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?
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