Siim Sikkut - Digital Government Excellence

13 CHAPTER 5: Bolor-Erdene Battsengel What Was Your Journey to the Government in Mongolia and to Digital Government Leadership Like? Where Does Your Motivation for Improving the Government Come From? As the Prime Minister Asked You to Join, Did He or Anyone Lay Out a Concrete Expectation for You in Terms of What to Deliver? What Was the Digital Government Scene and Situation in Mongolia before That? What Have Been the Levers and Mandate of CITA to Bring Change to the Scene? If e-Mongolia Was the Deliverable, What Is Your Wider Mission? What Is the Objective You Have Set for Yourself and the Country in Digital Government? With All the Government Services to Digitalize, How Do You Prioritize and Sequence Them? What Are the Criteria for Selection? Given the Tough Context You Started From, How Did You Start in the Role and Gear CITA to Start Delivering from Your First Hundred Days? Still, How Did You Start Working with the CITA Team and Perhaps Changing Things There to Get the Speedy Delivery and New Approach from Them? Once you got e-Mongolia Up and Running, What Have Been Your Key Initiatives and Milestones since Then? How Have You Been Building the Team? How Do You Find People and Whom Do You Look For? How Do You Work with Your Team? What Are Your Methods and Style? What Type of Culture Have You Tried to Build into CITA? Where Does This Sort of Bravery Come From? What Have Been the Mantras You Have Kept Repeating to the Team? What Do You Think Have Been Your Biggest Achievements in the Role So Far? What Do You Think You Could Have Done Better? What Have You Learned the Most? What Are the Next Challenges Ahead for You, for CITA, for e-Mongolia? How Have You Managed to Make Sure That on Your Departure the Work Would Last—You Mentioned Standards, for Example? What Is Your Advice to Young Students on What Skills to Develop to Do This Kind of Job Well? What Are Your Key Recommendations on How to Reach Digital Government Progress? Note

14 CHAPTER 6: Cheow Hoe Chan You Have a Double Position: Government CDTO and the Deputy Chief Executive for GovTech Agency. What Is at the Core of What You Do? How Did You End Up in This Role—and in Government? If the Conversation Lasted Many Months, You Were Then Hesitating Quite a Bit at First? What Was the State of Digital Government in Singapore at the Time—Why Were the Leaders Seeking a Different Approach and Someone New? If This Was the Background, Were You Given Any Concrete Mission to Fulfill or a Deliverable to Reach? How Did You Then Carve Out a Plan or a Road to Follow? Were These Directions Easy to Start With? What Could Be an Example of an Early Small Project with Great Outcomes Like That, and How It Was Different? If Starting the Journey with Small Steps Was the Strategy, Did You Ever Set Yourself Any Time Frame for Longer Term? What Has Been Effective to Manage for or through These Inflection Points? Once You Had Started on Your Journey of Small but Impactful Projects, What Became the Core of Your Journey Thereafter? Besides Strongly Moving to Cloud, What Other Parts of Infrastructure Stack Did You Choose to Focus on and Why? What Have Been Your Priorities in This Sense? What Have Been Your Effective Routines or Methods to Evolve and Deliver Such a Strategy? How Much Has Your Strategy and Focus Pivoted or Changed through Your Term? How Have You Been Building Your Team Out? What Has Proven to Be Effective in This Area? You Said Yourself That Culture Determines the Delivery as Much as Talent, and You Have Wanted to Build a “Build Culture” in GovTech. How Have You Gone about It? You Were Afraid of Bureaucracy Yourself at First. How Have You Managed to Avoid Culture Getting Caught in It? What Have Been Your Mantras to Instill a Culture You Have Wanted to See in GovTech? What Have You Kept Saying to Your Team Over and Over? What Have Been Your Biggest Achievements in the Role? What Are You Most Happy With? What Are the Things You Think You Could Have Done Better or Differently? What Have You Learned the Most in This Job? What Are the Next Challenges or Milestones on the Horizon for You and Your Team? What Might Make You Move from Your Role One Day? What Steps Have You Taken to Make What You Have Started Last? What Are the Core Skills for Doing This Sort of Job Well, in Your View? What Would Be Your Three Core Recommendations to a Peer on How to Build an Excellent Digital Government as Its Leader? Notes

15 CHAPTER 7: Daniel Abadie How Did You Rise to the Role of a Digital Government Leader in Argentina? What Was Your Motivation to Take the National Job? Did You Hesitate to Take the Role? What Was the Expectation for You? Were You Given Any Concrete Task or Objective? What Was the Institutional and Governance Setting Like for Public Sector Digitization in Argentina When You Started? How Did the Transition from City to National Level Then Work Out Still, Was It Similar after All as You Had Thought? What Were the Things You Could Not Say No To? What Was the State of Digital Government in Argentina When You Started as Undersecretary? How Did You Start Changing That Picture? What Were the First Steps? The Mandate Essentially Featured Your Strategy for the Next Years Then. What Were the Key Stages or Milestones for Delivering It? What Were Your Key Steps for the Quick Delivery of Single-Domain Efforts? How Did You Regain the Strategic Focus after the First Year? Did the Resourcing or Financial Situation Ever Get Better? How Did You Break That Cycle? It Seems That through All of This You Had to Work with Your Team and People Management a Lot Hands-On. How Did You Build and Empower Your Team? What Was Your Selling Argument to Get Someone to Join the Team? Who Was Your Most Valuable Hire? How Did You Motivate the Team to Keep Going, Even If There Were Never Enough Resources? What Sort of Culture Were You Trying to Build within the Team and How? What Were Some of the Things You Always Told Your Team, Your Mottos? What Was a Common Day Like on the Job? How Did You Ensure the Support of the President during Your Term? How Did You Build Relations with the Other Agencies? What Were Your Biggest Failures and What Did You Learn from Them? What Were Your Biggest Achievements during Your Term? What Made You Move on from the Role? How Did You Ensure That What You Started Would Last? What Would Have You Done in the Next Four Years, If You Had a Chance? What Were the Outlying Challenges? Is There Anything You Wish You Had Known When You Started the Job? If Someone Were to Offer, Would You Take the Job Again? What Do You Think Are the Necessary Skills to Do This Kind of Job Well? What Are Your Three Main Recommendations to Someone Starting on a Similar Job? What Are Your Key Bottom-Line Takeaways on How to Be Effective in This Role? Note

16 CHAPTER 8: Diego Piacentini How Did You Enter the Digital Government Role—and the Italian Government Overall? What Was the Prime Minister's Motivation behind Wanting This Sort of Change? What Task Did He Give You Concretely? Did You Still Hesitate at All about the Role While Deciding? What Was the Role You Created? What Was the Institutional Setup Before or Who Had the Responsibility for Digital Government? What Were Your Levers or Tools in the Commissioner Role to Push for Change? Where Did You Devote Your Time and Focus on at the Start? You Said at the Beginning of Our Chat That You Set Out to Build a Continuous Set of Processes—How Did You Do It? You Emphasized That Your Main Work Was to Build Out a Different Team—How Did You Go about Doing It? As You Were Bringing These People Together, How Did You Mold Them into a Team? What Were the Things You Always Used to Say to the Team, Your Mottos, or the Values You Wanted Them to Follow? What Routines Worked to Keep People Delivering? How Much of Your Work and Team Practices Came from Amazon Experience? What New Things Did You Learn on the Job? How Did You Build and Develop Relationships with Stakeholders While in Office? How Much Did the Relationship with Prime Ministers Work Out? What Was the Hardest Part of Your Job? What Made You Move on after the Two Years? How Did You Make Sure What You Had Started Would Last? What Do You Think You Managed to Achieve and What Are You Most Proud Of, Looking Back? Is There Anything You Regret Not Doing or Wish You Had Done Differently? Would You Ever Consider Doing Such a Job Again? What Are Your Three Bottom-Line Recommendations to a Colleague on What Does It Take to Do This Sort of Job Well? Notes