Other ministries had previously developed dashboards for the main objective of visualizing data. This project's distinctive quality lies in its aim for a long-term objective of propagating a culture rooted in data throughout central ministries, local administrations, and, ultimately, society. Achieving this required a collective understanding of data and dashboards, which, in turn, necessitated a substantial overhaul of existing processes. Initially, the project encountered skepticism due to the absence of successful precedents. Therefore, the project focused on utilizing internal resources to create and refine easily comprehensible dashboards without outsourcing any part of the process. This allowed for efficiency and effectiveness and for project members to allocate time to build relationships with relevant stakeholders—an endeavor that would have been challenging had we engaged vendors.

As of January 2024, the Digital Agency has published 5 dashboards: the registration number of the national identification card MyNumber Card, the types of administrative processes available with the MyNumber Card, the digitalization status of childcare and eldercare in municipalities across the country, the state of “analog” policies, and the results of a survey on attitudes towards digitalization.

The project aims to continuously improve while diffusing its best practices to other central ministries and local administrations. To diffuse these practices, we are creating a design system guideline. This guideline aims to assist in organizing project goals, understanding the significance of dashboards as tools for data-informed decision-making, and exploring diverse approaches to visualizing data for potential discoveries. With the alpha version, we are collaborating with three local municipalities to implement dashboards in alignment with this guideline within their specific contexts.

This project engaged a diverse team of agency employees with public or private sector experience, including data analysts, product designers, design thinking experts, policymakers, and politicians, including the Digital Minister and the Chief Digital Officer.

Collaboration between other central ministries, such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, was crucial, especially as they held vital data sources for the dashboards.

In line with the project's objectives, government officials from other central ministries and local administrations are the primary beneficiaries. Central ministries gain a communication tool fostering objectivity in policy discussions with local administrations. The dashboards provide valuable insight for local administrations, serving as a crucial source of information and facts for policymaking and identifying action items.

We consider this project a success based on the proactive engagement of central ministries and local administrations seeking to implement these dashboards. We interpret this outreach as indicating that they have embraced the culture of data-informed decision-making as they take their initial steps in this direction. We deliberately refrained from setting numerical goals, such as dashboard page views, as exposure is not our primary focus. Our vision is for central ministries and local administrations to operate within a data-centric culture, fostering user-centered policymaking independently. We anticipate assessing progress based on adopting the design system guideline, which will be published later in 2024.

One of the major challenges we faced was resistance to change. We aimed to instill a new mindset and culture rooted in data and agility, contrasting with the existing norm emphasizing correctness. In the initial project pitch, we communicated our primary intention to release the dashboard to enhance transparency and public communication swiftly. However, upper management insisted on ensuring the proper functionality of the dashboards, prompting a shift to numerous internal iterations before the public release. We prioritized the project's speed, recognizing that prolonged inner iterations would delay the public release of this data.

Individual and structural factors attributed to the success of this project. First, the Digital Agency's job-based structure, instead of traditional government membership, enabled the recruiting of private-sector experts in digital domains. This structure allowed for seamless collaboration between individual domain experts and civil servants. Second, the Agency's core mission, vision, and values prioritizes agility over perfection, motivating quick adaptation. This fostered the team's ability to create and integrate multiple prototypes into dashboards swiftly. Lastly, inter-ministerial collaboration was pivotal for success since the Agency did not hold vital data sources for the dashboards.

We believe the replicability of this innovation is possible because, through the provision of the design system guideline, we provide civil servants and others with the appropriate tools to integrate data-informed decision-making into their daily processes. While individuals have been previously motivated with the "why" through national-level policies and personal incentives, they lacked the necessary tools to act upon them but the design system guideline can become the “how.” We firmly believe that the "why" and the "how" are equally essential for individuals to take appropriate action. With this initiative, we aim to make data-informed decision-making the standard practice.

One key takeaway is the significance of adopting an agile and proactive approach rather than passively waiting for approval. Employees with private sector experience can lead in navigating such dynamics by recognizing the potential involvement of politics in various processes. This perspective is crucial in our daily work at the Digital Agency. Furthermore, tools like dashboards provide a platform to present factual information that fosters mutual understanding, ultimately influencing policymaking. Hence, active agility in creating these tools is indispensable. Lastly, functionality should be emphasized over facades; prioritizing utility and performance is more crucial than appearances when delivering such tools.

This Policy Dashboard Project was referred to at policy meetings of the “Digital Administrative and Fiscal Reform Council” chaired by the Prime Minister as a successful first step in visualizing data to analyze causality between policies and outcomes. Furthermore, the Digital Minister Taro Kono has recommended other central ministries follow suit and implement dashboards to achieve policy transparency, so we expect these dashboards to become the norm in the future.