Trailblazing UNDPs Digital Transformation – The Case of Kyrgyzstan

Main the way in which

When the Chief Digital Workplace (CDO) launched the Digital Health Programme in February of 2022, our Nation Workplace was one of many first to precise its curiosity in collaborating on this capacity-building programme, designed to drive the digital transformation of our group. Kyrgyzstan’s Resident Consultant, Louise Chamberlain, led the way in which and expressed her crew’s curiosity and ambition to be early adopters and to steer by instance.

Digital Transformation begins with you

We regularly consider giant organizations as impersonal constructs, and unbiased entities by themselves. Nonetheless, every group is the sum of its constituent elements, specifically the those who make it work. Digital transformation, subsequently, just isn’t a course of that merely occurs on an organizational or departmental, or shall we embrace, meta-level. Any change course of should begin with the person and we within the Kyrgyz Republic approached the coaching with precisely this mindset.

Embarking on a digital transformation journey

In mid-September, when Bishkek noticed its final days of gorgeous, sunny autumn, CDO facilitators, Nithima Ducroq and Dhani Spiller arrived on the CO. Previous to their arrival, we stuffed within the Digital Health Programme Survey, offering the trainers with a baseline understanding of our present digital health stage, and permitting them to tailor the content material to the precise wants of the CO.

Viktoria Petrova, Head of Exploration at UNDP Kyrgyzstan Accelerator Lab put it this manner: “A human-centric strategy, which was the core of the coaching program, a well-designed methodology with very sensible steps simulating undertaking design, implementation and influence evaluation mixed with the power and communication expertise of the trainers made the expertise extraordinarily helpful and inspiring for us. The follow-up session with the chance to speak undertaking concepts and obtain extra suggestions already resulted in steady ideation amongst colleagues and utility of the newly generated insights and data on on-going and deliberate actions. This can assist us to make UNDP’s digital provide extra sustainable and built-in and promote digital tradition.”

Producing precise undertaking concepts that may then be additional developed is an important a part of the coaching programme, permitting contributors to use the methodologies and ideas they’re studying on to their work. Which means that we’re gaining not solely new data but additionally are utilizing the coaching time to work on precise initiatives we’re creating.

Through the five-day coaching, the Digital Health Programme addressed our particular wants, considerations, and challenges. We additionally hung out studying the principle steps within the digital product lifecycle, and customary errors – serving to us to keep away from pursuing concepts that find yourself within the “digital options’ graveyard.” The modules that resonated most with contributors had been these protecting person analysis and fascinating finish customers in a co-creation course of, in addition to prototyping actions that helped the groups to find any shortcomings of their undertaking concepts early and permitting them to pivot proper from the start.

“I’ve a whole lot of insights. I favored the detailed directions to develop a sustainable digital answer. As part of hate speech undertaking crew, I realized that it’s extremely essential to check any options internally earlier than we ship it to companions. Prototyping permits us to check concepts rapidly and enhance them in an equally well timed vogue,” mentioned Saltanat Boronbaeva, gender mainstreaming specialist.

A concise coaching programme, such because the Digital Health Programme, can solely present the inspiration on which contributors should then construct upon of their every day work. We developed imaginative and prescient statements for the CO, setting objectives and formulating clear and concise steps to work in the direction of these objectives. And much more importantly, every of us personally dedicated to taking particular steps to be an energetic driver of the group’s transformation. ARR (Assistant Resident Consultant) Erkinbek Kasybekov engaged the CDO crew instantly to grasp the method of UNDP’s provide to governments to implement a Digital Readiness Evaluation with them.

Jenny Jenish Kyzy, Head of Experimentation of UNDP Kyrgyzstan Accelerator Lab shared: “As a design considering practitioner, I’m particularly glad to see Digital Health Programme advocating for the human-centered strategy. We talked to actual shoppers and centered on analyzing issues from shoppers’ views. Inside a brief coaching interval (two weeks), they engaged us in designing 4 completely different initiatives utilizing this mindset and digital instruments. Hopefully, we can experiment with a few of these quickly. By saying this, we proceed our coaching on our personal with the assist of DFP. One other private takeaway is having realized extra concerning the Digital Public Items Alliance co-launched by UNDP & UNICEF. Any further, we all know learn how to discover ready-made digital options which are publicly obtainable on the open-source platforms. Furthermore, I really feel like we, as a Nation Workplace, also can contribute our domestically made digital options to the DPG (Digital Public Items) Alliance. This manner, we will profit the worldwide neighborhood”.

In good previous human-centered design vogue, the Digital Health Programme crew carried out extra analysis with our CO contributors to raised perceive which elements of the programme had been most related and adapt the content material accordingly. The crew is repeatedly reviewing, adapting, and pivoting the place mandatory to enhance the coaching – this strategy is constructed into the roll-out plan of the Digital Health Programme with the intention of delivering it to all nation workplaces. The Kyrgyzstan CO is thrilled to have been among the many first to profit.