AT A GLANCE:
Engineering the transformation of Whole of Government (WOG) ICT infrastructure is no easy feat.
Read Arthur’s story of how prioritising upskilling to build competencies has empowered his team to forge ahead with unity to deliver as one.
BACKGROUND:
Meet Arthur, Director of Product Delivery Office under Government Infrastructure Group (GIG) in GovTech. GIG strategises and delivers WOG infrastructure product lines and capabilities that spans across the Digital Workplace Platform. Arthur’s team focuses on product delivery and operations in areas such as endpoint devices and management tools; user productivity and work tools; and WOG network connectivity and infrastructure services.
Arthur has always been inspired by the power of the collective to deliver products and features to enhance productivity. He frequently engages histeam to share ideas, brainstorm and to understand the value and impact of the work they do. He also strongly believes that alignment is key – when the entire team moves as one, they collaborate as one and deliver as one – to implement the products and services that are critical to support public officers and agencies.
NEED FOR UPSKILLING:
GIG was aware that the team needed to pivot to meet evolving business landscape and user needs as part of their product delivery mandate. In 2021, GIG team prioritised upskilling as a key initiative for their officers as part of its efforts to transit from traditional project implementation to a product-centric delivery – one that tightly integrates business requirements, development and operations based on user needs so that teams can continuously enhance and add new features to deliver value to WOG users. GIG worked with GovTech Digital Academy to meet the team’s upskilling priority.
LEARNING JOURNEY:
Situation
Arthur shares that his team was very familiar with the traditional way of project delivery, i.e. waterfall project management. It was critical for the team build competencies to transit from traditional project management to product management and delivery. By building competencies, the team builds their confidence to deliver products that solves users’ pain points.
Task
The team identified the suite of GovTech Digital Academy programmes that were relevant to GIG’s learning needs. GIG worked closely with DA and it’s Learning Partner NUS ISS to contextualise the learnings to GIG’s context, specific for infrastructure product delivery to facilitate the transfer of learnings to practice.
Action
As part of the effort to embrace product-centric delivery for the whole division, GIG Management (Senior Directors and Directors) proactively took the first step to upskill in the product-centric way of delivery – talk about leading by example!
The rest of working team attended a suite of carefully curated Product Management courses by GovTech Digital Academy. To help facilitate the divisional transition, GIG team set aside time and required all members to complete the following suite of courses:
- Service Design (3 days);
- Managing Digital Products (4 Days);
- Digital Product Strategy (3.7 days);
- Architecting Platforms as a Business (4 days); and
- Graduate Certificate in Designing and Managing Products and Platforms - Practice Module (10 days).
Check out Daryl’s success story here – a GIG team member and his learning journey.
Results
More than 100 GIG team members have also completed two of four pre-requisite programmes for the Graduate Certificate in Designing and Managing Products and Platform. To date, 21 staff in GIG completed the Graduate Certificate programme and another 24 GIG staff are currently enrolled as well. Arthur was also named to the NUS ISS CEO’s Honour List for the Academic Year 2022 / 2023 Semester 1!
The impact of upskilling has been observed in team members day to day work with greater emphasis on user needs through service journeys.
Arthur Lee
Director, Product Delivery Office, Government Infrastructure Group (GIG)
GovTech
NEXT STEPS:
Arthur is excited to encourage the GIG Product teams to attend the upcoming Certified Scrum Product Owner programme to attain the certification.
EMBARK ON YOUR LEARNING JOURNEY:
GIG’s story is a testament to the power of investing in your team’s professional development. Keen to embark on your own learning journey?
Find out more about GovTech Digital Academy and our role in building a digital public service workforce. Browse our programmes or connect and take the first step to become the future-ready you :)
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