How DigiGrow works

In DigiGrow, prototyping is applied to enable digital transformation in parallel with daily operations. The setup in DigiGrow allows leaving the beaten track while still keeping core operations in check. The prototyping has a clear place and connection to the participant’s everyday work life will mean that they have a good chance to survive in the organization once the DigiGrow project is over. In order to learn as fast and cheaply as possible, the project focus is heavy on the application of prototyping. The participating municipalities get to test the use of digital tools in actual, current planning cases that is part of the everyday processes. Work is carried out in two parallel tracks by the management team and the so-called innovation teams.

The DigiGrow program starts with a situational awareness module to help management teams navigate and get comfortable with exploration. The key is to tie the prototyping activities to goals and visions that already exist for the municipalities. During an intense lunch-to-lunch session the management team workshops their way through external analysis, vision development, and goal setting. The final exercise and the main outcome of the workshop are building goal trees. The trees show the goals, key success indicators, and necessary states to help suggest an exploration route for the innovation teams and to connect the exploratory work to the existing process and goals. The tree gives us a way to follow up and see where we need to put in efforts if we are to reach our overall goals. The overall goal in this context is of course a completely digital experience in the processes we investigate.

Details of the implementation

From a governance perspective, we need management teams to point out the purpose of digitizing a certain process and which goals matter most to the organization - to give the general direction of the desired digital transformation and prototyping activities. This is captured in the goal tree and is a big part of why a DigiGrow program gives meaningful results.

Once the direction is set we activate the innovation teams. Their assignment is to explore how the goal can be reached and to further investigate potential risks and rewards along the suggested path.

For the innovation team, the DigiGrow program consists of a series of digital test labs followed by a design sprint. During the test labs, the innovation team gets to test-run existing local data through cutting-edge digital tools for urban planning (generative design, 3D visualization platforms, etc.). This allows them to experience how a continuous digital information flow could work. The purpose is to visualize what is technically possible today to help the team understand how the tested technologies could change and improve current processes. During the design sprint, the innovation team designs and builds a prototype of a potential future process and tests it on real users. The purpose is to evaluate, with real users, how current city planning processes could be improved by the use of digital tools and methodologies. After the design sprint, the innovation team shares their learnings with the management team, and together they can reevaluate the suggested route of the goal tree -  have we found proof it is viable? Can we plan for implementation or do we need to learn more?