Framework
Last updated
Last updated
GovStack focuses a lot on process and people within the implementation journey. Capacity building is a process in which individuals, organizations and societies, develop, strengthen and maintain the skills to implement GovStack’s Building Blocks. Capacity development is not a single intervention but an iterative process of design-application-learning-adjustment.
Capacity building activities include:
Conducting training needs assessment
Engagement of stakeholders on capacity development
Assessment the capacity needs and assets
Formulation and implementation of capacity development response
Evaluation of the capacity development.
Digital government services require a robust and active knowledge management cycle. The knowledge management cycle is a continuous where information is identified, created, shared, stored, utilized. GovStack's knowledge management cycle relies on three critical pieces: people, process and technology.
The key to knowledge management is sharing of information. Sharing knowledge leads to innovation and improvement of the quality of work. Thus, the result is an efficient learning organization where employees' skill sets are constantly improved.
In its ongoing efforts to improve how governments can reap the benefits of digitalization, the GovStack team frequently asks key questions to guide the development of its activities. These questions include; how can governments become more open and transparent, while simultaneously dealing with various challenges, such as data sensitivity? Which technologies are available to make governments more open and to use open government data? How can data be turned into smartness?
The GovStack Initiative strongly believes in the principle to "reuse and improve." We do not have to reinvent the wheel - when it comes to reusing building blocks, but also regarding education material. Many organizations in the field of government technologies as well as Open Source communities and Governments have published readings, guidelines and training material to support public sector digitization. We would like to make use of all this material and channel it to our partner countries looking into increasing their skills and knowledge. These are a few ways to support GovStack Capacity Building:
Creating new training resources
There are still training gaps concerning the whole-of-government approach and the development of digital infrastructure
The starting point of the GovStack approach was the development Communities of Practice in order to share knowledge and experiences between various stakeholders and countries' focal points.
The GovStack approach relies heavily on best practices, experiences and knowledge sharing. The Communities of Practice (CoPs) are topic-related or regional exchange forums to share knowledge and experiences concerning the GovStack approach. The current CoPs are the following:
Aim: Provide an impartial opinion on results provided by the building block working groups.
Opportunities to get involved:
Provide expert guidance to each BB WG
Advise on output formats and mode of work e.g. where to properly document BB specification, suggestion on version control methods/tools, on release and management of end deliverables
Review, validate, approve final deliverables at each milestone
Inform BB WG and Governance Committee of challenges and propose solutions
Additionally, the CoPs seek to learn from other countries such as India and Singapore, as described below:
Excellence center, as an umbrella, is a shared facility or an entity that should provide leadership, best practices, research, support and/or training for a focus area to support GovStack approach.
To complement the practical and theoretical view within knowledge sharing, technical support is also needed. GovStack Tech Community consists of:
Building Block Working Groups (BB WG)
Technical & Operations Group
Technical Committee
This ecosystem also contributes in policy making level by giving valuable insights for the further development of the strategic and policy making standards and documents in terms of digital service design and transformation.
Participate in events to exchange best practices with other e-government leaders and learn from the experience of other countries.
GovStack CoP in cooperation with the
See the recent work:
Apart from the CoPs, the academia has been involved by involving universities such as and Mexico university on board with different research topics in Masters' and doctoral levels. This research gives valuable feedback not only for ongoing projects, but also helps to set a roadmap for future development.
The division has conceptualized “” for the years 2013-15. MeTP intends to build the capacity of central government employees for implementing e-Governance projects.
Subsequently, the National eGovernance Division (NeGD) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), has extensively conducted a research with various key stakeholders and has developed for Digital India with Implementation Toolkit” in the year 2014. This is a crucial document for conducting all the eGovernance Capacity Building initiatives for the civil servants of federal/state/union territory ministries/departments in India.
Singapore is committed to becoming a world leader in digitalization. Capitalizing on the huge potential opened up by technology, Singapore is putting forward an overarching vision that is based on three pillars: , , and . Taken together, these three pillars are responsible for effecting significant shits across all sectors and policy areas.
Citizens:
The Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), Government of Singapore has a set of portfolios to drive the digital transformation. One such is “Digital Readiness” with four strategic outcomes (a) Digital access (b) Digital Literacy (c) Digital participation and (d) Digital inclusion by design. In regard to “Digital Literacy”, the “" blueprint recommends the following.
The recommends raising digital capabilities to pursue innovation so that the government is able to “think fast, start small and act fast” to seize new opportunities. The Government has been deepening its technical capabilities through a Centre of Excellence (or CentEx) for ICT and Smart Systems, where specialist engineering expertise will be grown to support the WOG. The CentEx will house capability centers such as Data Science and AI, ICT Infrastructure, Application Development, Sensors and IoT, Cybersecurity, and Geospatial. The CentEx may expand into new technology capability areas as the need arises – for example, in robotics, VR/AR, digital twins or blockchain.
In Singapore, the Institute of Systems Science at plays a pivotal role in building the capacities of digital leaders and professionals. has been appointed as The Digital Academy (TDA) operations partner, established by The Government Technology Agency (GovTech Singapore) for Whole Of Government (WOG). As Operations Partner of The Digital Academy, NUS-ISS is partnering GovTech in developing training roadmaps and managing the enrolment, logistics, publicity and training processes.
Communities of practice are groups of people working in the same field in government. They bring those people together to share ideas, show their work, solve problems and explore best practice. These include:
Apart from the above CoP's, the Australian Government has established the as part of the Australian Government with the aim to lift the digital capability of the Australian Public Service (APS) to transform government services and build a government fit for the digital age.
The UK as part of their Government Digital Service (gov.uk) has created a set of service manuals and several communities of practice. One of these manuals is a handbook for people developing communities of practice in government -
The Communities of practice are for people who share common job roles, responsibilities or remits. They do well through regular interaction and common goals.
- For anyone with an interest in accessibility.
- For anyone interested in using agile methods to deliver government projects.
- For anyone procuring, designing or managing assisted digital support.
- For anyone involved in content or website publishing.
- For anyone designing and building data products and services.
- For anyone interested in data science best practice and using evidence to make decisions.
- For anyone working in interaction design, graphic design, service design or content design.
- For anyone in the public sector buying digital data and technology services.
- For anyone working with data and analytics.
- Discuss and learn about the role of policy design in government.
- For anyone using product management methods to deliver government products and services .
- For anyone designing, implementing or assessing government digital or technology standards.
- For anyone interested in writing about technology.
- For anyone working in backend development for services.
- For anyone working in frontend development for services.
- For anyone working in technical architecture for services.
- For anyone working in web operations for services.
- For anyone interested in improving user research practices across government.
- For anyone working in user support for services.