Diagnose Your Needs

Overview

Having identified where your organisation is at in relation to digital development through the audit, the next step of the AmbITion process is to think about where you would like to be, what you would like to achieve and to diagnose what IT and digital developments you will need to implement to get to where you want to be. Like the audit, the diagnostic stage is best done as a full team to ensure that cross-departmental and strategic factors can be considered. The diagnostic stage works really well as a 1/2 day brainstorming session, starting with a presentation of existing good practice from the cultural and creative sectors. Beware: this session could change the future of your organisation!

Watch the case study video of AmbITion organisation Writers' Centre Norwich (or read their story).

Understand the Digital Opportunity

Remind everyone of the headlines from the audit.

Create a presentation of existing good practice in digital development to share with colleagues: look at what other organizations have done around the following topics:

- Artistic product development

- Organisational development

- Audience development

- Business development

Alternatively, you could set up a guided online tour for colleagues: Delicious bookmarking is a great way to share links.

For resources for the presentation or guided online tour, see the Case Studies of existing good practice at getambition.com/resources.

Hannah Rudman’s overview presentation about the Digital Opportunity from the 2009 AmbITion Roadshow is a useful resource, as are the articles on getambition.com.

You might like to look further than the cultural sector to the wider creative industries: what have media and publishing companies done? What about the Museums and Galleries sector?

The AmbITion resources Developing a successful digital marketing plan video and the How To… Make money guide might well give you some ideas to throw into the brainstorm. Also, check out the latest discussions on the AmbITion network Digital Doctors Forum.

Diagnostic

After the presentation, people’s creative ideas should be flowing! Its time to get them all down. Here are a couple of techniques you could use to capture the ideas.

Key Techniques You Might Use:

Brainstorming

You might like to use big sheets of paper and have a scribe who runs round whilst people talk; you might like to get individuals to write ideas onto sticky post-it notes, and then go through them all as a group, clustering ideas. The headings for clustered ideas, or the big sheets of paper might be broad (eg. artistic product, operations, audience development, business models). Questions people should try and answer in relation to the headings are:

- What are your current digital/IT needs in these areas?

- In an ideal, money-is-no-object world, what do you want to achieve?

- How could digital enhance or facilitate these aims?

- What, generally do you want to achieve? (eg. thinking about audience development – more audience, more global participation, etc.)

- How could digital enhance or facilitate these aims?

User-state journeys

Another useful technique is to create user-state journeys in groups. Each group should take on the identity of a typical existing user of the organisation. You could give that user a name, age and brief description (“Suzy is a 38 year old mother of 2 under 5’s. She currently enjoys coming to our café, buys all her presents at our shop and when she can get a baby sitter brings her husband along to the Christmas show.”) Suzy is the user, her description is her state. The journey she is to go on is in a year’s time, when the organisation has implemented the digital developments just brainstormed. Think about what the user wants to do and why, what aspects of that happen digitally, and what aspects of that interaction with your organisation are newly digital or enhanced by digital. You could create and tell a story of a day in life of … Suzy, etc. For an example, see Hannah Rudman’s video of 2011 story.

As you tell the stories to each other, the digital and IT needs to make the ideas possible should be teased out and noted down under the broad headings. Someone should then write-up all the ideas captured under the broad headings. These should then be shared with the team.

Prioritise your wish list

From your brainstorm write-up you will have a number of IT and digital development aspirations under broad headings. Highlight developments that are interrelated, such as database development or that cross headings, such as digital content development. These developments should be prioritised as strategic. What others stand out as being essential for getting your organisation or business up to speed? Also prioritise these.

Note whether the development is:

- Short, medium, or long term?
- High priority or low priority?
- Affordable?

(eg. a poor internet connection is short term but high priority; whereas a new online ticketing  system may be high priority  but long term. Software upgrades might be low priority mid term  – “it’d be nice/easier to have”).

How would any planned digital development change your organisation?  Describe how the development may impact on your organisation’s artistic, operational and business functions.

Finally, think about whether a development is achieveable – you will have had some ideas that are “blue skies”. Whilst its tempting to think about these first as they seem the most exciting, in fact they are probably the most risky. Raising your technology base generally over each area of the organisation will provide you with a stable base on top of which cutting-edge digital developments can then be experimented with. In relation to blue skies ideas, consider:

- Is anyone else doing something similar?

- In your sector?

- In different sectors but with similar processes/audiences/product?

- If yes, investigate the existing good practice (see resource list, below)

- If no, research and find evidence for what is the general consensus about the technology you might be planning to use? (Is it considered stable? Cutting edge?)

- What future business opportunities does your planned development address?

- What relationship is there between the digital developments you have undertaken to date and what you propose?

Make Decisions

At this stage you are ready to make decisions, and start to make your business case.

First you will need to justify how your digital development wishlist meets your original aims. Write simple higher-level specifications – eg.

“We want a website that does… 5x bullet points”

- What evidence do you have that the digital development is worth investing in?

- What would be the main benefits/advantages, in the short, medium and long-term: to you; to your audience; and, to the wider sector?

Secondly, have you identified any important risks? (e.g. intellectual property or contractual issues around what is proposed?)  Have you sought advice to mitigate risks?

Allocating resources

What do you need to achieve it?
- Kit (hardware, software)?
- Person power?
- Content (do contracts need looking at)?
- Training?

Consider what staff time will be required
- one-off (eg. implementation, training)
- ongoing

Consider what additional expertise will be required
- Consultants
- Project manager for implementation
- Website or database designers
- Other suppliers

Milestones & planning

How are you going to do it? Create a timeline and milestone path to achieving your aspirations.

What’s Next

Having considered what developments you are going to undertake and why; and how you are going to do it, its now time to construct your formal business case. This will encourage you to distil your plans into a short format that will concisely make the arguments – your case – for why you are suggesting investing in digital developments.