In the US, public opinions of the government and the way it provides services are at an all-time low. The weight of growing demand is too much for government legacy systems, which are plagued by antiquated programming languages, and IT modernization initiatives are failing at every level of government. This is happening in a world that is quickly digitizing and where quick, smooth, easy, and secure customer service is highly valued.
The “customers” of the government usually have to deal with a shock while trying to use both government and private sector services. Customers who are dissatisfied with the level of service they receive from a business can typically choose from a wide range of competitors; however, regardless of the quality of the government service, they are not likely to find a workable substitute.
The beginning of a new administration in Pennsylvania, marked by the election of Governor Josh Shapiro, offered a chance to review the way the state provided services to both citizens and tourists. Veteran government technologist Jennifer Pahlka notes that oftentimes, the people the government serves are neglected in its obsession with guaranteeing policy and procedure compliance. Put another way, even if government services may satisfy legal and policy criteria, they frequently overlook the ease, speed, and simplicity with which the final product is provided to the client.
An increasing number of voices in the public interest technology movement are trying to change this unyielding paradigm so that people are always and proactively at the center of every contact between the government and the citizenry. Pennsylvania is a member of an expanding network of governments that are modernizing their digital services nationwide. To provide truly accessible digital services for Pennsylvania and many other states, a movement centered around putting people at the center of the problem must be established, a mountain of legacy systems and policies must be dug up, and organizational and cultural paradigms must be altered.
The Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience (CODE PA) was established by an executive order signed by Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro to serve the needs of the state’s citizens, whether they are residents experiencing financial hardship or a startup company seeking guidance on how to realize their business goals. Although the government offers a wide range of services and rewards, too frequently people become disoriented while attempting to traverse several agency websites and application procedures. Removing the “inside baseball” from obtaining government assistance is the aim of CODE PA.
When we place ourselves in the position of a Pennsylvanian who is experiencing financial hardship, it is evident how CODE PA functions. Let’s give resident Beth a call. Beth is a mother of three, she recently lost her job, and there are bills on the counter that need to be paid. To keep her family safe during this time of change, Beth would now need to know which different agencies provide unemployment benefits, health insurance for herself and her children, and more. She might not even be aware that she is qualified for assistance with her food and heating bills. Imagine a scenario in which we could provide her with a single location to go to, a single form to complete, and a single, easy-to-use interaction that enables her to be connected to vital services throughout the state.
It takes an enormous amount of work for the government to implement what seems so clear to the general populace. For CODE PA to make that scenario a reality, the Governor’s Office and the government’s technologists will need to work together to implement strategies in data sharing, identity and access management simplification, and agency-wide collaboration that have never been done before. In addition to designing fresh interactions with government services, CODE PA will be the storytellers and change agents. They will also be the advocates for streamlining intricate procedures that are bogged down in “the way things have always been done.”
How then do we—as well as other present and future government leaders—arrive at that point? In the sections that follow, we’ll discuss how CODE PA is defying convention in the delivery of government services and how large and small public sector organizations can more effectively manage technology throughout intricate systems to improve citizen satisfaction with government operations.
using the “five-why” guideline in projects involving digital services. It can be intimidating to consider putting in place a new digital system. Adding to it the intricacy of altering an organization’s procedures and culture can keep people up at night. However, digitizing inefficient processes just results in more inefficient digital processes and fails to enhance the customer experience.
To get to the heart of our issue statement, the CODE PA team frequently asks “why” during our discovery sessions, using a strategy remarkably similar to that of the insatiably curious 4-year-old. We can better understand our partners’ interests and the difficulties they encounter by asking questions like, “Is this complexity due to legislation, is it to protect our consumers, or is it just because it started that way and never changed?”
Asking why has changed the project’s scope and reaffirmed the significance of prioritizing user experience research for the majority of our efforts in numerous discovery sessions. Often, the scope of the proposed custom tool or a completely new website can be reduced to making the material more user-friendly or increasing the visibility of an already-existing tool.
utilizing the knowledge that has previously been gained inside the public interest tech sector. Early and regular engagement with a range of civic tech leaders—many of whom are current or former public sector leaders—from organizations like US Digital Service, 18F, US Digital Response, Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation, San Francisco Digital Services, Colorado Digital Service, and others, among others, accelerated and stress-tested our efforts.
Although Pennsylvania still has a long way to go, our work was expedited by our partners’ kindly sharing of their lessons learned in establishing a digital services team:
- In addition to creating reusable playbooks, exposing their code in open code repositories, and encouraging the government to operate differently by bringing in passionate individuals from both inside and outside the public sector, USDS, and 18F established the benchmark for transparency in government work.
- In the public sector, Massachusetts, Colorado, and California redefined digital delivery through the creation of new teams and “Product Owners,” pushing the bounds of job titles.
- The Beeck Center and USDR remained our reliable partners while we explored using cutting-edge procurement techniques, and they helped us by offering digital service teams best practices for hiring in the public sector.
Having stated that we concluded that it is both impractical and impossible to “future-proof” an executive order against all hazards and weaknesses. Our executive order, which acknowledges that we must allow ourselves the opportunity to make mistakes to grow, asks our teams to approach their work with “curiosity, empathy, and integrity,” drawing on insights not only from various commonwealth agencies but also from other national governments.
Centering transformation around narrative. We’re putting new demands on Pennsylvania’s government, but there aren’t many standards from outside the state that demonstrate how this kind of stretching won’t result in strained muscles. Many of the suggested changes, like data sharing agreements, infrastructure upgrading, and procurement policy modifications, must be implemented in a bureaucratic manner. CODE PA facilitates the participation of a wide range of stakeholders, including executives, lawyers, agency heads, IT, procurement, and more, to generate the required momentum for a significant impact.
It became evident in the first few weeks of the office’s existence that enhancing the customer experience would be hampered by our identity and access control technology. Thus, we gave the final “consumer” a name and a narrative: Beth. We found that people like Beth may have difficulties right away if she had to create individual accounts for every state government service she desired and become familiar with the nuances of using each system independently. We determined how each of the suggested adjustments, which build upon one another, could enhance Beth’s experience. We were given the go-ahead to go in fifteen minutes. Placing the customer at the center of the justification helped to demystify the situation and made it evident why the change was necessary and how urgent it was.
allowing a place at the table for digital strategy. We gave top priority to long-term stability, working with our Office of Information Technology (OIT), and enabling the team to take on challenging issues and have the greatest possible impact when determining where to place the team inside the commonwealth. We developed a special reporting structure to meet these objectives and provide CODE PA with assistance from the Governor’s Office and our OIT colleagues. The CODE PA ED serves on the executive team of the Office of Administration, ensuring that they have a seat at the table and direct access to executive-level leadership, in addition to co-reporting to the governor’s director of digital strategy and the state chief information officer. The CODE PA team’s matrixed positioning allows them to quickly reach several levels of government, bring attention to lessons learned “on the ground” to the highest levels of government, leverage executive buy-in to drive change, and make sure their agendas don’t conflict but rather amplify one another.
coordinating digital services with the objectives of the policy. Over its tenure, a digital services team—especially one that was formed from the ground up—may face a significant burden. And even though it can be tempting to always put out the fires closest to the hose, when allocating CODE PA’s resources, such as the governor’s money-back guarantee for permits, certifications, and licensing applications, we’re keeping the administration’s agenda and long-term strategic policy goals in mind.
We wanted to flip this model by establishing a deadline for each license, permit, or certificate. Applicants are frequently burdened financially, legally, and administratively by the government when they fail to meet its strict deadlines, but there is no apparent repercussion when the government misses those deadlines. By that date, applicants will get a reimbursement from the relevant agency if they don’t hear back. Building a platform for customers to seek refunds for the governor’s new permitting money-back guarantee and making sure agencies could handle the workflow of examining and issuing the refunds was one of CODE PA’s initial responsibilities. The new system is only one of the many ways CODE PA is being utilized as a tool to support policy goals; it was entirely researched, prototyped, developed, and implemented internally, making it an efficient use of resources.
Looking around as members of the new administration, we observe a group of product managers, software developers and engineers, user experience designers, and strategists for user research making a name for themselves in a Commonwealth that has never before employed people for some of these positions. The additional capability that CODE PA provides improves rather than replaces the work of the current OIT workforce. Our attitude toward digital services has quickly changed to a simple maxim: They should be easy to use and easy to administrate. This mentality extends from the governor and his chief of staff to our newest junior developers.
Although this maxim appears incredibly straightforward and obvious at first, we acknowledge that it has historically been challenging to implement because teams still have to deal with complex regulations and procedures, unfavorable incentive systems that favor process compliance over performance based on outcomes, and a lack of alignment with policy objectives. To be clear, our strategy offers a different route for government officials who have the guts to question the reasons behind and methods of service delivery rather than offering a magic bullet for these problems.
Developing outcomes-based incentive systems, putting the customer at the center of government service delivery, and scaling up solutions are undoubtedly issues that the government will continue to face. We also understand that early achievements, such as releasing our first product that allowed refunds or assembling a formidable team to complete a task, do not accurately reflect our level of success. Even though those victories will undoubtedly give the movement impetus to alter the government’s prevailing status quo mindset, maintaining this momentum will demand meticulous coordination.
Even though the scope of the issues and the sheer difficulty of the tasks can be daunting, we are committed to achieving our goal of providing our clients with outstanding services. Every day that goes by, governments worldwide will be more in line with people, priorities, and purposes, which will create a more promising future for our citizens and the way they receive essential public services.