Janet Hughes is the senior Civil Servant responsible for project delivery (reforming children’s social care, building new schools, etc) in the UK Department of Education. She says this:
“As part of this work, I’d really like to help and encourage people working on major projects to work more openly, blogging about what they’re working on and what they’re learning.
“This is important because it helps us connect with other people who are working on similar challenges, builds trust and confidence in the work we’re doing and generally makes things better.”
Working in the open is a principle first developed in the tech sector that is beginning to transform how government works, across both UK and Scotland national and local government.
The goals of working in the open are to increase participation and smart collaboration, to improve organisational agility, to increase momentum for new viable ideas and initiatives, to iterate and refine as we go, and to leverage greater impact from fixed resources.
According to James Pallister from Essex County Council:
“The idea is if we share your work as we go, we can get feedback on it and quickly get a sense of whether what we’re doing is going to be useful to the everyday person in the street. It’s the opposite of building something in isolation, waiting for the big reveal to find out whether it’s a winner or a dud.
“At first working in the open can feel a bit exposing and take a little getting used to. That’s normal. What’s worth remembering, is that this approach is tried and tested, and it’s been shown to be a good way of quickly making services better for citizens. Which is good news for everyone.”
Working in the open is widely seen as a way to accelerate change across organisations. It involves using blogs, social media, video and open events to open up processes and ideas. It allows best practices to be replicated and scaled, along with solutions to challenges and failures. Reusing digital strategies, standards, and open source code also reduces costs and helps different parts of the public and third sectors coordinate, accelerate change, and support each other.
Working in the open is also symbolically vital. It demonstrates a different approach in which work colleagues are trusted and empowered. According to the Canadian Government “This symbolic change was felt to be critical not just for earning the credibility and social licence needed to drive change, but also to attract and retain new and dynamic types of talent.”
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