in Life How Did You Manage to Keep the Delivery of Strategy in the Intended Line and Your Focus on the Strategy as Opposed to Current Events? Your Title Changed Half-Way through Your Time in the Office—Why? How Did You Build Your Team? What Key Roles or Competences Did You Look For? What Was Your Selling Argument to Convince People to Join You? What Was the Culture Fit You Were Aiming For in This Team? As a Leader of the Team, What Were Your Principles or Mottos You Kept Infusing? What Were Your Routines to Handle Relationships with Peers or Stakeholders in the Government? You Served under the Government CIO—Later GCDO—Colin MacDonald. How Did You Two Work Together? During Your Term, You Were Able to Raise More Funds for the Work—What Was the Trick to That? You Have Told Me at Some Point That It Is Important to Know When to Lead and When to Follow. How Did That Manifest in Your Work? If You Sum Up Your Term in Office, What Are You Most Proud of as Your Achievements? Do You Think You Had Any Failures? Are There Any Other Regrets You Have? You Already Touched Upon What Made You Move On—the Difference of Views Over the Scope of Strategy. Was That All? What Do You Think Were the Outlying Next Challenges for Digital Government in New Zealand? How Did You Ensure What You Started Would Last? Would You Take the Same Job Ever Again? What Do You See Are the Core Skills Necessary to Do This Job Well for Impact? What Are Your Recommendations to a Good Peer from Another Country—Tim's Friendly Advice for How to Perform Digital Government Leadership Well? Notes
28 CHAPTER 20: Yolanda Martínez How Did You Enter the Field of Digital Government and Become the Leader in it in Mexico? Did You Hesitate at All about Joining the President's Team? Was There Any More Concrete Mission or Deliverable Set for You to Come and Take Care Of? For Background and Context, What Is the Institutional Setting of Digital Government in Mexico? How Did the Decision Emerge That Very Strong Central Coordination Was Exactly What Was Needed? How Easy Was the Transition from City to Federal Level for You? What Were Your First Steps During the First Months in Office? How Did the Initial Agenda Become the Eventual Digital Strategy? What Was the Main Focus or Priority in the Strategy, and How Did You Set Out to Deliver It? How Did You Get the Other Entities Onboard with the GOB.MX Agenda? How Did You Coordinate All These Other Governmental Stakeholders More Widely, Too? How Did This Commission Work as Your Main Governance Body? Setting the Focus Is One Thing, Keeping It Another. How Hard Was It for You to Maintain the Focus on Your Approved Agenda? In Mexico's Digital Government Agenda, Open Government Was Always a Very Big Part. How Did That Come About, Because It Is Not Necessarily the Case Elsewhere? You Have Talked Sometimes Quite a Bit about the Work on Making a Birth Certificate Standard Together with State Governments. What Was That About and Why Was It Important? How Did You Build the Team Out? As You Were Expanding the Team, Who Was Your Most Valuable Hire or Addition? Once You Had the Team, What Were the Principles or Culture You Wanted Them to Follow? Where There Any Routines You Used Regularly to Manage the Team? How Much Did You Spend Time Managing Up, Once the Presidency Was in Full Swing? What Are the Things You Wish Could Have Worked Out Better During Your Time in Office, or Things You Would Do Differently? What Was for You the Hardest Part of the Job? In 2017, You Actually Took the Wider Role and Replaced Alejandra Lagunes as the National Digital Strategy Coordinator—How Did That Come About? What Was Your Trick or Recipe for Attracting Good People to Join Your Team? You Had to Depart with the Rest of the Team When the President Changed after the Next Elections. Were There Any Steps You Took During Your Term Consciously to Make Your Initiatives and Reforms Last? If the Next President Comes Calling, Would You Work the Same Job Again? Is There Anything You Wish You Had Known When You Started the Job? What Are the Core Skills to Be Successful in This Job? What Is Your Summary of What Does It Take to Be Effective in Such a Digital Government Leadership Role? What Would Be Your Recommendations, Concluding from Your Experience?
29 EPILOGUE: How to Lead a Government to Digital Excellence Deliver, Deliver, Deliver Strategy Is Your Job—and Your Opportunity It Is Hard without Proper Political Support It Is a Networked Job and a Job of Networking