ICT strategy facilitation

The project issues
The Head of ICT, Katie Lacey, wanted to develop an ICT strategy for the Borough of Poole. She had a number of objectives in doing so. Katie wanted to gain greater engagement with all Service Units, improve customer satisfaction, be seen as a horizontal rather than a vertical unit and be recognised as a professional service. Finally, she wanted her customers to understand better how ICT might help them so that her unit could work with Service Units as effectively as possible in delivering their needs.

Katie had already set up four separate events, one each for Members, Service Unit Heads and Policy Directors, Service Delivery Managers and the ICT team. Her requirement was for Socitm to help her design these events, facilitate them and provide technical strategic input.

The Socitm Consulting solution
In drawing up an ICT strategic plan, the temptation is to explore SLAs, governance, project management, how we can exploit comms. In other words: what ICT can do to make our life better. At this stage, it is essential to focus on the highest level of requirements – the customer, service delivery, business needs – and forget about technology. The ICT team can add that later.

We agreed that the overall aim of this initiative was to "develop a coordinated corporate ICT strategy aligned with the needs of the Authority and its citizens". Every word in this aim was chosen with care to reflect what we were aiming to achieve.

We explored what was unique about each group and what they had to contribute. From that we then were able to draw up separate objectives and agenda for each event that reflected the interests and potential contribution of each participant group.

The process we used in the events was Metaplan – large boards and various techniques that drive collaborative work. In each event, participants worked in small groups and then in plenary. Each event identified and prioritised their critical success factors (CSFs) – those elements they have to focus on to be effective. Then, working in different but separate teams, they drew up a business plan including owners, dates, actions, resources and benefits.

The ICT management team attended and contributed to each event. This enabled them to work with their customers, listen to their discussion and understand their priorities.

The benefits to the client
Overall, the objectives were fully achieved. In each event, using Metaplan, every individual had the opportunity to contribute. Disagreement was acknowledged but the focus was on the future. Each of the four events identified clearly their prioritised CSFs and the momentum of the process enabled them to formulate detailed business plans very quickly and share them with each other for a reality check. These business plans fed directly into the working strategic plan.

Project identification
Client organisation: Borough of Poole
Client contact: Katie Lacey, 01202 633186, k.lacey@poole.gov.uk
Lead consultant: mike.westwood@socitm.gov.uk
Project no: 5493

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