and Sherman, Chris 2001, [The high cost of not finding information - PDF 371 KB](http://www.ejitime.com/materials/IDC on The High Cost Of Not Finding Information.pdf) | an IDC White Paper

Flagg, Rachel 2013, How to create open, structured content | Digital Gov – The US’ digital government portal

Fong, Dickson 2011, The S.M.A.R.T. User Experience Strategy | Smashing Magazine

Gotomedia | User experience research strategy and design for web and mobile 2013 – used for competitive analysis

Hobbs, David 2014, Website Product Management: Keeping focused during change, Amazon Kindle Edition

Jones, Colleen 2014, Does your content work?: Why evaluate your content and how to start, Amazon Kindle Edition

Kahneman, Daniel 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow, London, UK, Penguin Books

Keith, Jeremy 2011, Content First | Adactio Journal

Koczon, Cameron 2011, Orbital Content | An A List Apart Article - Article on contemporary web environment

Lafley, A. G. (Alan G.) & Martin, Roger L., (author.) 2013, Playing to win : how strategy really works, Boston, Massachusetts Harvard Business Review Press

Liberal Party of Australia 2013, [The Coalition’s plan for the digital economy & e-Government -PDF 1.2 MB](http://lpaweb-static.s3.amazonaws.com/Coalition's Policy for E-Government and the Digital Economy.pdf)

McGovern, Gerry 2013, The need to simplify menus and links | New Thinking blog
McGovern, Gerry 2013, When content audits are not a good idea | New Thinking blog
McGovern, Gerry 2014, Content Paupers | New Thinking blog

McGrane, Karen 2013, Responsive design won’t fix your content problem |An A List Apart Article

Merrill, Margot 2012, The Rise of Content Strategy—Trend #2: More Devices! More!|Hot Studio
Merrill, Margot 2012, The Rise of Content Strategy- Trend #4: Silos still suck | Hot Studio

Messner, Katie 2013, Creating cross-channel experiences | Usability.gov

O’Rourke, Annie, 2011, Government communications: online but out of touch |The Drum, ABC

OPC IT Website design and development 2013 – used for competitive analysis

Polaine, Andrew & Løvlie, Lavrans, (author.) & Reason, Ben (author.) 2013, Service design : from insight to implementation, Brooklyn, New York Rosenfeld Media

PwC’s Stamford Interactive services – User experience experts – used for competitive analysis prior to merger with PwC. So content has changed

Rosenfeld, Louis 2012, Stop redesigning and start tuning your site instead | Smashing Magazine

Rumelt, Richard P 2013, Good strategy bad strategy : the difference and why it matters, London Profile Books Ltd

Stamford Interactive 2014, Why implementing machinery of government changes is like eating an elephant. - Note: after merging with PwC this article is no longer available

Stoll, Christophe 2011, Multiscreen patterns: patterns to help understand and define strategies for the multiscreen world | Precious strategic design & visual language

Swan, Henny 2014, The story behind the BBC mobile accessibility guidelines | Iheni Blog

Taleb, Nassim 2014, Antifragile : Things that gain from disorder, Random house, New York – Some great ideas on risk assessment and the importance of understanding convexity bias and Jensen’s inequality.

Turnbull, Giles 2014, Striking a balance between security and usability | Government Digital Service [GOV UK]

Usability.gov Staff writer 2013, With measurable usability goals – we all score | Usability.gov

Welchman, Lisa 2010, The Digital Deca: 10 management truths for the web age [PDF], WelchmanPierpoint - No longer available, instead see this excellent work instead Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design, 2015

Welchman, Lisa 2011, Establishing a web council, WelchmanPierpoint - No longer available, instead see this excellent work instead Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design, 2015

Wroblewski, Luke et. al. 2013, Future Friendly – This is a group of web developers outlining issues and approaches to modern web development

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Appendix B – Research Notes

Front end website architecture explained

This table illustrates where different organisational teams focus. Three types of code are predominantly used to deliver the user experience to a user in their web browser (or other user agent). These are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Example of front end web responsibilities in a Govt. Dept.
Area Area(s) responsible
Text and image (content) Semantic (information structure exposed in HTML) Look and feel (CSS) responsive, accessible, consistent, navigable, searchable Interactive front end/client side (JavaScript) Gathering Requirements logging jobs, minor changes to pages New sites, redesigns, migrations Server hosting, security, patching, database backup
Line areas, digital team digital team digital team digital team, IT digital team digital team IT
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Engaging stakeholders

"A concrete way to look at getting the bones right is to consider common reported problems like: an inflexible site, a difficult publishing process, and not being able to make routine changes quickly. The problem is often caused by short term thinking about long term issues. For instance, the publishing process may include many complexities early in the implementation since it is easier to appease special interests rather than have tough conversations about focus early. Or so much time may be spent on unimportant one-offs that the implementation team does not have time to streamline really important day-to-day activities for your organization."

"The standard for requirements seems to be that they are 'gathered', but engaging with stakeholders on an ongoing basis yields better (and often unexpected) results."

Source: Website Product Management: Keeping focused during change, Hobbs (2014)

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How you could measure success/demonstrate value

  • Identify goal, service, and dimension
  • Consider the following: Efficiency, comprehension, engagement
  • Use a mix of behavioural data points: time on page, page visits, task success rate, time to complete tasks)
  • With perception data points (satisfaction, content answers questions, feel quick etc.)

Source: Does your content work?: Why evaluate your content and how to start, Jones (2014)

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Commodification of IT

Designing a website is not a commodity or standard process, unless you merely want things published.

"[In IT] you need to be distinctive to avoid commoditisation... whatever is distinctive and unique, we focus on; whatever is a commodity, because there is no competitive advantage to doing inside, we outsource"

Playing to win : how strategy really works, Lafley and Martin (2013, p. 43)

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Customer focus

"72% of companies believe their budget for customer insights is too low, according to a recent survey of almost 700 senior executives we completed. Even more disturbing, only 6% of companies surveyed understand customer needs extremely well while 45% of companies admit they have limited to no understanding on how their customers interact with them digitally."

Source: The funnel is dead: Long live the consumer decision journey Edelman and Banfi (2014)

What processes are in place to understand our internal and external customers?
How well placed are we to react to their current and future demands?

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Environmental scan

A summary of issues for web/digital service providers from Stamford Interactive. These issues apply to Govt. and larger organisations too:

  • Revision and development of channel strategies
  • Evaluation and redesign of service models
  • Assessment of current online service state, definition of future state
  • Scoping studies to understand the reach, depth and scope of change (and the articulation of activities to then execute the change)
  • Channel governance and content frameworks
  • Qualitative and quantitative research
  • Digital maturity assessment
  • Client and stakeholder engagement
  • Scoping studies and roadmaps for implementation
  • Capability assessment and training
  • Ministerial and executive briefing
    …and there are the mechanics of online service delivery to think about too:
  • Conceptual design, wireframing and development of interactive prototypes
  • Information architecture design
  • Accessibility compliance testing, evaluation and solution design
  • User-centred design and usability testing
  • User experience evaluation and co-design
  • Creative services and branding
  • Intelligence and analytics.”

Source: Why implementing machinery of government changes is like eating an elephant Stamford Interactive (2014)

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Responsive design won’t solve our content problems

"We need to fix our review and approval processes, our content management system, our asset management system, our design standards and governance. We need to clean up our outdated, useless content. But it’s hard to get people to step up to solve these bigger problems, because they don’t think they’re part of 'responsive design.' "

Source: Responsive design won’t fix your content problem McGrane (2013)

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Create designs from content, not device

"It's my belief that in order to embrace designing native layouts for the web – whatever the device – we need to shed the notion that we create layouts from a canvas in. We need to flip it on its head, and create layouts from the content out."

Source: Content First Keith (2011)

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Content Strategy

  • Adopt a content first approach to development
  • Use structured content types and metadata where possible
  • These will allow you to work towards a content once publish every (COPE) strategy

As suggested on these sites:

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Content value is derived from understanding what users want to do

"On the Web you don’t start with the content. You don't write it and hope they will come. Rather, you figure out where customers are going and what they want to do when they get there. Then you write for the search and the task that drives that search. The Web is a giant ecosystem and laboratory of human behavior. You are much more likely to succeed if you understand and adapt to customer behavior than if you try to change that behavior.

If content creators do not link themselves to the value further up the chain then they become valueless. Call it ironical that in a world that runs on content those who create it are not valued. Call it unfair, call it what you want. It's reality. Deal with it. But if you create quality content, don't get depressed. The potential value you create is huge. You just haven't proven it to those who hold the purse strings. You haven't made the vital link, you haven’t connected the dots."

Source: Content Paupers McGovern (2013)

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Executive visibility and web council

"Often, Web folks tell me that their senior executives don't understand the Web. So, I suit up and go talk to these executives. To be honest, I haven't found one executive that didn't have a mature sense of the possibilities of the Web. So, what's the deal here?

The disconnect between organizational leadership and those responsible for Web execution is usually in the vicinity of one of two concerns. The first is that senior Web folks have not teed up a business case that resonates at the executive level. They might be running around shouting hyperbolic language about how important Web, mobile and social are but they haven’t actually taken the time to express their position with a cogent business case.

The other thing we see is an assumption by executives that the Web folks are doing the best that they can—they are assuming they are already enabled to do their job to the best of their ability. They don’t have time to deal with the tactics of a content strategy or technology integration-- just as they don't deal with the tactics of many other things related to the day-to-day management of the business.

So, both sides of the fence are waiting for the other side to lead. It’s frustrating to view this sort of standoff. Often, a well-seated Web Council can help address this disconnect and help bring to the surface the leadership deficits so that they can be addressed. Sometimes this is the council's most import function."

Source: Establishing a web council Welchman (2011)

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Appendix D - Competitive analysis

I looked at three contemporary web shops to see what services they provided, how they described them, etc. Two are local providers and one is a category leader from overseas.

Stamford Interactive

Note at the time of research it was it's own agency it has sinced merged with PwC.

  • art of design paired with the power of research
  • insight driven design
  • positively impact your brand, products and services
  • Let us help you create better customer experiences
    Services
  • Strategy
  • User research – what your customers really need
  • UX design – design best practice, catering for human behaviour, research on actual users
  • Creative services – visual design
  • Accessibility
  • Web analytics – using stats to improve performance

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OPC

Services

  • Website design and development
  • Accessibility
  • Building and configuring your site
  • Including email and web hosting, patching updating, security
  • Assistance with domain purchase and set up
  • SSL certificate purchase and configuration
    Web applications development
  • Applications – designed in a variety of code languages that work in all modern web browsers.
  • Apps are robust, secure, and modular

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Gotomedia

User experience design for web and mobile applications

"We're passionate about products & people – using research to understand real lives and needs"

"We envision through contextual research: conceptualize and learn through iterative prototyping and testing. We design responsive, multi-device experiences that work. Simply and beautifully"

Services

  • Strategy
  • Research
  • Usability testing
  • Interaction design – IA, Visual design, Application UI

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Bruce Klopsteins

UX maven, content strategist, communicator, information obssessive, exploratory completionist, and fan of witty banter. When not quoting other people's brilliance, thoughts are my own.