Supporting a major government department in transforming its technology and digital organisation to enable better business outcomes

Challenge

The Government has an ongoing digital agenda to improve the ability of UK citizens and business organisations to interact with key departments and services online. For our client, this agenda is well-established with a Digital programme in which both business and individual customers will provide progressively more information to the organisation, through digital channels.

To support this, our client wanted to ensure that its technology organisation was aligned with its business departments, through a customer-centric way of working that would deliver optimal outcomes. This would require a transformation of how the technology function operated – from a technology-centric approach to a business services based approach – while also introducing clearer accountabilities and improving change agility.

Mason Advisory undertook a 12-month engagement to support this transformation.

Solution

Mason Advisory worked with the client’s technology leadership team to develop five critical success factors for the programme. The client wanted to ensure that through the transformation, the technology function would create a world-class technology organisation with the following hallmarks:

• a customer-centric approach
• efficient & effective governance
• innovation & leadership of technology
• empowering people & driving cultural evolution

We began by working with the client to define the new strategic design for the technology organisation. With this top-level operating model in place, we then supported the client in the development of the detailed designs for each key technology function. A challenge faced by the client was that while its existing technology delivery model demonstrated efficiency through shared solutions and platforms across its different business services, this restricted the ability to deliver bespoke services, and impacted speed of delivery to business areas that required a higher level of service.

Therefore we focused on creating a matrix-based model, in which some components were based on shared commodity services, and other components allowed for individualised change and support. To achieve this, areas of the technology organisation needed aligning with individual parts of the business. We worked with the client to achieve greater clarity over how IT services were used across the directorate: which services were shared; which were used by specific departments; and where ownership lay. This enabled us to embed by design a clearer set of accountabilities across the technology function.

Upon finalisation of the operating model design, we supported the client with its initial rollout, producing user-friendly documentation and templates, setting out the approach, and facilitating workshops across the technology organisation departments. This helped the departments create their own detailed functional designs for the new way of working, and guided them to think through the implications for roles and responsibilities within their teams.

Outcome

The client now has a new operating model for its technology organisation that means the IT teams can better support the business, and create a more customer-centric approach where individual departments receive more tailored support.

Through creating a clearer interface between technology and business departments, there are better defined responsibilities and accountabilities. This means that change can be introduced more quickly, while issues that arise can be resolved faster. The technology team can work more collaboratively to deliver an end-to-end service.