PD Newsletter #8: Sweden's new team, user needs on Gob.pe and LIDL's SAP fail

Welcome to the Public Digital newsletter.

I'm @egawen on Twitter. When we started this newsletter the aim was to make it a fortnightly scan about how governments and other large institutions are adapting to the Internet era. Feedback welcome on if the balance is right, and if there's something you're interested to hear more about get in touch.

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Spotlight on...Sweden 💪🙌⭐️

Digitalisering är en lagsport

It caught my eye that Sweden occupied the 5th spot in the 2018 UN e-Government rankings. Like it’s Nordic neighbour, Denmark (ranked 1st), Sweden has excellent telecommunications infrastructure, high levels of education, and high levels of innovation in the private sector. However; unlike Denmark, to date digital development of public services has been mostly decentralised, and there's no central eID, mailbox or centrally led data principles either.

This has begun to change. In 2017 Sweden published a wide-ranging digital strategy, covering infrastructure, public services, digital inclusion and skills, and digital security. January this year heralded Sweden's first Chief Digital Officer, Åsa Zetterberg, to lead implementation of the strategy with the unenviable job of working across a number of departments. The role appears similar in breadth to the planned Chief Technology Officer role in New Zealand, which as yet remains unfilled.

Last but not least a new Digital Management Authority, DIGG (Myndigheten för digital förvaltning) will be established on September 1st. It will be responsible for developing, co-ordinating and supporting digitisation in central government and municipalities. It will also bring together a number of responsibilities transferred from other agencies: for example e-ID, issuing web guidelines, promoting public data availability and promoting innovation through open data. It's new Director General is Anna Eriksson. In her first interview about the role, she says "Digitisation is a team sport!"

Read more: Sweden’s digitisation strategy (SE), or follow Åsa on twitter.

Still have questions about the 2018 UN e-Government surveey? Let me know.

Start with user needs: Peru edition

25% of government services to be moved to gob.pe this year

A small digital delivery team in the Peruvian government continue to deliver improvements to gob.pe. Micaela Blondet breaks down how they self-organise using scrum, and use data and insights from users to prioritise work.

A nice illustration of transparency, they have implemented information pages which show visitor traffic, and the volume of feedback they are receiving. See this example of stats on a page about driving licences.

Read more: Ben wrote on our blog in May about some of our work with the Peruvian government. Or hear direct from the team on Medium.

eLWIS has left the building

Lidl's new inventory management system rolled back, €500 million later This weeks cautionary tale comes from German supermarket chain Lidl, which runs over 10k supermarkets in 29 countries. It has rolled back (for good) a new inventory management system after seven years and €500 million spent. A failed SAP implementation, the project was launched with the description "the biggest transformation project in the history of the company".

Apparently a requirement to adapt and shape the software around Lidl's internal workings made the project gradually more complex. It would be easy to blame the big IT provider, but when the company motto is "we only change when there is no other way" you can see where this was destined to go wrong.

Less forgivable is finding out 7 years later.

In Handelsblatt

5 other interesting things

💥
An independent report shows that the US Federal Communication Commission made up a cyberattack to cover an incident in May 2017. In fact, it was caused by system design issues and a surge in genuine traffic. Reminiscent of Australia's 2016 #CensusFail, where a few minor DDoS attacks initially took the blame for what turned out to be far more systemic failure. Embarrassing all round. On Gizmodo.

💵
How software ate the point of sale. Alexis C. Madrigal writes a fascinating assessment of how paying for things is at a point of great transformation; but based on technologies from the early 20th century and a dizzying arrangement of standards and fees. US centric, fascinating. In The Atlantic.

👩🏽‍⚕️
A detailed breakdown about the UK's NHS app, and how user research stopped it being a lot lot worse. A longread. On Gizmodo

🛴
Electric scooters are the latest disruptive (in all senses of the the word) services to roll out globally, with regulators and city authorities failing to keep up. Delightfully in London they have been stopped by a 183 year old law designed to stop nuisance behaviour from horse-drawn carriage drivers.
In California, residents have set them aflame, tossed them into canals and er.. smeared them with 💩. Lovely. Business Insider and Govtech.com.

⚗️
Early Christmas present idea. HT to Josh Chambers of Govinsider for sharing this Kickstarter campaign to publish an illustrated book series featuring six noteworthy scientists from Asia.

and finally...a job opportunity:

The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose are looking for a Senior Research Associate in Public Value and Digital Transformation. The position will focus on researching how digital technologies can shape the future of the state. Closes on the 29th August.

For other opportunities, I recommend the weekly list of vacancies curated by @jukesie, related to product management, user experience, data and design in the ‘internet of public service’.

News from Public Digital

Not on the PD blog
Andrew and I took a closer look at what has changed in the 2018 UN e-Government survey, including stories of success from Asia and beyond, and what world's best digital governments are doing right. On Govinsider

Paul Smith, of Well Digital, took this weeks excellent photo of the book on the beach. Well Digital have an excellent blog where they share how they are making the world of pharmacy more digital.

Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy is Delivery is available to buy in print and on kindle 🤖, direct from the publisher, from Amazon, or Book Depository.

More beach snaps welcome (to look at from our very non beach-like office).