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Connected-Service interviews (Tess)

• I heard that the pace of work is increasing, expectations are higher, we’re tackling complex and high stakes problems as a government (re: Premier Eby’s priorities, and beyond), there can be urgency and external dependencies beyond our control - including seasonality, emergency response in a less-predictable world, capacity across the BCPS is stretched, and on-the-ground: planning for and acquiring the talent to get the work done is slow, overly bureaucratic and admin-heavy, and can feel quite daunting.

  • Obvious statements for many of us, but I’m curious what the DTC Branch role is in creating conditions and delivering supports to make things better.

• Folks leading org design work toward transformation and digital delivery have a lot on their plates and minds:

  • supporting changing priorities - as a result of agility and responding to new information, or leadership changes, etc.

  • urgency, timelines - often beyond their control, e.g. connected services across ministries, promises made by Sr. Exec - or poor scoping of work (overpromising)

  • responding to a changing world - from the complexities of social services to the seasonality of work across the Natural Resource Sector that creates non-negotiable yet variable deadlines

  • this context is well-suited for agility, but there’s work to do - many layers of change in progress:

• [systemic layer] “In the big picture transformation context I would like to see some of the structural issues I see with agile and specifically in the kind of hiring, procurement, job description space solved. I'm working on my little corner of the government trying to do what I can to put my best foot forward under the policy and legislative constraints that are around me. One of the reasons I took this meeting is because I'm hoping that from your vantage point, possibly those policy and legislative constraints can be changed.”

  • flexibility, enabling and resourcing agility

  • the challenges around bringing in excluded digital roles (add quote about working with BCGEU)

  • classification, job profiles

  • governance and enablement of new digital roles: role clarity, what good looks like, how to support practitioners toward delivering great outcomes

  • the rigid process and admin-heavy nature of hiring processes (broadly, beyond our branch)

  • the risk-aversion of procurement over focus on outcomes (broadly, beyond our branch)

• [ADM/DM, Sr. Leadership layer] “We do really have to sell it, umm, in terms of why we need it (talent, investment). They're starting to open up. I think the more that they see the value of the work that the Digital folks are doing or transformational work we're getting there. We have some great senior executives who are, like, you know… you know exactly what you're doing. Do it. Report back. And they're totally comfortable with it. Where we have, like other conflicting personalities who aren't like that, that wanna know everything.”

• [Program area layer] “We've had, you know, a lot of delays in decision making just because there are not accustomed to what it is and so they want all the information to feel comfortable in making those decisions where you know we're running agile. We're like, let's go. Let's go.”

  • “It's also trying to battle with already over resourced programs to be able to add on another layer of work that we need from them to get them to a more streamlined position so they have their objectives. They have the work that they need to do, but then you be added this on of, you know, having to do service design work and sitting down with him doing workshops and trying to build that out and then adding on Sprint planning like all those other little pieces that that go into it to kind of also take away from the work they're doing.”

  • Intersects with the digitally literate program areas, businesses don’t know how to support agility, and also haven’t been prepared to carve out time and capacity for collaboration, co-creation, attending demos, making decisions — capacity is tight across the system, and in some pockets harm has been done by a lack of change management, where long-serving staff may feel left behind, or their historical contributions diminished as “not modern”, which they may have known and been frustrated about but was beyond their control.

    • Many staff have watched vendors be brought in to take on new, shiny, impactful work while they slog through legacy apps and sustainment work.

    • Now “agile teams” get all the attention, and some folks feel threatened, e.g. Business Analysts who are seeing parts of the work they do taken on by Product, Scrum, Design folk and feel uncertain about their place and future. Or technical folk not assigned to the agile team but still integral to that technical environment feel rejected, discarded. It leads to churn, conflict, management workload, and impacts conditions for successful digital delivery, including org culture and engagement.

• [Team/Employee layer] “…hence my thinking on getting in more junior folks to support and make sure that a Band 3 isn't doing things like, you know, responding to low level procurement and contracting questions and you know, acting essentially as an inbox manager and and doing actually those higher priority Strategic things that require that more senior level input.“

Existing research / staff insights

• What else do we know/see/hear/suspect on the ground as we deliver services and products, network, etc?

Experiments & Collaborations

Connected-Service interviews (Tess)

Existing research / staff insights

Experiments & Collaborations

Connected-Service interviews (Tess)

• “Job profiles are like a nice shortcut, like a heuristic, and they can say like, generally like you're qualified for this level of pay and this this type of position, but it completely misses the nuance of what a specific team needs… And sometimes somebody who's qualified for a role generally is not qualified for the specific skill sets you need in that role.”

• “I'd say a challenge… I would say like the most kind of like one where there's like really clear blockers or like trickiness or risk as well is that second one, bringing the right people to the problem. Do we have the right people in perspective and skills to interrogate this problem and to move it forward in whatever shape or form we might think need, it needs to go. So that's often like a bit of matchmaking of people to a problem space or to a team… what is the nature of the work to be done in a sense of where do those skills lie?”

  • what is possible, within our current system, to better role-matchmaking and good problem-skill fit? Is there a way to scale this way of approaching hiring, to make it available to more folks beyond current CMHP etc.? Is ‘fit’ possible with eLists? — service opportunity

• “We have a a program coordinator and they're very, very good in their role, but they're not good in agile so because they handle our administrative things, they keeps us, you know, in good grace (finance, procurement and all of the important processes that need to be strict and and proceduralized)… but when we try to bring them into an agile team to observe, you know, how an agile team works. It's like, whoa, that is too chaotic. And it's totally OK, but you just need to know like is this type of person who needs order and and rigidity and they'll thrive there.”

  • “I think our organizations been really good like there's some folks who are like very close to retirement and they've been really open with us. They're like, listen, I don't wanna learn all these new things, but I'm really good at operations. So you know, finding the right fit for people so that they're happy and productive and they don't have to learn like all these new languages or whatever it is and new tools, but yet they can still do all the jobs or do the job that they that you know that is similar to what they used to do. And yeah, so it's been, it's been interesting.”

  • This feels important to keep front of mind as we move forward as a branch - there is an inclusion lens, and an acknowledgement that agile isn’t always the answer. Intersects with learning opportunities (Academy) and digitally literate program areas that are ready to support agility. We can expect friction, a need for change management. Not sure how well supported this is in the ecosystem, today. — service opportunity

Existing research / staff insights

Experiments & Collaborations

Connected-Service interviews (Tess)

• “I don't love digital delivery separate from program area - it can be inefficient, less effective, isolating - hinders digital literacy of program area. I want to build cross-functional teams, where policy roles are mixed in with digital delivery and accountable - policy, service, and products are intertwined - policy has to be delivered. I want to see digital people embedded in program areas - where SMEs, policy, designers, developers all feel ownership, live and breathe the work, build cross-functional skills.”

• “And then you also have some SMEs and like program leads that you're working with again that get this project kind off the side of their desk just because they've been so involved or they're just more of the senior roles in the team, but haven't been through this type of process. And so it's new. So you're kind of educating them, bringing them along the way, been asking them to make certain decisions that sometimes maybe they're not comfortable with just because they're just not sure.”

Existing research / staff insights

Experiments & Collaborations

Connected-Service interviews (Tess)

• cost and budgets, vendors 2x the cost with rates rising, intersecting with need for specialized skills or the digital talent pool BCPS salaries can attract/retain

  • “we just didn't find it was a good budget spend to spend so much on a somebody who we could get internally”

  • I hire when it’s an operationally critical role

  • I procure when I can’t attract the niche specialization or seniority I need

• nature of the work - are we running some scoping, an experiment, or spinning up a product team for the long term?

• timelines x time-to-hire

Existing research / staff insights

Experiments & Collaborations

Connected-Service interviews (Tess)

• “So you know it, it's really recognizing that the world is not this "You're a cog in the machine and you're just doing this fixed job" concept. We need to get away from that to to really build the organization, and it's gonna change dynamically as people come and go and people grow and develop”

  • folks are leaning into agility, future-thinking, and realizing we need to operate differently to create sustainable conditions for digital talent to achieve outcomes & impact

  • folks are grappling with the tension between flexible org design models and encouraging staff to lean into new knowledge/skill/ability, within the PSA/BCGEU context — service opportunities: lean interim advice, explore systemic context?

• “I think it's tough for some people… I actually I'm pretty sure some people on the home team don't really see themselves in the modernized space”

  • staff perceptions that vendors historically get the “interesting, shiny & new” work and don’t have “skin in the game” re: long term implications of decision making and outcomes - this has impacted employees and organizations - engagement, turnover, etc.

  • folks are grappling with how to support valued staff in seeing their place in the modernization context - there can be fear, angst, turnover

    • with observations that agility isn’t for everyone, some folks thrive in uncertainty, others need more structure (valid - ties into inclusion and accessibility, this also could have more to do with implementation than agility itself - orgs early on the learning curve can be overly rigid/dogmatic about the practices, not always investing in the human side of change)

    • common example: Business Analysts re-skilling into Scrum Master, Product Owner, sometimes Service Design roles

      • to support re-skilling today, folks encourage attending meetings (identify interest, gain context), shadowing, low risk opportunities to gain experience, and training/education — service opportunity

• “I don't have the resources, and the people I work with are [digital practitioners] and they can tell me what topics they want covered, but they can't tell me how to do it, so I have reached out to the federal government and I have their curriculum writers assisting me with developing a program. I actually have Camosun College and Royal Roads that have offered services as well. But yeah, that that whole career ramping and the formalization of it is, is what I'm looking at doing now.”

  • The same dynamic is playing out in the Design community, folks are meeting with Emily Carr, UK Gov folk, etc. to try and figure out ways to grow and develop staff

  • folks are trying to build their own programs, partnering with external institutions, aren’t always aware of others storming on similar initiatives - would it be worthwhile to get all those humans in one room? share, prototype, support each other… domains are different, foundations similar?

• Growth-minded is a top quality folks seem to be looking for - intersects with “fit”

  • curiosity, openness and willingness to learn kept popping up across topics & conversations - sometimes as a pain point, or a perception that Jr. staff are more open to growth

  • Hypothesis to test: I’m curious if there is a change management layer missing in the transformation work, broadly, where the transformation is uncertain and stressful for some employees (depends on how it’s introduced & rolled out over time), and we maybe aren’t appreciating what a jarring change it can be for some BCPS folk, incl. the contradictions and workplace traumas: some folks have been discouraged or punished for stepping outside their job profile (and developed responses/strategies accordingly), now they’re being encouraged to be more flexible - we can’t blow past that /soapbox

• Connected-service thinking: how might we align/integrate our talent-development efforts with the new Performance Development Platform (PDP) for a sense of cohesion

  • this could be as simple as lean references to PDP in our advice, the new system was mentioned a few times in the context of helping staff grow and develop

What we know of & can learn from today:

• MoTI TELP

• NRIDS Jr. Full Stack Developer path - now expanding to Design and Scrum (first UX Designer and Scrum Master onboarding now: May 2024)

• CITZ Cybersecurity & Digital Trust Co-op program

• Design community efforts - ENV, GDX, DO/Lab, CITZ IMB

• CITZ - Service BC and Cybersecurity teams exploring development programs

  • feels like a safe bet that more program areas are grappling with the development topic - I see a good investment

• Vendors are indicating some friction and tradeoffs with mentorship built into contracts

  • BCPS staff can be defensive/resistant - can impact the transformation work, team dynamics, create distractions (change/people management gap?)

  • Vendor staff may not want to or be skilled in ‘teaching’

  • the act of being a “player” and “coach” at same time can be challenging and may be impacting outcomes - the transformation work on it’s own is often quite complex

  • More research/perspectives needed

Experiments & collaborations:

• Sam recently collaborated w/ MoTI - TELP: what did you learn? see? think?

  • development programs as an EDI strategy - creating equitable access to opportunity

• Sam recently chatted with CITZ - Service BC

• Aakanksha collaborating with the Indigenous Youth Internship Program

Connected-Service interviews (Tess)

• “I think that we've moved in the right direction, but much like our legacy systems, I think we suffer from legacy practices in the HR policy space and and I would say that we're getting better - I would put it as 25 to 30% better able to deliver on digital services than five years ago. So we're moving into the right direction, but it's kind of like with moves to the cloud, you have all this legacy crap sitting there and you know, you have to deal with it. You're trying to move everything you can over this way, but it is a journey like it does take that that time, and we often don't have the resources, money, people and stuff to really make that switch in one go.”

Existing research / staff insights

Experiments & Collaborations

Connected-Service interviews (Tess)

• people are using TAs as classification and time-to-hire workarounds: how might Shannon Salter’s recent announcement impact folks? This announcement came after my interviews, so I don’t have data here — service opportunity?

Existing research / staff insights

Experiments & Collaborations