FST Government Queensland Reflections: Digital Transformation & its challenges to government

The FST Government Queensland was another successful FST Media hosted event.
Procensol’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Mervin Chiang, was extremely pleased to be joined by Anne Lenz, Executive Director, Energy Resources and Enforcement Services, from the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, to host and facilitate roundtable discussions about Digital Transformation and its challenges to government agencies. Ann and Mervin shared experiences from their recent award-winning ‘Connect’ System Project with delegates and outlined how Procensol’s MBT framework used throughout the project addresses the challenges currently faced by government.

The feedback received over the duration of the event echoed the recent Victorian FST hosted event. Queensland government agencies strongly desire to engage in innovation and digital transformation initiatives although they find it extremely challenging to make this happen.

Guest Speaker, Queensland Government CIO, Andrew Mills summarised the issue, “transformation is here. We’ve got no choice but to transform. The world is moving at a pace that government needs to follow”.

Former Queensland Government CIO, Glen Archer argued that there are signs illustrating we’re not there yet with high amounts of IT project failures and with a bureaucratic process and a current all-time low satisfaction rating for ICT projects.

Mills described the Queensland Government’s focus for this year as more promising, with better support for digital disruption, agile cultures and a move towards co-design thinking and a move away from ERP-thinking to a modular-incremental approach.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Deputy Commissioner Capability and Performance Division and Chief Strategy Officer, Doug Smith reiterated Mills’ views and added that an emphasis needs to be put on moving away from short shelf life apps and moved towards a more platform based approach that can withstand change.

Both panel and roundtable discussions identified procurement policies as inhibitors of change and innovation. Another constraint of government is the fear to fail, which encourages an averse attitude towards risk with little appetite for experimentation. Based on this ‘fear’, current government agencies would prefer to fail small and fast versus failing big and hard.

The final takeaway from the executive discussions, is a growing sense that innovation hubs are great initiatives however, there is concern around inability to commercialise ideas or incorporate them back to business as usual.

Procensol was pleased to facilitate the event’s most requested topic area and highlight some of the interesting and progressive approaches it has taken to address government’s challenges, including the the MBT Framework. The MBT Framework approach addresses aspects of the Digital Transformation and Innovation journey (find out more about the MBT Framework).

Procensol is excited to work with government to resolve challenges around Digital Transformation and looks forward to the next round of FST Government to see how the industry has evolved to address the current disruption.