Three public sector experts share practical insights on how their agencies have achieved better business through adopting great governance. Held as a panel session during Objective Collaborate, the expert panel included Bruce Balfour, Bay of Plenty Regional Council (NZ) Deanna Fleming, Department of Primary Industries and Regions PIRSA (SA) and Rebecca Failla, Barwon Water, (VIC).

From change management to improving organisational efficiency, the discussion highlighted the importance of governance and how it underpins digital transformation initiatives.

Secure information sharing to optimise service
For Bruce Balfour, taking comprehensive ownership of projects is the key. It's a case of "what's important to the organisation is important to me" and this needs to be translated across the business. For example, in the recent floods that impacted Bay of Plenty, sharing critical information across multiple agencies was paramount to ensuring that service levels were optimised. This was made possible with Objective Connect, a secure file sharing platform that respects the governance policies within the agency. Using Connect, those managing flood relief efforts shared information securely with a wide variety of people outside of the organisation while retaining control over who had access to what information. Bruce was asked, "how do you sell initiatives upstream?" His answer - "by stealth" - it's all about identifying influencers such as PA's and making their job easier by providing workflows that will deliver greater efficiencies. He believes they will adopt new solutions if they are easy to use and help build momentum by selling the benefits to senior executives.

Focus on outcomes
Deanna Fleming from PIRSA believes that to improve information management adoption "you must gain trust from the business" and sees a natural path through providing users easier ways to complete their tasks. For example, implementing process driven workflows that makes your staff's tasks simpler. By providing interfaces that are not only intuitive but deliver relevant details and information links ensures that the focus is on outcomes, not searching and discovery. One question Deanna will always ask herself when embarking on a project is "what's in it for them (staff)". Deanna has now adopted a rule that if it's important it MUST go through Objective ECM and that drives priorities.

Being a leader in change management
Change management can be a challenge for any organisation but particularly those businesses where compliance overheads can be blockers to digital innovation. Rebecca Failla believes those responsible for information and its usage "need to be seen as leaders within our organisations if we are to make change management work." She is a strong advocate and sees is as her role when it comes to educating the business on information governance and the benefits it can bring to the organisation. Rebecca provides a couple of valuable suggestions for embracing change across the organisation. One is "what will drive change priorities?" For Barwon Water, it's "zero waste and high performance". She makes no assumptions during a project and will always "define the blocker to change early and understand how that change will impact the staff, don't be afraid to ask them and you MUST embrace their feedback". Rebecca believes that if you can't reconcile that feedback, you're guaranteed to face a much larger battle then you anticipated upon the point of release.

Whether you're initiating a brand new information related project or streamlining an existing content driven operational activity, the advice of all three experts was to own it, embrace feedback and don't be afraid to get started today.