Considering Labour’s IT led me to this at the Common Knowledge Coop. I was considering ISC2’s Vendor Management policies and how Labour measures up to good practice. Their report on the 2019 General Election Campaign looks at strategy, organisation and digital campaigning. I have not finished the reading yet, but it’s compelling stuff. Here are my notes …
A co-op created a submission to the Labour Together 2019 election review.
- The frontispiece or executive summary as the lazy and self important like to call it, they seek to adopt a no blame approach.
- In lieu of strategy, what a fab name. Part 1.
- System updates required. Part 2.
From In Lieu of Strategy,
“CLP politics needs to move beyond just passing motions. CLPs are too inward focused, meetings are often hostile to new members and are often very procedural and boring.
A canvasser from Walthamstow.
Some fabulous and difficult reading for many including me. CLPs & members are not equipped to undertake even a “business as usual election”. There was no strategy, no agreement on how to win, or even what to say. Huge dissipation of effort in faction fighting and using systems. Community Organising spent too much time doing stuff other than talking to the community and yet was criticised for running persuasive conversations courses. We are obsessed with contact rates and yet make no measure of quality of the contacts database.
Systems Update Required
- IT function is under resourced, poorly organised, and there is no documentation. They reference the Party’s glass door reviews
- Long lead times for engineering new hires because of no documentation
- Closed source means no volunteers
- Dreadful politics of fiefdom which even Watson couldn’t navigate.
- It has a cross between an organogram and systems catalogue.
The McKinsey report identified three digital-culture deficiencies: functional and departmental silos, a fear of taking risks, and difficulty forming and acting on a single view of the customer.”
The discovered facts about the dysfunctional management reinforces the stories from Andrew Fisher’s resignation and the comments on the leaked report and even the EHRC’s comments on lack of process.
See also, this which is my wiki article on the voting analytics of the 2019 General Election.
And check out the ge2019 tagged blog articles and “What dies ‘System Update Reqd’ say about Labour’s IT?” also on my blog.