Chris Atherton – the most important things i've learned 1.5 (1)

The most important things I’ve learned

Dr Chris Atherton @finiteattention

risk

1. Avoiding ‘risk’ is even riskier

2. Gathering and using data reduces risk

3. Making information flow faster reduces risk

by ‘risk’ I mean …

financial

but I also mean …

reputational

2012

– No one ever got fired for buying IBM Businesses everywhere, mid- to late-20th Century

digital government ca. 2012

— 5- to 10-year contracts — lots of documentation — very little innovation — slow, expensive delivery

choosing the ‘safe’ option

is a risk

start end

time

the cone of uncertainty

start end

time

new information

start end

time

new informationdecisions

start end

time

start end

time

being absolutely certain

is a risk

start end

time

start end

time

avoiding the biggest challenges

is a risk

start end

time

not defining

what ‘finished’ looks like

is a risk

start end

time

practical end

not stopping early enough

is a risk

1. Avoiding ‘risk’ is even riskier

2012

– [GOV.UK] should be the citizens’ champion with sharp teeth Martha Lane Fox, former UK Digital Inclusion Champion to the UK Government

2013

2017

– Can we connect the visa service to a live source of this data? Me, one dark day in 2014

Data on a CD meant …

— asking more questions — more confused people — more phone support needed — higher call centre costs

now imagine this conversation happening in every project

across 25 government departments

– We had 693 million calls through our contact centers, from a population of 70 million. About 150 million calls were avoidable.

Mike Bracken, former head of Government Digital Services

without evidence of what is happening

you cannot react fast to real change

2. Gathering and using data reduces risk

by ‘data’ I mean …

information

– Information is surprise James Gleick, author of The Information

– Telling someone your opinion is like telling them about your dreams James Bridle, happenstanceproject.com/blog

not getting feedback

is a risk

not sharing information

is a risk

long, slow feedback loops

are a risk

3. Making information flow faster reduces risk

what data/evidence

do you have now?

are you using the data?

fully?

could you get that data sooner?

do you have someone who can

ask the right questions

and understand the answers?

unstructured data

is a risk

what data don’t you have

that would be really useful?

what is it costing your organisation

not to have that data?

1. Avoiding ‘risk’ is even riskier

2. Gathering and using data reduces risk

3. Faster information flow reduces risk

starting tomorrow,

what will you do differently

about collecting and using

structured data?

Takk!

chris@netliferesearch.com

@finiteattention