(soft acoustic music)
- I'm Genene Bageas.
I'm the director of PPSR strategy and operations,
and I work for the Australian Financial Security Authority.
Our nomination was around our quick motor vehicle search
that we have introduced,
we did a significant improvement
on our quick motor vehicle searches.
When we got the PPSR,
the register essentially we were handed over
and it was very much built around the legislation.
Once we started actually using it in operation,
we have a service centre here in Adelaide,
we started getting a lot of feedback from users
who were really having difficulty using the system.
They found the language quite complex,
terminology was not easy to understand
and the actual process itself wasn't very intuitive,
there were a lot of things they were expected to know,
a lot of assumed knowledge.
So it was our staff on the floor
who were the ones that raised it to us
and said there were some real improvements
that could be made in that product,
and that's where we got the idea to start making changes
and try and deliver something better for the user.
I think the key barrier for us was in government
everything is so heavily set in the legislation,
there's a real fear to move away
from legislated terms and concepts
because people are unsure over the risks
that might be attached to that down the long path.
We really worked hard,
we got together a group of our legal team
and our communications team
and we actually got external input in
to help us really come up with terms
that meant something to the simple user,
that still aligned with the legislation,
and that was probably the first start for us
in being able to overcome those challenges.
This was the first time
we really brought everybody in together,
including our stakeholders,
we have a very good connection with our stakeholders.
We brought everyone together
and I think that was the real point for us
that allowed us to drive forward and make change.
There was a high risk of failure.
I think one of the benefits we'd had is
because implementing the PPSR was such a significant change,
it was taking so many pieces of legislation
and so many existing registers into one single register.
It was huge and so there were a number
of legal and technical issues
in being able to deliver that product.
So because we had experienced some of those issues,
I think people were more comfortable
in engaging with that risk
cause they'd seen that we'd come through it
and we'd done it successfully.
So there was willingness to listen to
what stakeholders were saying
and to be able to give it a try.
Innovation wasn't something that was highly talked about,
especially in government circles,
when I first started here,
but there's a real embracing of that.
We have a national contact centre here in Adelaide,
that was the driving force for innovation here.
We created our own innovation programme, which is Light Bulbs,
hence the light bulbs we have behind us.
And it was about coming up with ideas
and having the staff on the floor
really drive the changes that we need to see,
and we've been really fortunate to have
a great group of people who really embrace that.
We recognised it, we rewarded it,
we celebrated every success.
And we've actually now been able
to implement that right across the agency,
so we now have innovation champions
across each of our business lines.
And they meet regularly and they're talking about ideas
and they're really starting to drive change.
We build it into every single day.
We have the NRNR scheme
that we use to recognise people monthly
and we actually talk about the ideas
that have come up over the course of the month.
We have it built in to their one-on-one discussions,
so people who have brought up ideas,
they actually get to talk about those with management
and be able to explain their ideas
and get recognition for that.
The staff love to see their name out there,
they love to get the recognition for the work they've done
and so those things just drive more and more ideas.
Be willing to look for new ideas
and put forward your suggestions
and every time you do it
not all of them are going to be accepted,
but don't let that stop you.
Don't expect that ICT is going to actually be the solution.
ICT is the enabler and quite often
we get caught up in waiting for a new system
that's going to suddenly change the way we do everything.
You can actually make 90% of the changes you need to make
by changing the behaviours and the cultures
and the processes around the ICT.