CODE FOR VICTORIA VICTORIA. Case Study ENVIRONMENT, LAND, WATER & PLANNING

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1 VICTORIA CODE FOR VICTORIA Case Study In 2016, three teams of three technologists were paired with three Victorian government agencies and departments. Tasked with solving civic problems with technology, they worked for six months to create change through innovation. ENVIRONMENT, LAND, WATER & PLANNING

2 PAGE 1 INTRODUCTION Introduction Digital transformation is driving some of the biggest changes we are experiencing in society. These changes, however, have been largely experienced in the private sector, which has lead to: - public disengagement and distrust in government services - a lack of investment in government technology - cultural barriers between public servants, industry and citizens Code for Australia believes that governments can capitalise on the opportunities digital transformation presents, and work together with the public to find new solutions to old problems. The Code for Victoria program was an initiative funded by the Public Sector Innovation Fund and run by Code for Australia that created opportunities for ordinary citizens to use their skills to help improve Australian society, and transform government from the inside out. Victorian Government departments and agencies were invited to nominate technology-based challenges. Three of these departments were then paired with a team of technologists for six months to tackle the challenges collaboratively. The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) was one of the three departments chosen by Special Minister of State, Gavin Jennings and in August 2016 was paired with technology fellows, Veronica Farias, Johan Codinha and Fred Michna. Parks Victoria was also invited to participate in the project as a primary user. Over 26 weeks the team worked to find better ways to engage citizen scientists in the collection of biodiversity data across Victoria. This is the journey of what they discovered, what they created and most importantly what was learned along the way. 1

3 PAGE 2 THE CHALLENGE Innovation is kind of hard to grasp. Senior Biodiversity Curator, Mel Hardie, looks after the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas (VBA), a statewide database of all wildlife sightings and distribution. The VBA is used to analyse changes in wildlife over time and inform decision making, investment and planning. While a robust tool in its own right the VBA used technology that was almost a decade old, making it clunky and difficult for people to use. DELWP s core principles include leveraging the experience and ideas of others, connecting effectively with users and communities, and ensuring contributors feel included and their input valued. Unfortunately the technology the VBA was using didn t meet these aims. While it was clear that change was needed, the path to innovation was uncertain. Mel explains, being government organisations we get very stuck in the way that we re doing things and innovation is kind of hard to grasp. Code for Victoria presented the perfect opportunity to try something different and shake things up a little bit. Discovery: giving back to those who gave The main task the fellows were directed with was to improve the ease with which people were able to submit biodiversity data. Johan and the other fellows quickly identified that citizen scientists were giving time and energy to submit biodiversity data to the system and getting very little back in return. Johan explains: they spend a lot of time looking at possums, looking at birds, looking at plants in their spare time and then they give away data for the government. Up until now, they got nothing in exchange. So we built tools but we also tried to provide something that they can use in return. That s the goal: if you give something, we give you something back. 2

4 PAGE 3 TRANSFORMATION Community Engagement The team designed and tested with DELWP users regularly to make continuous improvements The fellows are amazing people with fresh ideas and new approaches. They re incredibly dedicated as well, they re always thinking about how to improve and finding better functionality for things. - Mel Hardie The fellows introduced new ways of working to DELWP. By focussing on a user-centered design approach and using agile methods, the department discovered not only new practices of working, but also developed new capabilities amongst the team. Embracing Technology DELWP adopted new technology platforms to build collaboration, transparency, and clarity Validated Concepts The fellowship team demonstrated and proved the benefits of remote work and agile methodologies Community engagement The fellows took a user-centered design approach reaching out to citizen scientists, Parks Victoria rangers and other contributors to find their pain points and inviting them to contribute to the design process. A historical lack of openness around IT projects had established a lack of trust and engagement between DELWP and the biodiversity community. The fellows focused on building trust and connection with users by holding testing sessions, interviewing users and incorporating their feedback into an iterative design. Embracing technology The fellows also introduced new technology platforms to the team at DELWP. Using tools like Slack and Trello, the fellows were able to demonstrate the value of cloud-based platforms, and highlight best practices for using them to achieve transparency, collaboration and clarity. Mel now uses Trello as an interactive way for sharing ideas across the team and keeping on everyone on track with what we re doing. Validated concepts Working from the DELWP office, on site and at the Code for Australia HQ meant the fellowship team was often physically divided and needed to use digital platforms to communicate and allocate tasks. This provided a practical demonstration for DELWP of some of the elements that enable successful remote working. Mel has seen this as a positive example at a time that government has committed to transitioning to more flexible ways of working: It really helps to know that you don t all have to be co-located to work effectively as a team. 3

5 PAGE 4 SPEEDBUMPS No challenge is without its hurdles: here s how empathy helped the team overcome the obstacles they faced. Lessons learned by the fellows... Johan Codinha: You will learn from your users and will have to educate your stakeholders, particularly with concepts they re not familiar with. And, make sure you have a backup plan because Murphy s Law. Veronica Farias: Don t forget what brought you together. Never forget that we are dreamers who want to do things, thinking of the common good. Fred Michna: Empathy with citizens will be the hardest part of your work because our fears can get in the way of our ability to be confronted with another reality. 4 Access and approval As Mel explains, to enable innovation projects you need to have a really good space in which people can start interacting and playing with technology rather than it being all the red tape and procedures where you can go six months without a project being finished. Apprehension of engagement Interacting with the biodiversity community in a way that was honest was a vulnerable experience for DELWP. Building connections with users and seeing the fellows use feedback, both good and bad, helped to emphasise the value of engagement. Redefining expectations When you re working with records from the seventies, there s thousands of records. Redefining the expectations of those from a non-technical background of the power required to process that data was overcome with time and a lot of discussion.

6 PAGE 5 THE OUTCOMES What the team achieved in twenty-six short weeks. 6 months and 20 sprint cycles later... The program not only succeeded in creating a prototype that makes it easy (and significantly quicker) for citizen scientists to contribute to the database, but also exposed the department to new ways of learning, reinvigorated energy in the sector and reframed their thinking. The technology itself The fellows successfully built a mobile web application that has reduced the average time taken to record biodiversity data from 4 minutes and 12 seconds, to just under 2 minutes - making the process 225% faster than before. The mobile nature of the tool means citizen scientists are able to participate in data collection efforts from almost anywhere in Victoria. The fellowship has also been extended to continue work on a feature that allow users to more easily access recorded data from the area they are visiting. Learning experiences The project enabled the fellows to broaden their skillset and also gave them valuable insights into working with government. For Johan, the greatest benefit was the learning experience, because you arrive with very specific skill sets and end up doing a bit of everything. The project also allowed DELWP to experience a completely new way of breaking down a problem, and experimenting to find a solution. Mel found that it opened up our eyes on better ways of dealing with innovation and technology, whereas our old approach gets quite weighted and heavy, this process is light. Changing mindsets The team implemented an iterative approach which rapidly gathered feedback and used it to shape their next steps of the design process. This required DELWP to work in the open and engage users in the design approach, necessitating a radical shift in thinking about failure and how it is measured. Mel explained it as shifting from seeing failure as a catastrophe to seeing it as an opportunity to learn or explore a new directions. Renewed energy The project has brought renewed vigour and enthusiasm to biodiversity. Mel explains, from the stakeholder s end, everyone is just so excited about the application we re delivering it s injected more warmth and more engagement around the sharing of wildlife data, which is great for the state. 5

7 PAGE 6 THE ROAD AHEAD Change only happens when ordinary people, from all walks of life, get together and make change. When we, as talented citizens, roll up our sleeves and put to practice our democracy. - Alvaro Maz 6

8 To find out how Code for Australia Fellowships are tackling other public sector challenges, head to: codeforaustralia.org Created by Code for Australia codeforaustralia.org