Digital journey – the first 100 days

In spring 2019, Capacent delivered the results of An assessment of the administration of the City of Hafnarfjörður . The review specifically looked at how to increase the service and efficiency of the operations and activities of the City of Hafnarfjörður through the use of information technology, clearer procedures and a strong working environment. To cut a long story short, the decision was made to establish a new department, the Service and Development Department, to follow up on the findings of the review.

I was appointed Director of the Department and the department was formally established on 1 September 2019. From that day, one could say the town's digital journey began. Today, just over 100 days have passed since the journey began. It has been my intention to map out this journey and share the experience with staff, residents, and others who are interested in following along.

The role of the Service and Development Department

To begin with, I would like to explain how a new field is composed and what its tasks are.

There are around 40 full-time equivalent posts in the sector. Of these, the vast majority, 24, are within cultural institutions. We have 6 staff in customer service, 1-2 in cultural and marketing affairs, 2-3 in communications, and finally 5 staff in the development and IT department. Currently, the development and IT department's projects are largely focused on operations, but in time the department will work closely on the development of digital projects. The communications unit, comprising three staff members, includes a Communications Manager, a Web Manager and a Cultural and Tourism Projects Manager. Direct experience and knowledge of digital projects is largely confined to this unit and the Head of Department.

The core team is therefore small for leading digital transformation in a 30,000-person municipality with 2,000 employees. But it is powerful. This team delivers around 350 news stories a year, creates 20 videos, 14 podcasts (as of September), manages 12 Facebook pages, maintains 22 websites, organises 80 events, and handles the production of promotional material, photoshoots, layout, advertising, etc.

Although a formal team is small by a strict definition, in practice it is much larger, as I will explain in more detail below.

Seven guiding principles

The symbol of the Borough of Hafnarfjörður is the lighthouse. It provides us with guidance through this project. To get through this journey, we need clear signposts. Although they are not yet fully formed, I have outlined a total of 7 guiding principles at the start of this expedition. This number will increase as we go, and their definitions will certainly change somewhat along the way.

• #1 Culture and thought
• #2 Find the people and build a team
• #3 Formulate strategy and prioritise
• #4 Measurements, data and transparency
• #5 Collaboration and knowledge sharing
• #6 Show, don't just tell
• #7 User-centred thinking

#1 Culture and thought

My first few weeks in the job were spent, for the most part, meeting people, getting to know colleagues, familiarising myself with the staff, introducing myself, and gaining an insight into the diverse work of the local authority. If my closest colleagues and the town's management don't understand what „digital“ entails, it's unlikely I'll be able to rally people behind me and achieve success.

I was soon given the opportunity to introduce myself and my vision at a meeting with over 100 of the council's managers. I started monthly divisional meetings, using the first one to share my vision and introduce myself to the department's staff. The divisional meetings, which are held monthly and whose hosting rotates between the division's units, are primarily intended to strengthen team spirit, allow people to get to know one another, and give each unit within the division an opportunity to present its projects and increase cross-unit understanding.

The communication platform Workplace has also proved vital for strengthening this mindset and culture. We launched an offensive there, and today, engagement in groups, posts and comments, and the sharing of general information has greatly improved. Workplace will play a key role in the digital journey.

#2 Find the people and build a team

As is tradition, the new stage manager was given their own office upon appointment. It was cosy but not likely to be productive. One of my first tasks was to get out of the office and find open space for the department's communications unit. At the same time, the web manager, who was based in the IT department, was moved to the communications unit, as it is a key position in the digital transformations ahead.

In the first few weeks, a great deal of time was spent finding the right people; key managers needed to be appointed for the posts of Head of the Development and IT Department and Head of the Library. Similarly, an important task was to identify where to find people interested in digital matters and transformation across all departments. During these first 100 days, teams have been formed for various cross-departmental projects with the task of transforming processes, shaping strategy and prioritising projects.

The team is therefore by no means limited to the service and development areas. All town employees are, in effect, part of the team and will have the opportunity to give their opinion or get involved in specific projects.

In my first few weeks, I met with specialists in other local authorities to explore interest in collaborating on the upcoming projects. In my previous role as a web consultant, I had always been surprised by how little collaboration there is in local authority digital projects. It was so symbolic that shortly after I started, a new position was created at the Association of Icelandic Municipalities whose very role is to assist municipalities and promote increased cooperation in digital projects. So, there is truly a spirit of change in the air. As I had hoped, I was very well received by the local authorities I met with. Not least was the willingness to cooperate strong from our bigger sibling in Reykjavík and our neighbours in Kópavogur. More on those projects later. In recent weeks, the dialogue has increased, and there are all sorts of projects in the pipeline that I will be pleased to be able to tell you about in due course.

The residents of Hafnarfjörður will then play a key role in this mission; dialogue will be engaged in various ways over the coming months and quarters. We are in the process of establishing a residents' council, which we have high hopes for, and we want to reach the widest possible group with the best possible diversity in terms of age, background, gender and status. We have already carried out user testing on two projects to gather the perspectives of residents and other users.

We are also looking beyond Iceland for partners, but recently the undersigned, along with representatives of the Association of Icelandic Municipalities and the head of the IT department for Kópavogur Municipality, travelled to Copenhagen to learn how the Danes have organised their collaboration on digital projects. That trip was extremely successful and will undoubtedly prove very beneficial to us in the future. The Danes, who are about 10 years ahead of us in this area, are certainly willing to assist us.

#3 Formulate strategy and prioritise

If there is no strategy, the path becomes difficult. The strategy of the current majority in the town is to introduce greater efficiency in services and modernise processes. Capacent's review of the council's administration is also a crucial guiding principle, and it outlines various improvement projects which are already being worked on; some are already underway, and others have already been completed.

Work has begun on shaping the council's service strategy with the participation of staff from all departments, and later the involvement of the council, residents and other stakeholders. The group's task is not only to formulate the strategy but also to prioritise improvement projects. Work will proceed swiftly, with the results hopefully to be presented in the first quarter of 2020. The aim is for the strategy to be concise, with the main focus on an action plan.

#4 Measurements, data and transparency

Data on our websites and digital solutions is essential for making the right decisions. It is not an option to guess what users want or do. We have placed a strong emphasis on all kinds of statistics and have purchased access to Siteimprove, a powerful tool that points out areas for improvement, whether it's content quality, search engine visibility, accessibility, privacy, traffic, or the overall quality of the website. With the investment in Siteimprove, we have also made the important decision to monitor the data, process and work with it every week.

In collaboration with the company Web Analytics, we have set up Various dashboards for hafnarfjordur.is which increase transparency, provide us with accountability and help us to tidy up and prioritise tasks. Most of these dashboards are now in the public eye; schools are also receiving dashboards on the usage of their websites, we measure success on social media, and so on.

#5 Collaboration and knowledge sharing

A key to success in this digital journey is getting people to work together. Naturally, we start at home. We have created cross-functional teams across departments and divisions. The aim is to eliminate the typical „silo mentality“ where each unit thinks primarily about itself and its own projects. We look for suitable partners in all areas and seek out expertise that we lack.

As outlined above, a good collaboration has already begun with other municipalities and the Association of Icelandic Municipalities, which until now have collaborated too little on solutions. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. Whether Hafnarfjörður has the best system or solution in Iceland is a secondary matter; it is more important to share solutions, knowledge and expertise. That way, everyone benefits.

#6 Show, don't just tell

We can talk endlessly about the planned expedition, work on strategy, and report on projects in preparation, but if we have nothing to show for it, confidence will fade. My expectations for success are high, but at the same time, I am aware that my team must not be overburdened and it is important to manage expectations. But what have we achieved in the first few months of the new department?

We have followed Capacent's recommendation to establish a feedback portal where residents can submit suggestions to the local council and ensure they are channelled appropriately. We have started this project and are working on it in collaboration with several municipalities. It will be based on the Reykjavík City feedback portal. More on this shortly.

Empowering the town's customer service has also been a key priority. Our aim is for as many issues as possible to be resolved at the first point of contact in customer service and on My Pages, so that people do not have to be referred elsewhere for simple enquiries. The service desk now handles enquiries from staff that were previously dealt with by the development and IT department, such as assisting with password or system access renewals. Customer service staff also have increased access to information from specialists in the Family and Child Affairs department, enabling them to answer enquiries about the progress of residents' cases and thereby saving time for both residents and staff. We have also introduced a reception stand in the service desk where visitors can register their arrival, and a notification is sent directly to the relevant member of staff without the involvement of service desk staff.

Although the service to residents is extremely important, it is no less important to consider internal services and information sharing. We have been strengthening the use of the Workplace communication platform for communication, teamwork and information sharing, and there has been a significant increase in its use in recent months.

We place great emphasis on dialogue with residents and on strengthening participatory democracy. In this area, we have revived a platform that has been little used in recent years, which is The Better Hafnarfjörður website but we anticipate that this platform will play a significant role in the field of participatory democracy in the coming years. In projects such as the promotion of proposals for town centre planning and the shaping of education policy, Betri Hafnarfjörður has been a strong presence.

Other projects include a new version of the town's web viewer, Granna, which we are very proud of. It contains a wealth of information, including the town's planning documents, building plans, service plans, and statistics on transport matters.

We have increased transparency in the dissemination of information, for example by opening a dashboard with live data on the usage of hafnarfjordur.is, as previously mentioned. It is probably unique in this country to have such a dashboard that is completely open with live data.

I have placed great emphasis on making the council's services as visible as possible to residents. To that end, I feel it is important that we introduce the people behind the service. Over fourteen weeks, we have published fourteen interviews with staff working in services and on important projects on the City of Hafnarfjörður's podcast, Vitanum. These interviews provide an opportunity to discuss specific projects and services, and not least to get to know the people behind the service. We are also increasingly communicating news and information through video media, which we are happy to share on social media.

A new recruitment website has been launched, and we now offer a web widget on our pages that allows blind, visually impaired and other users to listen to the website's content.

In addition to these projects, there is a long list of exciting projects in the pipeline that we look forward to revealing more about in the coming weeks, months and quarters. Do stay tuned.

#7 User-centred thinking

What characterises our approach is user-centred thinking. We think about all service projects from the perspective of the users, and therefore the residents. In English, this is often called „design thinking“, „service design“ or „user-centred design“. I have avoided becoming too technical or academic in my approach to the projects, but if anyone misses that when reading the article, then we at Hafnarfjörður Municipality are certainly on board and are eagerly looking forward to following you and reporting back in the coming quarters and years.

We welcome all suggestions on how things can be improved, and we are equally pleased to welcome everyone interested in helping us and taking part, for example, in the forthcoming residents' council of Hafnarfjörður.

Have a good time and a happy holiday, dear readers.

Sigurjón Ólafsson, Director of the Service and Development Department

* This article is largely based on a presentation given by the author at the Siteimprove conference in December 2019.