Building capacity, identifying risks
Juho Lindman – Gothenburg University / GUBlab, Sweden
The University of Gothenburg’s Blockchain Lab has released the Blockchain Readiness Assessment Tool (BRAT). BRAT has been made freely available for groups and organizations to use at blockchainingovernment.eu.
BRAT is a workshop tool developed by researchers that can be used by organizations who want to learn more about blockchain and what it can do and whether they have the skills and capacity they need to assess and develop blockchain-enabled solutions. The purpose of the tool is to help organisations “measure, discuss and follow-up” their blockchain capabilities and to explore how an organisation’s aims align with their internal capabilities, skills and competencies.
The GU Blockchain Lab has learned through extensive stakeholder and practitioner engagement that while there is a lot of talk about blockchain as a technology that can change organizations and processes, many organizations were not really confident
about what this actually means in practice, and how the technology could be used to deliver their objectives. If we could provide these organisations with organised blockchain-related knowledge, this could be used to help these organisations to understand the technology better. So, if an organization is discussing implementing a blockchain solution and has already carried out some piloting with blockchain – but wants to learn more – this is a useful tool that can be used to provide structure to their capacity and technological development.
BRAT in practice – a three stage approach
Gothenburg University’s Blockchain Lab uses BRAT as part of a three-step process to help organisations build capacity and identify gaps and risks in their blockchain knowledge.
Step 1 – initial survey
The initial survey is a short form that is sent to the organization to collect information about their blockchain maturity. The BRAT tool address blockchain understanding and capacity across six domains: business needs, organisational roles and participants, expertise, technical architecture, data management and legislation.
Step 2 – results workshop
The results workshop is an in-person (or online) workshop that offers an opportunity for the organisation and stakeholders to review the BRAT survey results, to rate the own organization’s blockchain maturity, and to develop action plans with blockchain experts.
Workshop participants can be selected from survey respondents and relevant stakeholders,
and should represent blockchain-informed stakeholders from the organization. People who have been involved in earlier potential blockchain pilots, and service users should also
Step 3 – reporting
At the end of this process GUBlab provides a status report, which is a short report that summarizes the findings from the survey, and the results workshop. This report gives suggestions on challenges and opportunities that are specific to the organization.