February 07, 2022
February 07, 2022
Contributor: Robert Snow
To scale digital, government CIOs should focus on transformational digital initiatives, use more targeted digital metrics and adopt a range of contemporary delivery models.
Pandemic-inflicted global disruption caused government organizations to renew their focus on, and accelerate the transition to, digital government. For CIOs, achieving true digital transformation within government requires a full commitment to emerging technologies and capabilities that can scale across an organization.
“The transition to digital government means organizational change, which can be difficult to achieve at times,” says Dean Lacheca, Sr. Director Analyst at Gartner. “This is reflected in the diverse levels of advancements in digital transformation from one government organization to the next.”
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The recent Gartner Digital Transformation Divergence Across Government Sectors Survey explored the differences in objectives, practices and makeup of digital initiatives that have led to successful transformation implementations. If you focus your priorities in the same way, you can expect to deliver on your digital government strategies more effectively.
The three practices that digitally advanced governments share are:
They devote attention and resources to:
They also optimize their existing practices, such as making external-facing services available through digital channels, enabling field workforces to capture information and interact digitally, and improving the remote/on-premises workforce user experience or mobility.
Advanced digital governments consistently estimate or measure digital solution contributions in the areas of:
This helps them secure funding and achieve more targeted prioritization of future digital investments.
Although digital governments leverage practices such as journey mapping, human-centered design and design thinking, co-creation and voice of the customer/user research, the three most common key practices are:
Sixty-five percent of digitally advanced governments and 42% of remaining governments report widespread use of agile project delivery, making it the most widely used practice. Even so, it is challenging to perform effectively in a government environment and very often a struggle to scale beyond the IT function. In fact, just 28% of digitally advanced governments have also successfully scaled adoption of enterprise agile.
Half of digitally advanced governments have incorporated product management into their operating models, whereas only 20% of non-digitally advanced governments have done the same. Doing so has a direct impact on the planning and development of government services, including other contemporary service design practices like journey mapping, co-creation and event mapping.
Thirty-five percent of digitally advanced governments report widespread use of DevOps practices; 21% of less advanced respondents cite use. Employing a DevOps model enables developers to increase productivity and improve coordination with infrastructure.
For most governments, the pace of change during a crisis is not sustainable. Many governments have a strongly embedded culture, and that culture is often risk-averse. This may lead them to quickly revert to legacy processes and mindsets, rolling back positive momentum. You must act now to sustain momentum.
As a government CIO delivering digital transformation strategies and programs:
In short:
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Recommended resources for Gartner clients*:
What Sets Leaders Apart in the Digital Government Race
Digital Government Acceleration and Momentum
Introducing the Gartner Digital Government Maturity Model 2.0
*Note that some documents may not be available to all Gartner clients.