DIGITAL GOVERNMENT EXCELLENCE
LESSONS FROM EFFECTIVE DIGITAL LEADERS
Siim Sikkut
Copyright © 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sikkut, Siim, author. | John Wiley & Sons, publisher.
Title: Digital government excellence : lessons from effective digital leaders / Siim Sikkut.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2022] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022000945 (print) | LCCN 2022000946 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119858874 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119858898 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119858881 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Internet in public administration.
Classification: LCC JF1525.A8 S58 2022 (print) | LCC JF1525.A8 (ebook) | DDC 352.3/802854678—dc23/eng/20220304
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000945
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000946
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © phototechno/Getty Images
To all the digital government doers—wherever and whoever you are
PREFACE
Digital government is an increasingly hot topic around the world. That is why there is a growing body of knowledge and a growing circle of consultants helping governments to develop their digital strategies as well as put in place the governance mechanisms for its delivery.
As we have seen so many times in so many places around the world, good plans and even right institutions alone do not cut it—if the right teams and, especially, the right leaders are not there to make the most of them. Still, surprisingly little know-how has been available about the good practices and insights on how to practically lead governments to next levels of digital transformation successfully.
I have had the luck and privilege of meeting many excellent digital government leaders as colleagues and peers along my own professional journey of leading this field in Estonia, a country with more than twenty years of digital government track record to show. Each time we have had a chance to properly sit down and talk eye-to-eye, we eagerly pick each other's brains and ask for advice or for each other's practical methods on how to lead our government's digital change the best way.
This book was born from the desire to bring such candid, peer-to-peer conversations to a wider audience. There simply are many, many more of us, the digital government doers who could hopefully benefit from these insights. If it helps to advance the digital services and governance anywhere in the world a tiny bit, it already has served its purpose.
In this book you have conversations with twenty remarkable digital government leaders from around the world, each sharing their journey and lessons in their own words. It was a pure delight to have these chats with them; I myself learned from each one even if I have known the person for a long time.
I hope you will find their lessons valuable, too. If you even get only one idea for your work from each chapter, you will have at least twenty tried-and-tested good ideas to add to your own practice or suggest to your clients by the time you finish this book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the twenty remarkable digital government leaders who are featured here with interviews. They all agreed to be included as soon as I asked, which is a great honor. They all contributed exactly what I knew they would: their leadership wisdom through practical insights, their hard lessons, and their happy learnings. They also patiently went through the pains of reviewing the transcripts. Thank you for being my peers, and my friends! I keep learning from you, even if you may not be in government anymore.
Barbara Ubaldi from OECD, David Eaves from Harvard Kennedy School, Linnar Viik, and my brother-in-arms Kristo Vaher, Estonian government's Chief Technology Officer, were instrumental in encouraging me to move the book from idea to proposal by sparring with me on the concept and content plan at inception of the idea.
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