(2021-04-28) Hon S09e22 But Where Do You Start

Dan Hon s09e22: Where Do You Start?

(Bits)

Maslow Got It Wrong by Teju Ravilochan is (was) at first a piece on where some of the ideas behind Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs came from. The piece has a good author’s note that acknowledges the need for revisions and follow-ups

Andrew Ferguson found the novelization of Hackers, the 1995 film and it is glorious.

Where Do You Start?

I had a conversation last week with someone at a pretty big government department about this problem I’d call Where Do You Start

You have a government department and it’s busy humming along...You’d like to do something new... You are in the most enviable position of a green field

What you’re describing, or what you’re suggesting you want is actually a combination of policy/program/delivery/organizational change. Let’s just bite the bullet and call it Digital Transformation.

You know you want to do things differently. You might want to do things differently because you:

You would like more assurance than “trying our best at something new”. This is, after all, public money that you’re spending.

Given the above, you’re stuck. Do you need to procure something? You might feel like you need help writing the solicitation. You might feel like you’re not even sure what should be in the solicitation, or what shouldn’t be.

So: let’s pretend we’re having a conversation and I’m answering these questions for you.

1. What’s the Actual Problem

Wanting to find a better way to do process X is a problem, but to borrow a phrase, it’s not the right problem.

let’s make it real. Imagine you’re in charge of restaurant hygiene inspections

the way you’re currently thinking about your problem is: “As part of our food safety job, we come up with a list of restaurants to inspect for hygiene every 2 years and there has to be a better way of doing this”

I like asking “so that…?” when people have statements like this. It helps anchor your problem to an outcome.

This immediately brings up some new questions that it would be good to have answers to: How many people are currently struck ill when eating in restaurants?

Figuring out this actual problem (reducing the number of people who are struck ill when eating in restaurants) while feeling like it makes your initial question impossibly big, is actually helpful to defining the scope of what to do and where to do it. But you might want to be prepared for different answers than what you assumed.

You need to make a map that takes you from the start of something to your outcome

you need some sort of journey map, or some sort of conceptualization of one.

3. Yes, but what do I do next?

To make this simple and minimal, you need at least: Someone internal to own this initiative because you aren’t outsourcing this: you’ve said you want a new internal capability because this is core to your business.    Someone to manage a product or service — someone to own what it is that you might be making or changing to achieve your outcome. (This is not project management)

You may be thinking “Well, we’ve never really done that before. We’re going to have to buy figuring that out. So what do we need to buy?”

4.0 Give me short version already. OK, there’s two answers here

Find existing, experienced teams in your government structure who can directly help and train people in your organization in defining, drafting and running through to award a problem-based, iteratively delivered, time-limited solicitation for achieving an outcome

I highly recommend reading the comprehensive and state-of-the-art reference work, the De-Risking Guide from 18F.