Anastasia Hellwich: Welcome to the CDO team's first podcast. My name is Anastasia and I'm sitting here right now with Sonja, Friedrich and Sarah. I'm delighted that we have the opportunity to present how the CDO team is driving digital transformation in the city administration. Friedrich and Sonja, would you like to briefly introduce yourselves?

Friedrich Fuß: Yes, hi. I'm delighted to be here for the time being. My name is Friedrich and I am the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) of the City of Bonn. This means that I'm the person who deals with the topic of digital transformation and, above all, with strategic issues and, of course, I also think very practically about what we need to do to advance the digital transformation, especially in the city administration.

Sonja Tulbure: I'm Sonja and I'm the head of the CDO office.

Anastasia Hellwich: It's not just the two of you who are committed to digital transformation. Who else is part of your CDO team?

Friedrich Fuß: Yes, there are a lot of people in our CDO team. I don't like to talk about the CDO team, but rather the extended CDO team. We see ourselves more as a network, you could almost say a community. And of course the digital promoters in particular are part of that: Sarah, Julia, Anastasia and Moritz. And Sarah, you're here right now too.

Anastasia Hellwich: That's right Sarah, you're one of the four digital promoters. I'm sure you can explain well what exactly the digital promoters do?

Sarah Hermes: Yes, exactly, hello everyone, I'm Sarah. I'm the digital promoter from our Department III. I'd like to explain what we actually do from my perspective, and we actually have more of an overarching mediating function. For example, I also sit in the staff unit and make sure that I coordinate things a bit. So I take a look at all the projects and see what the current status is, where I can perhaps provide support, where can we still hold workshops? What are the other offices, the other projects doing? Perhaps something can be dovetailed so that everyone achieves the best possible result. And of course I also try to keep an overview and see if it fits in with the strategy that we have worked out in the team and if it can all be implemented in this way.

Friedrich Fuß: Yes, perhaps I would like to add to that. We deliberately made it so that half of the digital promoters, who work as full-time experts, are entrusted with digital topics that directly affect the department and work within it, and the other half work across the board. That's why we have such a great situation that, on the one hand, we as strategic people don't lose our grip on the ground and, on the other hand, we manage this exchange and the link between strategy and operational implementation well. Perhaps that should be added.

Anastasia Hellwich: Exactly. Sarah, maybe let me ask you again, what does your work actually look like on a day-to-day basis?

Sarah Hermes: Yes, exactly, that can be participation in department head meetings or in project milestone meetings, for example in data management, which reached the first milestone, and I was also involved in that. Then there's consulting on the projects. Sometimes I also provide overviews and surveys. But what's also very important is that I seek out exchanges with the digital pilots, because I'm also the contact person for them. It's not just in our department, we're all on the move quite freely and it's always across the board, anyone can talk to anyone. And it's also a very important task for us to work together.

Anastasia Hellwich: Speaking of the digital pilots... Sonja, would you like to briefly explain what exactly the digital pilots do?

Sonja Tulbure: With pleasure. Unlike the digital promoters, the digital pilots are based directly in the departments. This means that they drive the digital transformation from the bottom up. Because they are based directly in the departments, they can also provide impetus or pass it on to the right contacts. They are multipliers and should also be there to allay their colleagues' fears, provide assistance and access solutions to problems through their network. We currently have 26 digital pilots who are each trained in 2 groups in a training program. We are also currently in the process of sharpening and shortening this training program a little so that we can recruit more digital pilots in the near future.

Anastasia Hellwich: Great. So you can see that there are a lot of people involved. How do you network in your work? How do you exchange ideas? How do you manage that?

Friedrich Fuß: Yes, we already mentioned earlier that it is very important that everyone communicates with each other and that everyone networks and works together. This networking is very important. We do this by meeting physically once a quarter under the heading of "network meetings". We also have a really cool location where we go, the Digital Hub, to simply have a completely different creative environment. And we invite all kinds of people to these network meetings. First of all, of course, the digital pilots, then the digital promoters and then experts from the administration who have shares in the topic of digitalization and work there. But it's not just a digital topic; when we think about processes, we also have to work on them, write them down and optimize them. In other words, the topic of organization is also affected. And we exchange ideas with them in a very informal format. We work on topics, we inform each other about what's going on. In this respect, it's a really cool and relaxed event and we always find that everyone is enthusiastic and says, "Wow, that's a great topic. It's really fun. It's good that I'm involved.

Anastasia Hellwich: Cool, so the network meetings take place once a quarter, but are there any other formats that you use for your exchange?

Sonja Tulbure: Yes, exactly, in addition to the network meetings, we have launched the digital consultation hour. We want to get active with the community in the digital consultation hour. So we have the consultation hour every six weeks in online format and anyone can take part in this consultation hour. In other words, all employees who are interested in digitalization are welcome to join us, can register via the digital promoters or the pilots, also via the CDO office, and can also bring along topics that are close to their hearts or perhaps problems that need to be solved. We are happy to help find a solution and can also put you in touch with the right contact person or help you directly.

Anastasia Hellwich: What do you plan to do in the near future? Is there anything else that is important to you?

Friedrich Fuß: Yes, what will happen in the near future? We've just heard that we're working on thinking and saying, how can we optimize the training and how can we optimize the toolbox that we give to the digital apprentices? What can we change? What is really needed? And what is not needed? Let me just remind you of the digitalization driver's license, a great online learning tool that you can use to sit down and get broad information about the topic of digitalization, but also specifically about what is actually going on in the city. It's a great tool, we already have over 500 people who have completed it. Yes, that's just an excerpt. Of course, we're also thinking about the formats, as we've just heard, the digital consultation hour, how does that work, how does it work? We are also thinking about what we can do even better to really involve all levels, especially the management level, which is very important. And there are always conflicts because of the workload and the like, and we are also thinking about changing things there too, within the scope of our possibilities. And at the end of the day, of course, it's very important when someone says, oh that sounds really interesting, it seems like a lot of fun. Anyone who is interested and says, I would also like to become a digital pilot, can contact all of us, i.e. me as CDO, but of course also the digital promoters and digital pilots. And then we'll find each other and get reinforcements, which would of course make us very happy.

Anastasia Hellwich: With that in mind, perhaps a few final words, as we know that the digital transformation can only take place together. Thank you very much for your answers and we hope to be able to get back to you soon with an update.

Friedrich Fuß: Thank you very much.

Everyone: Thank you, bye.