This post is also available in: German
Germany is known to be a paper-loving nation. Especially, the civil sectors’ processes are mostly non-digital, aiming for more digital collaboration. Federal capitals have a hard time here: Not only do they have to manage the lives of their residents, but also serve as a role model for their entire state. Complicated structures, outdated processes and a lack of understanding make a digital revolution in the public sector difficult. Few municipalities successfully address this issue. One of them is the City of Kiel, Germany’s northernmost state capital. As a visual collaboration platform, Conceptboard is part of their digital strategy called Ki:GO for modernising administration and actively shaping the digital transformation process.
Project “digital workplace”
With the Ki:GO strategy, the city of Kiel aims to shape the digital transformation towards a modern administration and prepare the city for the future in the best possible way. The specific goal of this movement is to provide employees with a “digital workplace” that enables various work models, particularly remote work. Ki:GO involves the employees of the municipal administration in the journey of a lasting digital change.
Vision of the City of Kiel for digital administration
Digital transformation occurs in various disciplines, one of which is visual collaboration in times of hybrid workplaces and connected structures. In search of digital tools with diverse functionalities for decentralised collaboration, the city sought solutions. “The Ki:GO movement strongly emphasises competency development and aims to positively change the attitude of employees towards new digital applications. Therefore, new programs should be particularly user-friendly and easy to learn,” explains Franziska Rimmele, who, as a Digital Coach, enables and supports employees in a practical manner as part of the movement.
Conceptboard as foundation for digital collaboration
To establish the foundation for the digital workplace, the city decided to implement an online whiteboard, Conceptboard, where projects can be planned and worked on conveniently, regardless of time and location. In addition to promoting remote work, an online whiteboard aligned with the goal of introducing new agile methods such as SCRUM. Conceptboard has become the tool of choice for these associated plans. It was important that employees could directly share documents, assign tasks, and provide comments within the tool. Conceptboard fulfilled all these requirements and, furthermore, was the only visual collaboration application compatible with the touch functionality of the Promethean smart boards used by the city of Kiel.
Conceptboard meets the regulatory requirements of the administrative apparatus
In the public sector, there are particularly high requirements for software procurement. To protect sensitive data, standards for data privacy and security are strictly regulated. Compliance with the highest security standards was the decisive argument for choosing Conceptboard as a provider that is compliant with data protection regulations.
“We have found that among the providers of visual collaboration tools, Conceptboard is particularly suitable for public administration. Unlike tools with similar functionalities, Conceptboard is hosted on servers in the EU.” Jesko-Alexander Zychski, Deputy Chief Digital Officer of the state capital Kiel
“Furthermore, Conceptboard offers the possibility of an EVB-IT contract, which helps us meet the procurement requirements. The fact that Conceptboard is based in Germany and offers a Dedicated Server Environment, where only the city’s data is stored, were also factors that influenced the decision.”
Secure conditions enable a relaxed onboarding process and make it easier for employees to adapt to a new way of working. Better safe than sorry.
Versatile digital collaboration with Conceptboard
In a short period of time, Conceptboard has become an integral part of the workflows at the municipal authority, being used across departments for various tasks. It is utilised for capturing processes, team-based planning, and restructuring of projects. Additionally, Conceptboard serves as a presentation tool and a participatory whiteboard in hybrid meetings and events. It is also employed in content creation for e-learning, such as developing worksheets and other materials.
Moreover, Conceptboard enables the easy involvement of external individuals or organisations from the Kiel community, as well as from other municipalities or cities. This facilitates inter-municipal exchanges and promotes integration with society.
“Conceptboard, as a digital whiteboard, supports the digital cultural transformation in administrations with its functionality and provided templates.” Franziska Rimmele, Digital Coach of the City of Kiel
Within a short span of time, the City of Kiel not only restructures its own way of working, but also engages its external partners through Conceptboard. This lays the foundation for the modernization of the entire state of Schleswig-Holstein.
What’s on the horizon with Conceptboard
“With the introduction of Conceptboard, we have taken a significant step towards achieving our goals for the Ki:GO movement: participation, self-learning, and new non-hierarchical forms of work,” summarise Jesko Zychski and Birte Rassmus, who, as change managers, drive the Ki:GO movement in Kiel. “Through this new form of communication and collaboration, we can advance the digitalization of administration both internally and together with the people of Kiel in an interactive and efficient manner, thereby developing new digital services for our citizens.”
The City of Kiel benefits from the numerous pre-built templates available in German and the continuous development and integration of new templates, widgets, and interfaces with other IT programs. They make use of the integration options for their own intranet, self-learning environments, or the chat program Mattermost. This makes it even easier to share and locate created boards.
“Conceptboard is particularly suitable for public administration as it meets several requirements (EVB-IT contract, hosted in the EU, can be operated in compliance with GDPR), offers a wide range of features, and can thus accommodate various tasks – from daycare meal planning to team meetings and presentations.” Jesko-Alexander Zychski, Deputy Chief Digital Officer of the state capital Kiel
Regardless of where the journey leads and what other application possibilities are discovered, Conceptboard is a valued partner of the City of Kiel and provides support in the right areas when it comes to exploring new paths.
Do you think Conceptboard is just the right tool for you? Find out how Conceptboard can especially support you in the public sector.
If you want to discover more about how Conceptboard has empowered other organisations to boost productivity and efficiency, explore our customer success stories.
