Better balance needed for human-centric digitalisation

Design and innovation studio Mentally Friendly has urged government and public sector organisations to find a better balance between strategy and action, to build more human-centric digital devices. Mentally Friendly brought together stakeholders from across government, private and community sectors at its New World Services Conference, to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with designing digital services in a COVID-affected world.

Mentally Friendly Canberra founder Anthony McGinness praised the public sector’s rapid digitisation of services and called on government to use this as an opportunity to continue delivering on its promise to the public through services that deliver human value.

“We continually observe decision-makers that feel as though they need to compromise between doing things right now and doing things the right way. So much has been done to digitise public services already. The challenge is to do more than mimic in-person interactions on digital channels; they need to reassess what the services look like and ensure their primary objective is to put human value at the centre,” said McGinness.

McGinness said that, when designing human-centric public services, leaders can bridge the gap between ‘the now’ and ‘the future’ by providing an environment that fosters learning by doing.

“It is really important that, as leaders and managers, you look for opportunities in delivering your BAU, your doing, to embed structured and deliberate opportunities for learning. Because we are never too busy to put off learning,” said McGinness.

The panel ‘Building capability while delivering on our promise to the public’ discussed the digital progress made as a result of COVID-19 and the importance of not reverting back to ‘business as normal’.

“There has been great momentum generated within the public sector and we don’t want to lose that. The better future isn’t something you can sit and wait for; we won’t get there unless we actively make it so,” said McGinness.

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