Knowledge Enhanced Government - online communities trailblazer from a decade ago
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10 years ago, I was the UK Government's Director of Knowledge Enhanced Government. We successfully introduced the most advanced government knowledge management system and programme to date, but the real promise came from our emerging programme "Enabling Communities" - looking back a decade later, it's clear our thinking was prescient, but we were hidebound by the lack of adequate social media tools and broadband infrastructure. Social Media practitioners looking to develop communities today might find this early example of promoting online communities of some interest or a salutory leasson! If you're interested in finding out more, tweet me at joemccrea1966
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Knowledge Enhanced Government - online communities trailblazer from a decade ago
- 1. www.e-envoy.gov.uk Knowledge Enhanced Government Joe McCrea Office of the e-Envoy
- 2. In the beginning... Why can’t we talk to each other?
- 3. Technological challenge No secure Secure Agreed No agreed platform platform standards standards No IT Central IT strategy No No internal Internal Connection connection e-mail e-mail
- 4. The technical solution e-GMF e-mail GSI option e-GIF
- 5. Nirvana?... Why aren’t we talkingto Now we can we talk to each other!
- 6. Meanwhile somewhere else... Why can’t we talk to each other?
- 7. What’s going on? • The technology is crucial... • The standards are crucial… • Inter-operability is crucial… • But they are only means to an end - not the end in itself…. • We need to turn technical potential into real living change
- 8. Rapid communication A one-stop shop that staff with all Ministers really want to use Concentrate on outcomes… A system for delivery Information at a strategic level monitoring AND AND relevant for local people communications tools
- 9. Before the Knowledge Network Little knowledge potential No unified Isolated knowledge departments network
- 10. Within 23 months… Emerging inter- Growing departmental knowledge communities potential Unified Solutions knowledge delivered for network every department
- 11. What are the drivers? • The IT is secondary to getting the business and human process right • Getting the right information and knowledge to the right people at their convenience is the key… • Different audiences, different needs - but largely the same information… • Each audience and each delivery reinforces the overall project...
- 30. ‘Enabling communities’ “There is a growing recognition that knowledge coheres in networks and communities. Therefore a common knowledge-based project is finding these groups and letting others know of their existence. " Prusak 2000
- 31. ‘Enabling communities in government’ • CONNECT – the e-communicators’ community • OGC real-time project monitoring • RIU – regulatory impact analysis • ‘Knowledge pools’ with CMPS and PIU • ‘LION’ – Lawyers Information Online Network
- 40. It’s even better to better It’s always good to get it!… recognition… MCA Award for UK’s Government best IT Consultancy Computing Award for Project Innovation 1998 For the original work in the Department of Awarded in February Health 2002
- 41. “The DWP system has transformed the “I no longer have to search antime for “It saves me time and saves internal “Rather than rifling through literally way in which we respond to Ministers’ directory to find out who is responsible policy officials. It is especially useful hundreds of bits of paper, we can just requests for policy briefing. It has for a specific dossier hours or to tight when working out of and then phone Bestin aask forand members usersto them to allI don’t latest stateIof play. enabled wordwhen the ofsystem tap of part time wait for the staff deadlines. the know how coped to pull up far more effectively than respond the relevant information” I simplywithout up on KN” look it it!” HOMEpraises... OFFICE would have been the case before” singMinisterial speechwriter DTI your DEFRA DWP
- 42. What’s the big picture? • Information and knowledge flowing seamlessly… • Vibrant communities working beyond the silos… • ‘Working knowledge’ becomes a verb not a noun…
- 43. Now for the real challenge Embedded and self- sustaining Knowledge communities Enhanced Government Joined-up departments Mature knowledge network
- 44. Cementing practice with policy Centrica Institute for Knowledge-based Theory Organisations Practice Zurich Financial Services Countryside Agency IDeA Knowledge Management Knowledge Partnerships Policy Framework NHS Information British Standards Authority BP Institution Confederation of British APQC Learn Industry Apply
- 45. We need you…! • …to tap your expertise and experience • …to further develop our understanding and analysis • …to help get us all working together to drive forward the vision… • …to make the goal of Knowledge Enhanced Government a global reality
- 46. www.e-envoy.gov.uk Knowledge Enhanced Government Joe McCrea Office of the e-Envoy
Editor's Notes
- In the beginning... Way back in the mists of time…actually, all of 4 years ago!…a group of people in the Cabinet Office in the UK Government were scratching their heads about a tricky problem. “ Why can’t we talk to each other across our departments?” they were asking themselves. We have paper flooding our filing cabinets, we have policy experts galore, we have committees and working groups looking at every conceivable topic. But we don’t appear to be able to properly share the information we collectively hold. How can we solve this?
- The technological challenge These people were in a unit called CITU –the Central IT Unit, so not surprisingly, the answer they came up with was to set about addressing the IT and technological challenge which stopped information from being shared electronically from department to department. That would need a secure internal government platform to which departments would need to connect It would need agreed standards for connectivity and inter-operability. It would need the promulgation of internal e-mail within and between departments And it would need the IT sections in departments to introduce connectivity to the secure platform In essence, it would need a central IT strategy for government
- The technical solution And so, with a lot of hard work, a lot of determination and a lot of organisation, the technical solution was introduced… A Government Secure Intranet capability was developed… Because mandated participation in the GSI was felt not to be an option, the threshold for entry was deliberately set low, including the option of e-mail only connectivity for users (ie non-browser use). Work began on an e-Government Interoperability Framework, to agree common standards for connectivity and interoperability. And accompanying work began on an e-Government Metadata Framework, to help organise the information that it was envisaged would soon start to flow through the GSI. It was a sizeable effort to meet a sizeable challenge
- Nirvana? “ At last we can talk to each other!” they were able to say. But then a funny thing happened…Or rather didn’t happen.. Departments connected to the GSI and they introduced the e-mail capability for around 300,000 of their users (only 54,000 were given browser use)... The first 2 editions of the e-GIF were produced… The draft e-GMF was agreed with departments… A document setting out a central IT strategy was produced… And…. E-mail proliferated between departments and became second nature to large sections of staff… But still..the actual sharing of valuable collective information and real collaboration didn’t really arrive And so the question slightly changed from “Why can’t we talk” to “Why aren’t we talking?”
- In the beginning... Meanwhile, at exactly the same time another group of people in the Cabinet Office of the UK Government were also asking themselves “Why can’t we talk to each other across our departments?” . It’s what the staff want. We’ve proved it can be done with a system we introduced in the Department of Health and between the Department and the UK National Health Service. And so long as we don’t turn people off by concentrating on the IT side of things, but explain what we want in pure business output terms, we can enthuse the staff and get them signed up to a collective vision. These people were myself, Chris Hancock and Vanessa Barron – in a stand alone team called the Knowledge Network Project
- What ’s going on? Of course, the underlying technology and ability to connect securely is crucial. So are the standards and practice of inter-operability. But they can only ever be means to an end - indispensable means certainly - hard-won means definitely… But nevertheless they only get us to the starting point of our journey - they don ’t get us to our destination.
- A vision of the future We also set about painting a vision of the future, which concentrated on stakeholder outcomes. A vision where the working lives of staff would be transformed. We made a virtue of the fact that we weren ’t painting merely an IT vision, but something that was directly identifiable and relevant to people for whom IT was either a bore or a worry. These are set out in the oval shapes above. Until now, these 4 aims have remained a vision of the future. But now they are a vision no longer. Now they are being delivered by the Office of the e-Envoy – in which the former CITU and my team were brought together at the start of 2001. The British Government is the first government in the world to have successfully delivered this capacity internally, joining up all Government departments and allowing people to work together irrespective of departmental boundaries
- Our challenge… The knowledge challenge we face, and which we are addressing, is summed up in the following 2 slides… Before the Knowledge Network project was started, departments had individual and isolated information-sharing systems – unable to talk to each other or interact.. There was no unified ‘knowledge network’ to allow them to do so… To traditional KM advocates, the British Government could be said to have little knowledge potential…
- 18 months on… A mere 18 months later, we have already achieved much of which we can be proud… All departments now have compatible information-sharing systems –developed by the KN team and now able to talk to each other or interact.. There is now a unified ‘knowledge network’ being put in place to allow them to do so… And we are beginning to see the first emergence of on-line interdepartmental ‘communities of interest and practice’ - the first steps towards community based working out of the silos… As a result, the British Government now has growing knowledge potential…
- What are the drivers? What we have learned is that as drivers of modernisation, the IT is secondary to getting the business and human processes right. That means getting the right information knowledge to the right people and at their convenience And recognising that in driving forward a total vision, you will need to addess different audiences, with different needs, but often needing the same information So in that way, each audience and each delivery, reinforces the overall project. And so the work has also begun on turning technical potential and aspirational aims into hard-headed reality and change on the ground. And that ’s the part of the jigsaw into which the Knowledge Enhanced Government programme fits... Let ’s look at some examples of what we are doing in practice….
- Briefing @ DTI Here ’s an example of one of the departmental information sharing systems we have developed. This is the internal system for the Department of Trade and Industry. This is now the core mechanism through which policy officials, press officers and Ministerial Private Offices share information and briefing. It has high visibility amongst Ministers, including the Trade Secretary, Patricia Hewitt and the Minister for e-Commerce, Douglas Alexander.
- Here you can see a view of titles of briefing that is shared amongst everyone using the system. Everything from the Climate Change Levy to the Communications Act… From proposals for reform of the competition regime to e-Science. All of it available to everyone in DTI, no matter in which area of policy or activity they work…
- Here is an example of a typical brief – this is on Business Regulation… The brief tells you the basic facts and figures behind the policy… … as well as who created it, who the lead Policy Official is for the policy and the Minister responsible for the policy… … .and who is the press officer responsible for handling press enquiries about the subject… The red ‘flags’ showing GSI status, Internet Status and ‘Check’…come into our story a little later….
- Home Office briefing Now let ’s jump to the Home Office and have a look at their internal briefing system BARD (Briefing and Rebutal Database) – also developed with our team. Notice how the look and feel are slightly different, but the underlying functionality is similar.. That ’s deliberately done – each departmental system has its own distinct identity and is recognisable to policy officials as belonging to their individual department. But the metadata and underlying design compatibility of ALL departmental systems lays the foundations for the complete government-wide capability. Here we ’re looking at a view of items on the system by date and type – for example a PM Briefing, Policy Statement and Rebuttal created on 17 th August 2001..
- And here is a specific Home Office briefing example – this is on Race Equality in Public Services. Note the similarity of the metadata in this Home Office item with the DTI example which we showed earlier…
- Food and Rural Affairs Now we ’re on the move again – this time to the newly created department DEFRA – the Department for Food and Rural Affairs… The look and feel of this departmental system is totally distinct from DTI and Home Office – including the fact that this is being viewed through browser rather than Lotus Notes Client. But, yet again, the underlying data structure is compatible. This system for a new department DEFRA was created from its predecessor in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The design work to turn MAFF Online Information (MOLI) to DEFRA Knowledge Network was completed in 2 days – meaning that by the time the new Ministers took office, they had a complete information resource at their disposal – with full knowledge capture from officials departing to other depts.
- Foot and Mouth You may have heard about our little local difficulty in rural areas with Foot and Mouth disease. So it ’s no surprise that sitting on the DEFRA briefing system is a core brief on FMD control….
- So far we have seen a series of internal departmental systems, delivering internally for each separate department, but other than some common branding and similar meta-data, not part of an integrated whole… With this slide, we begin to see the bigger picture. This is the home page of the government-wide Knowledge Network. And there, on the third button down, you can see a red ministerial box… That is the gateway to the jewel in our crown – KN Central.
- This is KN Central. It is a fully automated site, that takes information automatically from each of the departmental sites. It automatically reformats the departmental material into a common look and feel. And publishes it to the entire government community. On this day, you can see that the 5 hot topics included Economic and Monetary Union, Foot and Mouth Disease and the Long Term Health Review.
- This is the full Long-term Health Review brief which, if printed out, would run to about 2 sides of A4
- Here you can see that you can view briefs by the originating department, through a drop down dialog box. Here are the current briefs from the Department of Health.
- This is a new development we are working on – called RIBS (Regional Information and Briefing System) This brings together information from a regional and local level, rather than just national policy information.
- For example, here is a selection of material from the North East of England. What we are looking at here is a suggestion of places to visit to highlight government achievements in the North East.
- Clicking on the individual ‘ Place to Visit ’ , gives you some background information about the place. Here it is a partnership between Durham Police and Darlington Borough Council on Youth Offending and Community Safety.
- RIBS also contains information on local campaigns and issues. Here, for example, we are looking at local campaigns and issues in the North West of England. Including reports on BBC Radio Lancashire of potential closure of homes for the elderly.
- Here is another example from the North West, a campaign by the Liverpool Echo against plans to increase tolls on the Mersey Tunnel
- RIBS also contains a number of handy summary sheets about Government delivery in a range of cities and areas. Here for example are delivery details in Liverpool.
- And here is regional delivery information about the West Midlands
- One of the most exciting aspects of the momentum building up now within the Knowledge Enhanced Government programme is the beginning emergence of cross government communities of officials, united in a common output, interest or area of activity, but who until now have been kept frustrated and isolated behind their departmental firewalls and within departmental systems.. The promotion and development of these communities has now begun in earnest – the heart and soul of the Knowledge Enhanced Government – and the real prospect for radical and innovative change….
- Enabling communities Here are 5 early examples of ‘creating communities’ CONNECT – the e-communicators ’ community was launched on 2 nd February. It allows people working on e-communications throughout government to share information and contact each other The Office of Government Commerce has established a cross-government project monitoring database via KN We are working with the Regulatory Impact Unit to allow departments to fill in RI information on-line in one place We are also be working with the Performance and Innovation Unit and CMPS to develop ‘knowledge pools’ for policy officials to share knowledge and information And a cross-departmental lawyers ’ community will soon begin to work collaboratively on-line beyond their departmental silos
- Capturing skills Connect includes the first example of a skills database which we are looking to develop in a range of areas across the Knowledge Network…
- Skills are self-registered and can be viewed in breakdowns either by home department or by specific skill.
- OGC Project Monitoring Here is the front page of the Office of Government Commerce ‘project monitoring’ database we have developed and which operates across government. This is an example of how we are using the Knowledge Network to deliver major improvements in core mainstream cross-government activity – in this case co-ordinated project monitoring – as well as involving ourselves in the less mainstream activities of KM. The ability to co-ordinate project management in real time across all government departments was impossible before the Knowledge Network was introduced…
- PIU knowledge repository Here is an example of something which would be more familiar to traditional ‘KM’ audiences This is the Performance and Innovation Unit knowledge repository which we are developing.. This allows discussion and development of myriad policy streams in one well-designed place… The PIU repository is currently undergoing its final stages of testing before wide deployment… We are even looking at the possibility of ‘Extranet’ working with the wider academic community to really begin to transform the policy discussion and development process between government and the outside world…
- Regulatory Impact Here is further example of the types of applications we are developing – this time, a cross-government database of regulatory impact – for the Regulatory Impact Unit.
- Of course, it ’ s always good to get recognition for the work that you ’ re doing. Way back in 1998, myself and Chris won a ‘ Government Computing ’ award for our original work in the Department of Health… Four years later, and only a few weeks ago, we were delighted to better it, with an award from the UK Management Consultancies Association… … as the best IT consultancy project for 2002, beating off competition across Europe.
- But it ’ s best of all when your users sing your praises. Early in 2002, we carried out a survey of our users in the departments. Here are just a few examples of what they said.
- All of this might be terribly exciting in its individual component parts…but the real radical potential comes with the appreciation of what this might add up to in the big picture.. The possibility that the full Knowledge Enhanced Government programme holds out is for a totally new way for government to operate….out of the silos, with knowledge and information flowing seamlessly between and amongst the government community.. So that ‘working knowledge’ will cease to be a descriptive noun of only basic aptitude..and instead will change its meaning to become a verb…something which officials in government will DO every day in their working lives….accessing, harnessing and deploying their collective knowledge, talents and expertise…
- Now the real challenge… The development of compatible departmental systems and a central repository has been a painstaking and painful process… So has been the initial promotion of community-based working.. But it ’s only the start... Now we have to rise to a greater challenge…and a much more exciting aim… We need to embed the joining-up process we have begun and allow the unified ‘knowledge network’ to mature… We need to develop and embed a whole host and range of self-sustaining communities across and beyond the departments.. We need to to continue the transformation of the government which we have begun – into a true knowledge and community based organism.. We have a name for what we are striving to achieve That is ‘Knowledge Enhanced Government”….
- We need you And that ’s where we need people like you.. People who are committed to developing knowledge management and have experience of the perils and pitfalls as well as the successes and benefits.. What we are attempting to drive forward in the UK is, we believe, truly revolutionary in the government sector. But our vision goes beyond our own national shores.. We want the UK to be a beacon for like-minded modernisers across the world.. Only when we have together made the goal of Knowledge Enhanced Government a global reality, can we collectively as a global community celebrate a true and lasting achievement…