This book has tried to explain that making large legacy organisations fit for the digital age is not complicated. Do not forget, however, that it is hard.
The biggest responsibility for any team trying to drive digital change is to keep learning. Iterate what you do, and how you do it. Recognise and correct your missteps, all the while focusing relentlessly on what your users need.
The GDS became an exemplar for governments and others trying to transform their analogue organisation into a digital one. That does not mean it was perfect. As an institution, the GDS itself can be described as a beta: a working prototype for how to transform a huge organisation, learning and improving as it went. It didn’t get everything right the first time. What the UK team demonstrated should stop other governments and large organisations from making the same mistakes, but it may not.
Digital reformers will find their path inevitably brings them into conflict with other parts of the organisation. One person in the right place can do a great deal to unpick the hard work of hundreds. The differences come down to a very simple question. Are we going to organise ourselves around what our citizens, customers and users need? Or are we going to keep to the structures the organisation thinks it needs, based on fear, etiquette and inertia?
For as long as an organisation chooses to follow the latter path, it places a bet. An organisation serving its own needs is gambling that users will continue to accept what they are given, that they will acquiesce to a certain level of service, that people will continue to vote for the status quo – with their wallets or at the ballot box. It comes down to believing that while the internet may have changed the world, it needn’t change their world.
Government bureaucracies and large organisations employ people who believe that they know better than the people they serve. Sometimes they do; that is why we put trust in institutions. When they don’t know know better than the people they serve, and do not want to face the evidence that would force them to admit that, we all have a problem. Tackling over-confidence and denial is part of the job digital teams have to take on.
Becoming a digital organisation is a bet too. It is not free. It requires a significant investment of time, energy and people. It means diverting resources and downgrading other priorities. Often it means saying no. The difference for governments and organisations that invest in actively responding to an uncertain future is that the worst outcome is that they learn something. For those who stick incuriously to what they know, the worst outcome is they aren’t needed anymore.
For companies, the rewards for being bold, curious and open to what comes next include survival, a competitive edge and access to the pick of the digital age’s most precious commodity – talented, empathetic people.
For governments, the first nations to embrace the idea of a state organised on digital principles are likely to win the same profound rewards as those who had the foresight to reframe their institutions around the technological revolutions of the past. The rest of the world will then have to catch up.