Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the ICT design community. The crucial message is that for guidance to be
applied appropriately and to achieve the change intended, it has to be in-
corporated into a coherent change programme. The same principle applies
to the strategies presented in this topic: they can only succeed within the
context of planned systemic change.
Following from the above, the assumption underlying the strategies
formulated in these three chapters is that knowledge and understanding of
the reasons and the need for change supersede and underpin everything
else. Education and organisational support to develop human skills and in-
stitutional resources are seen as essential for achieving the envisioned
scale of systemic change involved in achieving a shift in focus of ICT de-
sign methods and approaches. In other words, building capacity and devel-
oping organisational infrastructure must take priority.
To effectively 'embed' citizen engagement into ICT development pro-
jects it must become a mainstream, rather than a marginal or peripheral
part of the development process. Transforming ways of doing things
throughout an institution usually comes about through a gradual evolution-
ary process. Thus, strategies for building capacity and developing organ-
isational infrastructure must also take account of the need to achieve
longer-term cultural change.
The proposed strategies apply at three different levels:
the institution
(e.g. local council, government department, hospital, retail business etc),
the
ICT project
, and
wider society
respectively. This chapter addresses
the process of institutionalizing changes at the organizational level which
are necessary to bring about a shift in focus of ICT design. Chapter 9,
'Tools and techniques' presents staff working at the project level with an
awareness of the very many, highly varied and innovative resources avail-
able globally. These are valuable in developing their capacity to carry out
job responsibilities relating to citizen engagement/participation.
The final chapter 'Achieving a culture of participation and engagement'
considers strategic change of a quite different kind and of a far greater
magnitude than is required at project and organisational levels. To funda-
mentally alter the way we all think about technological development and
our role in the future shaping of our digital world is clearly extremely chal-
lenging. Change on such a scale cannot happen without the high level
leadership and the support of very many stakeholders - both individuals
and institutions. Only with the leadership and enthusiasm of influential
bodies and individuals with the power and political will to transform estab-
lished ways of doing things can ambitious institutionalized change occur
on a societal scale. Some possibilities for embarking on this journey are
discussed in Chapter 10.
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