Digital Government Excellence. Siim Sikkut
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How Did You Choose Your Priority or Where to Focus?
I did not follow any concrete criteria. It more comes back to what I believed was best for Finland. From that perspective, I always tried to see how we can influence Finland more.
I also tried to look how to get things done more effectively moneywise. I was always saying that I would rather save money and put it to grandma's daycare than putting it somewhere where it does not deliver anything. We tried to do cost-effective things to deliver what was sensible with the money we had. In my department, I also said that let us have money unspent or leftover at the end of the year, and hope that it would be used wisely elsewhere in the state, rather than use it for something we do not really need.
It comes from my private sector background where I had to cut costs every year some 10 or 15 percent, and that was a tough job. At home, you also do not waste money at the end of the year. So, it is common sense not to waste money.
Besides Trying to Figure Out the Strategy, What Other Steps Did You Start With in Your First Hundred Days?
I went to all kinds of meetings and other stakeholders, to know the persons there, hear their expectations and if any kind of targets had been given to us. That was a conscious step to start building a network but also to figure out our strategy.
I knew that primarily I had to look into what changes to do in the organization, because it was not delivering. I started in mid-March and made the proposal on how to change the setup at the beginning of June. I had the changes in place by the beginning of the next year.
My first task was to see what we did, what skills we had. I had an interview with everyone in the team, asking them for their opinion on what we should do differently and what was good. What he or she would do in my job. During those three months, I had the discussion for thirty minutes with each person working for me, going through structured questions that they had gotten beforehand so that they were able to prepare.
I reformed our team into three units or areas. This way people knew better what they were supposed to do and deliver. One part was digitalization, another part was policy and data and law, third was delivering services by supporting Valtori, security, and so on.
I had first only the six-month period in office, which ended at the end of August. I had to wait to be appointed to the actual term in the office in order to fully implement the team changes. This period was quite horrible, in fact. Some people did not want me to be their boss; they did not like my proposal for the new organization. Some of them even went around trying to lobby against me. But in order to deliver I needed to change the organizational structure.
How Did You See That Change Through Then with Your Team?
It helped that I came in with new ways of working. For example, I heard that my direct reports were telling their units partially different stories compared to what had been agreed on or discussed in the management team of the department. I then started doing and sharing out management meeting overviews after these meetings. Basically, the whole department was invited for a short overview meeting where I told what we had decided so that everybody heard the same story.
There had been all-department meetings that had been optional, and I made them mandatory. You could only miss if you were ill. I did not allow the use of laptops in these meetings anymore, because I had heard that previously they used the laptops during the meeting to joke on what was being told and to not take part. I also started doing Maija's morning coffees: a regular meet where anybody was allowed to come in and ask whatever questions they wanted.
Were the Meetings Popular and Did You Keep Them as a Routine? What Were the Other Ways You Kept the Team Onboard?
The morning meetings were popular at first, but less so later because I was telling everything already in other meetings—so there was no need to ask again. The two-hour monthly meetings that were mandatory for everyone worked really well. I wanted everybody there to hear the same message from me or from my unit heads, or we had somebody visit. I wanted everybody to be informed. Some people disliked that I made these meetings mandatory, but I had learned from my previous working places that there is no other way. I have had people who worked for me in the past and then left come up later to say that my monthly meetings were the best.
For some people, this all was still not enough. So, I started to write a message to the whole team every now and then. About every three weeks I would send a note on how things looked to me, what things were on my agenda, what things were going on. Some people liked to read more than to listen, and it was important to reach everyone, especially as the team grew twofold in size. I always tried to figure out three main points I wanted to say out in the note: informing them about some progress or change and that they should be prepared for it, giving thanks to somebody, and some intro and outro on the side, and that was the note.
How Did You Keep Things in Focus for Delivery?
We used the Kanban tools. We had targets on the board at all times, and weekly we looked through them in the management group as well as in the unit meetings. We focused on how things were moving forward, what the schedules were, were we meeting the targets, and if we needed to make critical changes. This way I had very clear targets in my mind all the time, once we had agreed what we wanted to take forward.
We had one common Kanban board for the whole department. It was important because then everybody was able to see where we were heading and how things were going. At a monthly meeting after every quarter, we went through all the big programs or targets we had for the department and highlighted in traffic light mode of red-yellow-green how things stood. If anything was in red, meaning late or not doing well, there was explanation also in the notes on the board. When we had success and big things were green, we celebrated. I took quarterly review practice with me from the private sector.
Of course, politicians do come and say that something needs to be done additionally. Then you do have a prioritization issue because if you do not have enough persons, you do have to see what formerly planned things you will just have to do later. Well, it can also happen that you deprioritize and then two months later the minister comes and asks where is the thing that was promised earlier? I did then honestly always say that we had to prioritize. I usually had taken such cases to the political level before, giving them options and asking what we should prioritize if we had to choose. Kanban was also a useful tool to talk prioritization and resourcing through on a management team level within the department, such as when borrowing and moving people from unit to unit.
The Kanban board had a column for proposals that we had not decided yet if we would move forward or not. The proposals were on the level of initiatives that had already had some work in them, but we also included raw ideas as well.
What Were the Principles or Values You Tried to Push Forward to the Team?
I tried to bring in the “yes, we can” culture. I wanted people to think that we could achieve all that we wanted to achieve.
Also, I wanted us to have the customer focus. I started to talk about customers, and the team told me that we did not have customers, because we were the Ministry of Finance! It took some hard talks with the team, but then the 2015 Prime Minister Sipilä's government came in and talked the same way. And nobody spoke against it anymore.
It was important to me that everybody in the team would have their opinion, and that everyone could challenge each other for delivery—until you are not arguing against the person, but on the substance. That was something that the team was not used to. They were even a bit afraid of me or thinking that everything the boss said had to be the truth. I told my team that I expected them to challenge me, too. I dislike if people just say “yes” and “yes” and do not really think so. People did pick it up nicely. I even received some emails