Building digital leadership with the Scottish Digital Academy

Supporting digital leadership across Scotland’s public and third sectors

In 2022, we began work with the Scottish Digital Academy to design and facilitate the Leading in a Digital World programme, bringing together leaders from across the Scottish public and third sectors.

Building upon the success of Digital Champions, the Scottish Digital Academy’s original version of this programme, we were commissioned to design a new learning experience and supporting materials, with clear objectives to:

• support digital leaders to apply digital leadership approaches – understanding public sector transformation and digital leadership, and relating them to their organisational priorities.

• give digital leaders hands-on learning experience, helping them to explore and apply human-centred and agile approaches to address challenges.

• strengthen collaborative networks through connecting peers, sharing challenges, and supporting leaders to learn from each other's expertise and experiences.

Once appointed as delivery partners, we were asked to present a coherent and meaningful programme design that not only addressed immediate challenges for leaders but also looked to the future of digital, data and technology and how they inform high-quality experiences for all service users in Scotland. 

Designing a programme to meet the needs of Scottish leaders

To best meet the needs of leaders in Scotland, our brief was to develop professional learning from an evidence-based perspective and with user-centred approaches.

We were also able to draw on our extensive learnings from running previous academy programmes for departments and organisations across the UK, including at both local and national levels. 

Over a two-month research and design period, we rapidly built out a new format and materials working collaboratively with the Scottish Digital Academy, adapting our existing, tried and tested materials.

Each cohort of Leading in a Digital World was eventually designed to be facilitated through a 5-day experience led by TPXimpact, with guest speakers and contributions from the Scottish Government joining to add depth and experience. A new set of core topics included:

• digital transformation, organisation maturity, technology challenges and opportunities (including emerging technologies and AI) 

• systems leadership

• the Digital programme in Scotland, capability building and support

• building a digital mindset and culture

• the Scottish approach to Service Design

• the Scottish Design System.

Sessions were designed to be highly collaborative, moving each cohort through a hands-on design sprint exercise, resulting in team pitches and much more through a mix of talks, learning by doing, team challenges, group discussions, reflections and sharing.

The programme was also deliberately designed to mix in-person and online delivery, bringing each cohort together at the start and end of each programme delivery in either Edinburgh or Glasgow.

Creating a learning experience that worked for everyone

While we planned with intention, we delivered with flexibility, acknowledging that each group of leaders would be unique bringing with them different wants, needs and interests.

What that meant in practice was being responsive to the energy and needs of each cohort. Some groups benefited from spending more time in one area, others brought lived experiences or questions that naturally lead us down valuable, unexpected paths. We made space for that, making adjustments to the curriculum as we went, reordering, reshaping, and occasionally slowing down, to ensure the flow of learning worked best for everyone.

We took a less is more approach as the programme developed. While it would have been tempting to fill time with more tools and content, the real value of ‘leading’ came through conversations: the thoughtful questions, the exchanges between peers and the quiet “aha” moments. Our role became to hold the structure lightly, creating the conditions for that depth to surface, and responding with care when it did.

Programme feedback and iteration

Throughout delivery, we incorporated feedback making improvements to materials, workshop formats and facilitation. This included updating materials as challenges were reframed, such as an early focus on digital transformation supporting recovery and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, to an increased focus on the challenges and opportunities of working with emerging technologies and AI.

We adjusted speakers' time to allow more time for Q&A. This was seen as valuable, and participants liked where depth was added to examples rather than having more of them. Again, we listened and fed this back to the amazing speakers who joined us, who were always so generous with their time and knowledge.

One piece of recurring feedback was that participants appreciated the online day as it helped with flexibility in joining the programmes, but that it also made them really understand the difference and value the in-person days together with other leaders on the course. At a time when civil servants are reducing time spent working from home, it was affirming that delegates told us they valued the in-person days with their peers.

The impact of Leading in a Digital World

The first cohort of Leading in a Digital World launched in March 2022. This was opened by Mr Ivan McKee MSP, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, who highlighted the importance of developing digital skills and leadership capability and the positive impact that can have on Scotland as a thriving digital nation.

Between 2022 and 2025 we delivered six cohorts and related events, working with over 200 digital leaders in the Scottish public and third sectors.

Through the continued success of the programme, leaders have been able to demonstrate proficiency in understanding and leading transformation, dealing with change and an understanding of different forms of leadership, including systems leadership. Each cohort has also gained tools, techniques and mindsets for leading in the Scottish context, building connections with peers, and giving individual leaders a network to draw upon.

This network is invaluable, and we made space throughout for participants to connect and share over breaks, lunch and in facilitated activities. The intention is that alumni continue to meet and work with each other as a growing leadership community across Scotland. 

As an extension of this work, we have organised and hosted alumni events bringing together many people from previous cohorts and building on the importance of what the Scottish Digital Academy has established as a network of leaders. This included hosting the Digital, Data and Technology profession conference for 1000 leaders working in Scottish Government, at Glasgow SEC in February 2024.

Want to find out more about our design academies help build digital leaders? See how we helped empower NHS digital leaders with the Topol Digital Fellowship.