digital government report
Freedom to innovate
Mobile policing: Building a smarter organisation Tim Willoughby, Head of Digital Services and Innovation at An Garda Síochána discusses the importance of user-led mobile policing and the accelerating impact of the pandemic on building a smarter organisation. Albert Einstein famously stated: “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it”. It’s an approach that resonates with An Garda Síochána’s Head of Digital Services and Innovation, Tim Willoughby, who highlights his understanding that failure to understand a problem will ensure that elements of the problem “will remain well beyond the solution’s inability to solve it”. Addressing and understanding problems before delivering solutions is a principle which Willoughby brought into his current role and to the organisation, from his background as a civil engineer. Similarly, Willoughby recognises the importance of bringing diversity of opinion to digital innovation, stressing the importance of avoiding the common pitfall of groupthink in problem solving. 102
Using one of his first endeavours in the role as an example, Willoughby highlights the ‘mobility project’ which has seen An Garda Síochána utilise smartphones as a platform for change. Willoughby’s team has dedicated significant time to working with diverse innovation groups to define problem statements in mobile technology for the organisation and, from the outset, the Head of Digital Services and Innovation has incorporated frontline gardaí into his team.
alongside other principles such as agile working; solution aware prototyping; feedback loops; real time piloting; and team diversity and open standards. Highlighting a further major switch, Willoughby says, historically, An Garda Síochána’s held firm to its reliance on proofs for concept but have moved to a minimal viable product approach.
Agile
Explaining the approach, he says: “If you think the same, you get the same results, so you need to start thinking differently and the only way to do that is to create different teams than that which you currently have.”
Outlining the reason for an agile approach, Willoughby points to the benefits of short sprints compared to long development cycles, rapid prototyping to address user acceptance, and better business engagement in a siloed organisation, as examples of greater efficiency.
Frontline/end user engagement is a central plank of An Garda Síochána’s approach to innovation in digital mobility,
Another advantage he alludes to is the minimisation of the training process required when integrating new
