Siim Sikkut - Digital Government Excellence

1 COVER

2 TITLE PAGE

3 COPYRIGHT

4 DEDICATION

5 PREFACE

6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

8 INTRODUCTION Choice of Twenty Remarkable Leaders Who Can Benefit from This Book? Structure of the Chapters

9 CHAPTER 1: Aisha Bin Bishr How Did You Rise to the Digital Government Leadership Role in Dubai? What Was the Concrete Expectation Laid Out for You? How Did You Go about Devising the Strategy and the Metrics Then? You Already Hinted a Bit about It, but Did You Hesitate at All When Taking the Job of Leading the SDO? Given These Challenges, Did You Have Any Requests Going In? What Was Your Own Motivation in Taking Up the Call by His Highness? What Was the State of Digital Development in Dubai at the Time, and What Led You to Suggest Creating the SDO? What Was the Mandate for SDO and the Tools at Your Disposal to Make Change Happen? What Were the Very First Steps You Took When You Started Leading the SDO? What Was the Focus or Core of the Strategy You Had Laid Out and Started Delivering—What Were the Steps for Building Up a Smart City for Happiness? How Did You Embrace New Things That Must Have Emerged along the Way? Did You Ever Adjust the Strategy? You Spent the First Months on Daily Tour to Build Relationship with Other Agencies. How Did You Sustain These Relationships Later? How Did You Attract Talent to Join You in SDO? What Qualities Were You Looking for in Your Hiring? Who Was Your Most Valuable Hire? Can You Tell Some More on What Was the Culture You Were Trying to Create in SDO? What Were Your Mantras That You Kept Repeating to Your Team? What Were Your Regular Practices or Routines to Act on These Values or Make Delivery Happen? What Were Your Biggest Achievements as the Director General, in Your Own View? What Prompted You to Move Ahead from Smart Dubai after Five Years in 2021? How Did You Prepare for the Handover and Making Sure Your Initiatives Would Live On? What Were—or Are—Going to Be Next Challenges for the Team and Smart Dubai? What Do You Wish You Had Known When You Started the Job? What Do You Think You Learned the Most? What Do You Think Are the Key Skills One Needs to Do Your Kind of Role Well? What Are Your Three Recommendations from Your Experience—What Does It Take to Do a Digital Government Leader's Job Well? Notes

10 CHAPTER 2: Alex Benay How Did You End Up in a Digital Government Leader Role for the Government of Canada (GC)? Why Did You Say “No” at First? Given This Context, Did You Have Conditions or Requests to Take the Role? What Was Your Own Motivation for the Role? What Was the Concrete Mission Set to You through These Conversations by Your Bosses? Besides Phoenix and Outdated Policies, What Was the State of Digital Government and Strategy in GC? What Were Your Levers besides the Legislative Powers You Asked For? Given Your Overall Mission, Did You Set Yourself Any Concrete Goals or Deliverables to Reach? With All This Load Ahead of You, What Did You Start With? What Was the Focus for Your First Months? How Hard or Easy Was It to Maintain Your Focus on the Skunkworks as Time Went On? You Spoke about the Need to Work Very Openly and Transparently—How Did You Do That Really? You Did End Up Taking the Work of Saving Phoenix into Your Own Portfolio. How Did You Go about Fixing It? How Did You Build or Rebuild the GCIO Setup to Achieve the Changes? I Know That You Also Made a Big Push for the Team to Work in the Open. How Did That Work? Tell a Bit More on the Skunkworks Approach—How Did That Working Method Really Work? What Sort of Competence Did You Seek to Add to the Team? Who Was Your Most Valuable Addition to the Team? What Do You Consider as Your Biggest Achievements in the GCIO Role? What Was Surprising for You in the Job, Looking Back Now? Is There Anything Else You Wish You Had Known When You Started? What Do You Think Were Your Biggest Failures in the Job? Was This the Reason You Moved On or What Was behind Your Decision to Leave Office? What Are the Remaining Challenges on the Table for GC and Your Former Team? How Did You Ensure Your Initiatives and Changes Would Be Sustained? Would You Do the Same Job Ever Again, Being Wiser Now, Too? What Are the Core Necessary Skills to Do This Kind of Job Well? What Are Your Bottom-Line Takeaways or Recommendations on How to Do the GCIO Type of Job Well?

11 CHAPTER 3: Anna-Maija Karjalainen How Did You Become a Digital Government Leader in Finland? What Was Your Motivation in Taking Up the Offer, Especially Given the Short Time? Did You Have Any Hesitations at All? What Was the Expectation Laid Out to You or What Were You Called In to Do? If You Only Had Ten Minutes to Think, What Gave You the Confidence That You Were the Woman for the Job? What Is the Institutional Background of the Digital Government Setup in Finland? Why Is the Ministry of Finance in Charge of the Area? What Was Going on in the Area of Digital Government in Finland at the Time You Joined? Tell a Bit More—What Are the Suomi.Fi Services? What Was Your Own Strategy: What Did You Set Yourself as Concrete Objectives to Achieve? How Did the Strategy or Your Proposals Emerge? What Mechanisms Did You Have for Coordination and Leading across the Public Sector? Doing Workshops Is a Fine Idea, but It Does Not Have to Lead to Buy-In—How Did You Achieve That? How Did You Choose Your Priority or Where to Focus? Besides Trying to Figure Out the Strategy, What Other Steps Did You Start With in Your First Hundred Days? How Did You See That Change Through Then with Your Team? Were the Meetings Popular and Did You Keep Them as a Routine? What Were the Other Ways You Kept the Team Onboard? How Did You Keep Things in Focus for Delivery? What Were the Principles or Values You Tried to Push Forward to the Team? How Did You Rebuild Your Team? What Were the Competences You Were Looking For? How Did You Find People for the Team? Who Was Your Most Impactful Hire? What Do You Consider Your Biggest Achievement in the GCIO Role? Are There Things You Would Have Done Differently or Things You Even Failed At? What Made You Leave Office in 2021? How Did You Work to Make Your Changes Last or Stick? What Is the State of Finnish Digital Government Today? What Are the Remaining Challenges? What Do You Wish You Had Known When You Started in the Job, If You Look Back Now? What Are the Key Skills Necessary to Do the Government CIO Job Well? Would You Actually Recommend This Job to Anyone? What Makes It Special? What Are the Key Recommendations You Would Have for a Peer on How to Do the GCIO Work the Most Effectively? Notes

12 CHAPTER 4: Barry Lowry How Did You Become Involved in the Digital Government Work? What Was Your Road Then to the GCIO Role in Ireland? Do You Still Miss a Chance to Get Your Hands into Code? How Is the Digital Government Work Led in Ireland and What Was Your Motivation to Join That Effort? What Did the Bosses Expect You to Deliver; What Was the Goal They Gave You? What Was the State of Digital Government When You Came into the Job? Where Did You Start with It? What Was Your Focus in the First Hundred Days? What Was Your Time Horizon with the Plan? What Were Your Levers to Make It All Happen? Besides Setting up the New Governance Model, What Were Your Major Priorities in the 18-Step Plan? How Has COVID-19 Changed the Way You Operate and What You Are Working On? How Have You Managed to Keep the Political Backing Necessary for Delivery and for Keeping a Focus? What Was the Team Like When You Joined and How Did You Build It Further? What Has Been Your Trick to Attracting Them to Come and Work for You? What Have Been Your Values or Mottos to Steer the Team With? What Culture Did You Want in the Team? What Have You Used to Sustain the Relationships with Other Departments and Stakeholders? Besides the Routines with External Stakeholders, What Routines or Style Have Been Effective with Your Own Team? Given All You Have Achieved, What Has Been the Hardest Part in Your Job and What Have You Also Perhaps Failed With? What Do You Consider Your Biggest Achievement in the Office? How Long Do You Think You Will Still Be in Office and What Might Be Next for You? What Will Irish Digital Government Look Like in Five Years Once You Hand Over? What Are the Next Things or Even the Next Strategy in the Works? How Are You Building Things to Last so That the Journey You Started Will Continue? What Are Your Nuggets of Advice for Any Peer about How to Do the National CIO or Similar Role Most Effectively? Note