Working in the open can seem scary and a bit all or nothing. I suspect I do not help with this with my stories of the extreme ups and downs of the practice and certainly there is some risk…not as much as is often feared but it is there.

Being open is not one size fits all though. There are levels to it and significant benefits at each of them – plus you build your muscles, instincts and a thicker skin if you work your way up to going all-out.

For working in public [service] I think it looks something like this;

• Private by default. The team members are insular and work solo. Minimal communication and collaboration. Not much engagement with the wider vision or strategy. Lack of trust.
• Team level openness. Lots of communication, discussion and collaboration. Opinions are shared, retros are highly interactive and issues are shared without fear. The transparency helps build trust and the trust helps the team perform at its best.
• Org chart openness. Sharing widely across your wider DDaT (or whatever it might be called) division. Looking sideways and seeking out insights and opportunities from colleagues in other teams doing similar work. Proactively joining the dots. Sharing the rough with the smooth to help teams learn from your challenges and generally to minimise the reinvention of the bicycle (or the start-up world equivalent – reinventing the bus!).
• Departmental openness. All the above but also being open and transparent about the ways of working, methodologies etc to build bridges with other professions across Departments (yes I mean Policy mainly!). Remove some of the jargon and misconceptions about ‘digital’ by letting people see behind the curtain in an authentic manner minus the spin. Be a little vulnerable – admit that ‘digital’ isn’t always the answer…but when it is this is what good looks like.
• Public service open. Seek out opportunities to scale your openness across the public service (here and internationally.) Embrace the network and share your wins and challenges widely and find teams facing the same or similar issues all over the place. So many of the problems teams are working on have similar roots and journeys – the more we work together the better we can deliver for the public.
• Work in the open. Take this practice to the open web and ride the rollercoaster of risk vs reward but when serendipity hits it can be a gamechanger.

The continuum is also true of organisation behaviour and appetite for openness as well. 

In tech circles you have everything from Palantir, which makes the CIA look like Wikipedia, through to Gitlab, where openness and transparency is truly radical. Between those extremes everyone from Apple to Alphabet to Meta to Microsoft to Intel land at different points (for the record Apple nearest the secretive end of things and Intel at the open end – the other three are inconsistent!).

…and yes, the appetite for openness changes over time. External environments evolve or leadership moves on and different cultures emerge. The most stark example of this I think was demonstrated by the way GDS changed from the early days of 2012-2015 to the nadir of openness around 2020-2023.

Anyway – find the level you are comfortable with and level up in your own time. It is worth the risk.