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Broadening horizons through a oneAPS opportunity
Broadening horizons through a oneAPS
opportunity
Nicole Murphy and Belle Hogg – 24 April 2021
Tags:
Capability (/taxonomy/term/398) Service design (/taxonomy/term/64)
The Digital Profession has launched the oneAPS Opportunities pilot – with the first opportunity
being a visual scribing workshop with the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC). We
spoke with 3 participants to get the full story on their oneAPS Opportunity experience.
What is oneAPS Opportunities?
The Digital Profession is trialing a new approach to whole-of-government digital talent
mobility called oneAPS Opportunities. The program aims to help agencies quickly deploy
digital professionals to areas of greatest need, while providing the opportunity to develop
capability within their own staff by allowing them to take on new work.
What the program does
oneAPS Opportunities gives managers access to digital professionals from across the APS for
short-term work. Managers post opportunities – digital professionals can respond, while
staying linked to their home teams/agencies. These forms of placements are supported in the
APS Mobility Framework as ‘Informal Arrangements’.
The opportunity
Adina Lieu is the head of the APS Centre of Excellence for Workforce Planning at the APSC, and
led the development of
Delivering for Tomorrow, APS Workforce Strategy 2025
(https://www.apsc.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/aps-workforce-strategy-2025).
Adina and the team realised they had a skills gap in visual communication, and conceptualising
ideas visually, to make it easier for stakeholders to engage with their program of work.
In response to the need for better visualisaton, DTA visual scribe Belle Hogg was joined by
Chris Wilson (IT System Administrator) from Department of Agriculture, Water and
Environment (DAWE), to deliver a workshop for APSC staff. Chris also dabbles in visual note
taking and cartooning.
Adina and Chris’s oneAPS Opportunity experience
Adina wanted to use APS expertise, rather than go external, so the oneAPS Opportunity and
workshop was the perfect choice. It made organising the training easy and the entire process
was smooth running.
“My team identified clear connections with our work and how we could use the
new skills they were developing, in the way we communicate with stakeholders
across all APS agencies,” said Adina.
In addition, Chris applied to co-facilitate the workshop because he wanted to develop his skills
in visually representing ideas.
“You can always learn something new, just because you're meeting different
people with different experiences and knowledge to share. The practice helps to
hone your skills,” said Chris.
Chris enjoyed the simple online application process - as it didn’t take long to get things
moving. He said that he learnt a lot from the experience and would be taking it back to his
home agency.
“We're also looking at more innovative ways to move forward, so the oneAPS
Opportunity has sparked momentum. I've now got some education on producing
a training module for graphic recording and visual note taking,” Chris added.
Sally and Heather’s oneAPS Opportunity experience
Sally Lowe and Heather Pye work in the APS Centre of Excellence for Workforce Planning. Both
were excited about the workshop but hesitant about the importance for their work - but that
was all about to change.
“One of the challenges in the work that we do is that working across the whole of
the APS is we need to find ways to simplify complex messages. Visual scribing
provides a different way to communicate complex ideas in really simple ways.
There's plenty of opportunity to use this communication method in our team,”
said Heather.
Sally will continue on to do some visual scribing with a colleague, which is part of the rollout of
the Workforce Strategy over the next couple of months.
“As part of our program of work we are piloting some foundational workshops for
workforce planning. One of my team will scribe the sessions and present it back to
our participants as a summary for them,” said Sally.
The oneAPS Opportunity proved a very positive experience, and has already had a strong
influence on the work the team is doing.
Types of opportunities
Running a workshop is just one example of a oneAPS Opportunity. Other examples could be
to:
pull in a developer for a week to develop a prototype for usability testing
get a delivery manager in for a month to start a team on agile delivery
engage a content designer for a couple of weeks to edit and re-design your website
information.
There are many possibilities.
Contact us
To find out more about oneAPS Opportunities visit the
oneAPS website
(https://oneaps.gov.au/about/) or email xxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
(mailto:xxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx)
Nicole is an Event Manager and Belle is a Service Designer at the DTA
© Commonwealth of Australia. With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms and
where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license.
