At the end of last year, we conducted two more workshops in the Community Solutions Network community of practice program, one on Stakeholder Mapping and another on the Civic Values of a project. In addition to the fascinating content of the conversations, these workshops also revealed more about what it takes to really learn from each other. After all, for a community of practice on digital transformation, how we learn is just as important as what we learn.
In the case of the stakeholder mapping workshop, we experimented with a different approach to the workshop. Prior to it, we invited one of the participants to engage with us one-on-one session for a deep dive session into mapping the stakeholders of their project. This enabled us to develop an in-depth analysis in collaboration with the participant and create an exemplary template for the subsequent workshop discussion.
During the one-on-one session, we were able to build upon the initial work done by the participant to identify the problem at hand and some of the internal stakeholders. Next, we built out the spider web of stakeholders to include external categories (other government bodies, private sector actors, public sector, etc.) while working through their relationship to the project and identifying strategies for engagement. The subsequent workshop enabled all participants to engage with this process, share their own experiences, and begin coalescing ideas around best practices for stakeholder mapping and engagement — exactly what a community of practice is for!
In the Civic Value workshop, we attempted something ambitious: to get participants to not just talk about their experiences but to reflect on their underlying principles and their desired impacts. In our paper on Civic Value we differentiate these as the guiding values of a project (transparency, equity, accessibility, etc) and the desired value(s) it produces (social cohesion, health and wellbeing, civic engagement, financial, etc.). We discovered that participants were very keen to think through these more abstract ideas, provided the workshop is sufficiently small and structured to enable real back and forth amongst them.
We were able to tease out how different guiding principles and desired impacts led to different project approaches. By clearly thinking through this connection, we developed a better understanding of whether a project was achieving its goals and what could be improved. Without a systematic analysis of principles and impacts, a project’s KPIs, for example, can be misdesigned and fail to track actual progress, or the public can fail to grasp the importance of a project.
We discussed, for example, how digital transformation projects frequently involve iterative experimentation and prototyping, but this kind of process doesn’t fit comfortably with traditional linear, pre-set ideas of reporting. Innovation in technology requires innovation in discussing the underlying principles and impacts, as well as a more holistic approach to describing the different impacts a project can have, from traditional ideas of efficiency to more complex notions of responding pre-emptively to potentially disruptive technologies. As with the stakeholder mapping workshop, this kind of more in-depth, interactive, and collaborative discussion is precisely what communities of practice are for!
Out of these workshops, we are now launching two more that put these learnings into practice. The next phase of our Community Solutions Network – Communities of Practice program will include two new streams of collaboration and learning: digital capacity and data governance. These two streams build on the previous workshops’ learnings on stakeholder engagement, value creation, solution discovery, and problem identification – but members can still benefit from the upcoming sessions without participating in previous programming.
These two streams will offer deep-dive 1:1 sessions prior to the main workshop for anyone who wishes to engage on the topic in greater depth and benefit from a tailored, focused assessment of their status on that issue. These 1:1 sessions will take place throughout January and February.
If you are interested in participating, please don’t hesitate to contact us at csn@opennorth.ca!
Digital Capacities for Responsible Procurement
For many municipalities, digital transformation involves identifying an unmet need and looking outside the organization to bring in new technologies and processes through procurement. Determining the best solution for your organization’s needs (and making a strong business case to decision-makers) requires a clear-eyed assessment of digital capacities. This includes resources (human, technical, financial) that can be leveraged, the ability to assess and manage risk, and the presence of organizational structures, policies and practices needed to implement and sustain the solution.
1:1 Sessions:
Prior to the group workshop, we will conduct a 90-minute deep-dive 1:1 session to take a closer look at your organization’s digital capacity and begin to identify recommendations and next steps. The purpose is to help identify constraints and opportunities within the organization to better inform decision-making going forward.
Workshop:
The workshop will provide an introduction to our approach to measuring digital capacity, an anonymized summary of our findings from our digital capacity work, and will involve a group discussion of experiences, best practices, and next steps.
Data Governance Stream
For Open North, data governance lies at the heart of good digital transformation. Without appropriate data governance all digital transformation projects are in danger of misusing data and putting their stakeholders – and their stakeholders’ trust – at risk.
Similar to the Digital Capacity stream, the Data Governance stream will consist of a series of preceding 1:1s followed by a workshop. The goal of this workshop is to offer participants an opportunity to benefit from OpenNorth’s data governance development tool and so think through how a systematic data governance framework is essential to their digital transformation process.
1:1 Sessions:
You can sign up for a 90-minute deep dive into your digital transformation project, and the data governance requirements that ensure the project is transparent, accountable, and responsible in its use of data. Using our data governance evaluation tool, we will identify areas for improvement and develop a set of next steps to put the project on the path to stronger data governance.
Workshop:
The workshop will provide an overview of our approach to data governance, and then facilitate a conversation about experiences and best practices, drawing on insights we have gathered from the 1:1s and from other data governance projects.
If you are interested in participating, please don’t hesitate to contact us at csn@opennorth.ca!