Delivery Associates welcomed specialists from 5 different continents and many other participants for an insightful discussion on their recent publication, Success Delivered, which looks at the 6 key characteristics that are crucial for successful delivery in government.
Delivery Associates were joined by Glenn King, Head of the Premier’s Implementation Unit in New South Wales, Australia and Penny Tainton, Delivery Lead, eLearning and After School Game Changers, Western Cape, South Africa, who were sharing their own insights, learnings and experiences.
After a welcome from Delivery Associates Director Nick Rodriquez and an overview from founder Sir Michael Barber, Glenn opened the panel session by reinforcing that the “Deliverology® methodology has really worked for us in New South Wales in making a difference for our citizens.”
He stressed the importance of strong communication, collaboration, a relentless focus on citizens, constant engagement and a common language as key learnings from the NSW Premier’s Implementation Unit. Their approach and success has meant that the 12 key priorities have withstood the test of time and a key change in leadership.
For Penny in the Western Cape, a combination of collaborative target-setting and careful planning, committed leadership and regular stocktakes has enabled them to stay on track and achieve their goals.
Penny emphasised the importance of building relationships with everyone in every department and the need for on-going and regular dialogue. She stated that Deliverologists need to be honest and authentic to gain peoples’ trust, and that “success is all about influence, and influence is all about leveraging personal relationships.”
One participant posed a question on issues around data especially false reporting and how to prevent perverse incentives when focussing on set a priorities. Sir Michael, Glenn and Penny all agreed on the importance of fieldwork - to go and check what is happening for yourself rather than just relying on data and reports, but also they all emphasised the need to persistently audit data, and check it against other data sets.
Data was a theme that both Glenn and Penny continually returned to. As Nick Rodriguez summed up, “there is just no getting around the hard work!”
