The machinery of transformation:

How the Resilient Transformation Model (RTM) can power the shift toward digital government and beyond

The digital government imperative is clear worldwide: the future is personalized, proactive, accessible and streamlined service delivery, underpinned by security, flexibility and scalability. And although the drivers and building blocks for digital government transformation have become increasingly clear and widely discussed, the path to get there is often murky.

Too often, transformation programs stall or fail to deliver expected benefits.
We most often see them fail because:

they lack effective narrative and leadership.
they don’t build the right cultural and organizational structures.
they fail to deliver real outcomes for the people affected.
they are unable to adapt to ongoing change that is inevitable in today’s world.

None of this is due to a lack of desire, effort or skill. What’s often missing is the translation of strategies and designs for the future state into tactical execution and the mechanics for powering ongoing change to reach the vision.

For transformation to be successfully implemented, the gears of transformation need to be connected and turning together, from the macro-level strategy “big gear” to the micro-level execution within the “little gears.” This requires governments to be more targeted and focused in charting their transformation pathway and building the necessary transformation resilience to enable them to make continual progress in the face of change. And it starts with putting the Resilient Transformation Model (RTM) into practice.

Effective implementation of the RTM in large-scale transformation programs does more than help government leaders mitigate the most common risks of program failure. It can also create massive upside benefits for the organization and the people it serves. These benefits include fundamentally delivering changes to the experience for users, creating better, measurable outcomes. It also enables leaders to deliver business impact sooner, with less risk of getting it wrong. And it builds the capacity and the capability for organizational change, creating the conditions for continued future success.

All of these benefits ladder up to the ultimate goal of public-sector transformation—delivering better public services while reducing fiscal pressures.

There are five critical components of the RTM that enable effective digital government modernization and keep the gears of transformation connected and moving in sync. Each one is interconnected and requires interactions between the others to deliver the intended outcomes.

PwC Canada’s Resilient Transformation Model (RTM): Building transformation resilience by keeping the gears of transformation turning, with users at the core.

The five critical components of the RTM:

The RTM is the wrapper that holds together the big gear and the little gears of transformation. The RTM helps to ensure the gears continue to move together cohesively, putting the user at the centre of change, while moving the organization toward the desired end state. Building transformation resilience along the way.