Digital transformation in public agencies : Oh roadmap, where art thou?

• Swedish public agencies are struggling with how to accomplish digital transformation throughout their organisations. The reason for their efforts rests with the highly set IT-goal; Sweden should be superior in seizing the opportunities that digitalization brings along. Our research shows that public agencies are clear over what is expected, but for most of them, it is not obvious how to tackle this challenge.Digital transformation aims at changing the way of working, roles, and business offerings enabled by adoption of digital technologies in an organization. As such, it requires changes at various levels from operational, via organizational and managerial to societal levels. We reason that public agencies are in need of systems thinking – when the challenges around developing organizational preconditions and processes for digital transformation are as diverse as, e.g., digital capability, innovative capability, create open engagement between stakeholders (external and internal), and new ways to manage it all; a change of mindset is required. Only with new ways of looking at and doing things, public agencies will reach the policies on openness, transparency and collaboration, which are expected outcomes of digital transformation.We aim to explore what strategies, plans and activities are needed, in order to ensure that digital transformation actually happens in public agencies. In addition, we argue that approaches and methods for user involvement must be applied among various involved stakeholders – we focus especially on issues of participation and user involvement. Thus, our intention is to explore using Soft Systems Methodology for guiding two involved public agencies in this project, in search for a, so called, digital transformation roadmap. Moreover, we also aim to include the Viable System Model to guide accurate diagnoses of the systems, thereby being capable of suggesting viable ways forward.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Digital transformation

Public agencies

Soft Systems Methodology

Viable System Model

Informatik

Information Systems

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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