The Intranet for working well, together
The Piedmont Region has approximately 3,000 employees distributed throughout the territory and stands out as a cutting-edge Public Administration, with a strong orientation towards innovation and the modernization of its services.
Driven by the Agid Three-Year ICT Plan, and accepting the challenge of change, the Piedmont Region has launched an ambitious project to modernize and streamline some internal operational flows.
Resulting in reduced errors and duplications
To work from a single digital location
To improve efficiency and collaboration between departments
The challenge
Regione Piemonte was looking for a significant change, ready to overcome some consolidated practices to embrace a new operational and organizational approach. Although some programs planned in Public Administrations are aimed at simplifying the relationship and services offered to citizens, the PA often finds itself involved in energy-intensive and fragmented internal activities and processes , both from a technological and organizational point of view.
The goal of the Digital Transition Office was to provide the entire organization with tools that would help free itself from cumbersome procedures, subject to errors and manual interventions , to eliminate system ripples and to allow for a variety of requests to be responded to quickly. Among the critical issues to be addressed were:
- manual collection of data through tools such as excel, with high risk of errors in collection, reprocessing and reading;
- the excessive use of email for sending important documentation and communications;
- fragmentation of activities and tools;
- compartmentalized work, with poor information sharing.
“We want to move from a vision by function – typical of Public Administrations – to a vision by processes”, says Federica Zangirolami, of the Digital Transition Office.
The Piedmont Region, driven by these needs, has started a scouting process to identify a solution capable of organizing (and possibly modifying) work flows in a simple and fast way, as well as structuring homogeneous teams by subject.
The solution
After a careful analysis and comparison phase between different solutions, the Region chose Interacta , appreciating its flexibility and intuitive interface.
We started with two pilot projects: one to simplify and optimize the collection of information for the AgID Annual Survey on ICT Spending and the other related to the monitoring of the AgID Three-Year ICT Plan, a process that would cut across all regional directorates and would involve people from various offices. The ultimate goal of the pilots was to spread a new approach to work , to be applied to different situations or activities. Therefore a cultural change, before a technological one.
To monitor the three-year ICT Agid plan, Regione Piemonte has structured Interacta in a space dedicated to objectives and lines of action to be undertaken, shared between the various actors involved. Each activity is assigned to the reference person, deadlines are visible and monitored through a notification system and everything is always just a click away.
“Interacta and its ability to design processes helped us understand how useful it is to work towards objectives and how important it is for PAs to design certain and measurable ones ,” continues Federica Zangirolami.
From these first experiments, Regione Piemonte has started other experiences on Interacta, where regional directorates were involved in the front line and where people found a useful place to communicate and share work and documents . Specifically, after the pilot, the platform was used to manage the following processes.
The “PNRR Implementation” sector of the Piedmont Region has structured Interacta for the procedural and financial monitoring of PNRR projects , centralizing all the related macro-processes : the actual implementation of projects under regional jurisdiction, the management of new opportunities and assignments and periodic communication and website updating activities. This system has allowed for a clear and timely organization of tasks and greater transparency.
Furthermore, Interacta has made it possible to connect a series of activities to macro-processes according to a logic of scheduled assignment. Deadlines, documentation, partners involved: everything is tracked and always available . An approach of this type has greatly reduced the fragmentation of information.
At this moment, a section is being structured to be useful for the drafting and sharing of the various drafting phases of the PIAO (Integrated Plan of Activities and Organization). The drafting of the document takes place on a regional co-editing platform; all communications and insights into the various sections of the Plan will be conveyed in Interacta, where the various actors involved belonging to different Directorates of the Authority will be able to collaborate.
The “Implementation of measures for the programmatic-legislative coordination of sectors with forestry competences” sector is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) between the various directorates so that they work in synergy.
A dedicated space has been created in Interacta, where users from different sectors of the Management can collaborate through shared communities . The aim is to overcome the rigidity of the Institution's sharing tools , reduce the amount of emails , create a structured document archive , improve information sharing and provide immediate and easy search and filter tools.
Furthermore, communities have been implemented for collaborative process management (e.g. updating schedules, spending forecasts, etc.).
Results
Interacta, for the Piedmont Region, is a successful project that has brought countless benefits. First of all, the platform has helped the Region to identify the reference people for each activity and to structure work teams , freeing up the time of people not directly involved and increasing the sense of responsibility.
Thanks to the centralization of information and structured task management, for some projects the Region has reduced emails by 100% and minimized errors and duplications due to fragmented communications and manual task management.
Furthermore, having digitized entire workflows has allowed to reduce operating times and improve collaboration between departments . The ease of adoption of Interacta has made Regione Piemonte autonomous in modifying or implementing new processes.
The implementation of Interacta has stimulated growing interest from several offices in the Piedmont Region, attracted by the possibility of using the platform to improve efficiency and collaboration in their operational processes.
Regione Piemonte has already identified the next steps to take with Interacta. There is, in fact, the desire to integrate the regional authentication system and to use the platform also for the training of regional users. The final goal is to spread the use of Interacta to all regional staff.
Thanks to Interacta, Regione Piemonte has optimized the internal management of processes and activities, accelerating operational responses and improving overall efficiency to the benefit of the services offered.
