Docusign Exchange keynote: Making digital change last

Discussion about digital change hit fever pitch at Docusign Exchange in March. The APAC event saw leaders from across industries join us to explore how to move beyond experimentation with digital strategy; and into impact. 

One of the highlights was the keynote, where global pioneer The Hon. Victor Dominello sat down for a fireside chat with Docusign’s Ed Knott to discuss human-centered digital strategy. Dominello, who is now CEO of the Future Government Institute, has been credited with helping NSW to become a global leader in digital government services and had some fascinating insights to share with our audience on how to make digital change stick.

You can watch the full event on-demand now or read on for our takeaways from the keynote.

The red thread through the fireside chat was the pioneering work that Dominello did within Services NSW in delivering real change like the Digital Driver Licence (DDL). Reflecting on his experience, Dominello put its success down to a number of elements – each of which can be applied by any organisation looking to embark on a bold new journey with AI.

Here are Dominello’s tips for organisations wanting to move beyond experimentation with AI:

• Pursue the four quadrants of agility – That is, agile data, decisions, funding and thinking. This agility is essential in the AI age, to firstly unlock the data that’s critical to power AI initiatives, and to then unlock the collaboration, budget and ‘systems thinking’ approach required to get the job done.  

• Patience and persistence – As Dominello said, “Dream big; build small.” Starting a project can be the hardest part, and then it’s about building momentum and moving through multiple pilots to get to where you want to be. 

• Teamwork and collaboration – Big change requires teamwork and collaboration. If everyone can see you working on the small stuff, they’ll give you permission to do the big stuff.

• Measure success – From the first pilot, start measuring. The more metrics you can bake into it, the more likely you are to get more funding. Start with the subjective, like “Are people happy?” Then, look at objective scores like time savings, cost savings, or improved productivity. 

• Don’t just “sprinkle AI dust” – Doing a little bit of AI here and a little bit there is not systems thinking. In fact, using AI to solve a single problem could just cause a bottleneck elsewhere. Instead, identify big problems that could be solved with AI and explore how to get started on these instead. 

As Dominello said, “There’s a lot of agitation and discussion about AI, but people don’t know where to start. The best thing to do is to try something. Do some pilots and get your toe in the water. You don’t want to be left behind.”

Wise words indeed. For his full keynote, along with all the other breakout sessions from Docusign Exchange, visit here.