The Toronto Police Service Taskforce ("TPS") on Transformation recently issued its interim report entitled, The Way Forward: Modernized Community Safety in Toronto.
RedMobile was honoured to have the opportunity to share our thoughts on digital transformation with the TPS, especially as it relates to the introduction of digital technologies that would enable the digitally "connected officer" of the future.
The recent interest in and use of video footage from body-worn cameras ("BWC") is just one example of the potential impacts of digital and the importance of having a human-centric (community and police officer) approach to digitally transforming the police service.
This approach enables enhanced trust between the community and the police service and ensures that the important considerations of both parties is incorporated into the implementation.
We summarize some of our report here and ask that you contact us for a copy of the complete submission.
The Goal: Transformation and the Pursuit of 10x
Transformation requires achieving substantial change! The most innovative organizations that undergo transformation attempt to achieve “10x” improvement. That is 10-times the improvement from where they were prior to transformation!
This means that transformation sets high improvement targets (not just stretch goals) and when you shoot for the stars with colossal goals, there is potential for colossal failures if the transformation is not done right.
The Challenge: Rapidly Changing & Disruptive Technologies
In today’s era of rapid evolution, the emergence of new disruptive technologies that come about and quickly gain adoption - makes selecting the “best” technology an almost impossible task – as by the time the technology has been fully implemented (especially in a large public-sector organization encumbered with policies and long processes), it is likely that the technology has already being superseded by another much better technology. Thus, while historically, we have used “roadmaps” to understand the trajectory of evolving technologies, this has become very challenging as new, previously unknown technologies emerge and quickly scale up to large adoption.
Hence, the “best” technology today will be superseded tomorrow, and the challenge is to come up with the right solution and its roadmap that stands the test of time.
The Greater Challenge: Getting to a Knowledge-Driven Organization
A major catalyst for transformation is the increasing degree of inherent intelligence being incorporated directly into edge devices, smart-machines and connected “things” (the “internet of things”). These are further progressing in two ways. Firstly, there is a lot of development in autonomous machine-driven decision making, and secondly, there is also development in better human-machine interface. 
In most organizations, and definitely in the case of the TPS, human-driven decision making is essential, in fact, it is the policy and where applicable, it is part of the law. Thus, as more intelligent devices, machines and things are introduced into policing, it becomes imperative to not only have the right policies and procedures around the use of the data collected, but also when it is collected, how it is collected, where it is stored, how it is used, etc. In the instance of body-worn cameras ("BWC"), one can quickly see the complexity and limitation of things like battery life on when data is collected and for how long. More importantly, the use of this data to derive beneficial information, knowledge and even decision making actionable intelligence (“wisdom”) become central to the whole purpose of having BWC in the first place.
The Approach to Getting There: Design Thinking
RedMobile proposed that TPS consider using Design Thinking, which provides a highly effective, efficient and proven manner in which to approach Digital Transformation by following a human-centric approach.
Design Thinking looks at three key elements to determine an approach to the solution. These are:
- People – is the solution desirable?
- Business – is the solution viable?
- Technology – is the solution feasible?
The three provide a measure of how desirable the solution is in the eyes of the intended customers and users of the solution; what business and organizational changes (policy, process, governance, financial, etc.) would be needed to deliver the solution and how achievable they are; and, what technology approach best fits the bill and is this technology possible to be used.
Conclusion
In summary, Design Thinking provides a good understanding of the public and police officer points of view; the user experience considerations; the business process, policy, funding, and operations considerations; as well as several technology impacts and considerations.
In addition, one can identify impacts different ways of how data will be collected, stored and used.
This approach to Digital Transformation through use of Design Thinking needs to be followed prior to coming up with the requirements that go into a procurement process. This enables the organization undergoing transformation to mitigate risks.
Please contact us for a complete copy of the report.
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About the Author
Dawood Khan is the founder of RedMobile, an innovative consultancy that is a trusted advisor to the world's leading public and private sector organizations. Mr. Khan has been providing Management, Innovation and Technology consulting services and advising executives and business leaders for over 23 years. He is an Industry expert in business and digital transformation, and use of smart, emerging and legacy technologies to innovatively meet business goals. He has worked with clients on developing mainstream innovation focused strategies, plans, business cases, get funding for capital projects, and develop technology investment and RoI assessments for clients in several different sectors including municipalities, retail, financial institutions, public safety, and telecom carriers to name a few.
Mr. Khan also helps organizations plan and execute their Digital Transformation journey through use of Design Thinking best practice to rapidly prototyping and iterate through the process of going from concept to proof-of-concept, and to commercial deployment of new services and products. His recent work includes planning and developing strategic roadmaps for large smart city initiatives, intelligent infrastructure asset planning, customer engagement using emerging tech (FI/FinTech), Retail digital customer experience design, public safety broadband network plan, funding and partnership models for DBOFM projects, proof-of-concept prototyping using IoT, Analytics, Cloud, and Mobile all as part of one application.
Mr. Khan has a Master of Electrical Engineering Degree from Columbia University, N.Y.; a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering from Carleton University, and is a practicing CMC and Professional Engineer.
Twitter: @redmobileconsul
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/red-mobile-co
Facebook: facebook.com/RedMobileCo
A version of this blog was first published here - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/toronto-police-service-transformation-consultation-khan-cmc-p-eng-?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish
