digitalpolicyreadinglist

Reading list for government policy people interested in digital

My original reading suggestions were:

• The Agile Manifesto, 2001
• Government as a platform, Tim O’Reilly, 2010
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S. Raymond, 1997
• Software is eating the world, Marc Andreessen, 2011
• New Power, Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms, 2014
• Government Digital Service design principles, 2012
• Government as a platform, or a platform for government? Which are we getting? and  What is government as a platform and how do we achieve it?, both by Mark Thompson, 2015
• Definition of digital, by Tom Loosemore, 2016

The additional suggestions I received from Twitter after my request are set out below, and I’ve roughly grouped them. I’d welcome others contributing to the list and keeping it up to date. This is also a great list of people to follow, if you don’t already.

Digital

• What is code? By Paul Ford, 2015. Via Chris Thorpe
• An introduction to Wardley value chain mapping, by Simon Wardley. Via Paul Downey and Richard Pope
• We’re not leaving this bar until we’ve come up with such a great idea that I can’t sack you, by Tony Ageh, 2014. Via Chris Thorpe
• Product Land, by Richard Pope, 2015. Via Rachel Coldicutt
• Being Digital, by Nicholas Negroponte, 1996. Via Michael Smethurst
• Checklist manifesto, by Atul gawande, 2011. Via Liam Maxwell
• The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, 2013. Via Paul Downey
• Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, 2010 . Via Paul Downey
• Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future, by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe. Via Nati Carfi
• How to make sense of any mess by Abby Covert 2015. Via Paul Downey
• Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World by Peter Merholz, 2008. Via Nic Cary
• Sweat the small stuff, TED talk by Rory Sutherland, 2012. Via Nic Cary
• Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari; Via Stefan Webb
• Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, by Erik Brynjolfsson. Via Matt Cain
• Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games, by Ian Bogost. Via Nati Carfi
• The Cluetrain Manifesto, by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searles, David Weinberger, 1999. Via Bill Roberts

Government digital

• Policy Making in a Digital Age, by Jennifer Pahlka. Via Honey Dacanay
• Can you recognise the million pound chair? by Tom Steinberg, 2012. Via Richard Pope
• Digital government: not complicated, just hard, YouTube video by Tom Loosemore. Via Richard Barton
• How Boston’s tech squad saved the city from its annual moving day nightmare, by Susan Crawford, 2015. Via Andrew Schrock
• Boiling Frogs, by GCHQ. Via Ross Ferguson
• Tim O’Reilly on the Code Red Time magazine article by Steve Brill. Via Honey Dacanay
• Teaching digital at the Kennedy School of Government: a road map, by David Eaves
• The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance Stephen Goldsmith and Susan Crawford, 2014. Via Andrew Schrock
• Delivering on digital by William Eggers, 2016. Via Matt Cain
• Improving the Management of Digital Government, by Institute for Government, 2016. Via Eoin McFadden
• Making a success of Digital Government, by Institute for Government, 2016. Via David Durant
• Digitizing Government: Understanding and Implementing New Digital Business Models, by Alan Brown, Jerry Fishenden and Mark Thompson. Via Paul Brewer
• Top digital policy developments in 2016: A year in review, by DiploFoundation. Via Andrew Toft
• Strategic reading for people changing government, blog by Stefan Czerniawski
• Five for Friday, blog by Dave Briggs
• Rise of the Robots: Technology and the threat of mass unemployment, by Martin Ford; Via Stefan Webb
• The Code Book: a secret history of codes and codebreaking by Simon Singh, 2010. Via Paul Downey
• 1984, by George Orwell, 1949. Via Hendrik Grothuis

Design

• Designing Delivery, by Jeff Sussna, 2015. Via Matt Edgar
• We need new patterns, by Sarah Gold. Via Richard Pope
• Leading Public Design, by Christian Bason. Via Matt Edgar
• Most of government is mostly service design most of the time. Discuss, by Matt Edgar. Via Honey Dacanay
• The Actual Problem to be Solved, 2017, by Kate Tarlingand Ayesha Moarif. Via Olivia Neal
• The Needs of Government, by Ben Holliday. Via Paul Smith
• I fought the law and the users won, by Peter Herlihy. Via Joe Lanman
• Simplicity, by Edward de Bono. Via Terence Eden
• Citizen interactive design by Cliff Lampe, 2016. Via Andrew Schrock

Leadership

• What a digital organisation looks like, 2017, by Janet Hughes. Via Claire-Marie Foulquier-Gazagnes
• Digital is something you are, by Giles Turnbull. Via Chris Thorpe
• Digital leadership: changing your whole approach, not just doing better digital projectsby Janet Hughes, 2017. Via Richard Pope
• What if boldness were an explicit value of the civil service, by Janet Hughes, 2016. Via Giles Turnbull
• Leadership on the Line by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky. Via Matt Cain
• The mythical man month by Fred Brooks, 1975. Via Steve O’Connor
• A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making: the Cynefin framework by David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone. Via David Heath

Politics and Digital

• National Digital Conference keynote speech, by Matt Hancock MP. Via Peter Wells
• There’s a revolution out there - and Labour must be part of it, by Chi Onwurah MP, 2016. Via Peter Wells
• My vision for a smarter state, by David Cameron, 2015. Via Peter Wells
• The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion, by Jonathan Haidt. Via Represent
• The dictator’s handbook: why bad behaviour is almost always good politics, by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. Via Represent
• The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class – and What We Can Do About It, by Richard Florida. Via Nati Carfi

Data

• One year on from the general election what does the data landscape look like?, by Ellen Broad. Via Sam Smith
• A manifesto for data literacy by Matt Locke. Via Chris Thorpe
• Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, by Cathy O’Neil. Via Nati Carfi
• Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World, by Bruce Schneier. Via Nati Carfi

Government

• The Whitehall Effect: How Whitehall Became the Enemy of Great Public Services - and What We Can Do About it, by John Seddon. Via John Peart and Matt Cain
• The Blunders of our Governments, by Anthony King. Via Stefan Czerniawski
• Whitehall, by Peter Hennessy. Via Stefan Webb
• The Defence of the realm: the authorised history of MI5, by Christopher Andrew. Via Stefan Webb
• The Naked Diplomat, by Tom Fletcher. Via Jen Persson
• In defence of politics, by Bernard Crick. Via Stefan Webb

By Paul Maltby, Director of Data Projects, Department for Communities and Local Government, June 2017