“The policymaker’s understanding of technology has changed,” former Seattle CTO Michael Mattmiller said during an invitation-only roundtable for state and local government CIOs, CTOs and chief innovation officers. “They’re no longer thinking about it as a nice to have … . The challenge is how do we keep that momentum going?”
The roundtable — convened by the Center for Digital Government (CDG), Accela and Microsoft in October 2021 — gathered a national group of public-sector IT leaders to discuss looming challenges and opportunities and create a government modernization playbook for 2022 and beyond.
A NEW LANDSCAPE FOR IT LEADERS
As they look toward the future, technology leaders face an array of priorities, including meeting higher constituent expectations, supporting permanent hybrid work, improving digital equity and ensuring the financial sustainability of new services. Underlying these priorities are technology imperatives like upgrading IT infrastructure, strengthening connectivity and access, managing and operationalizing data, and securing the distributed workforce.
The COVID-19 pandemic put the focus on speed — new technologies and services had to be deployed fast to meet evolving needs during the crisis, according to Accela Chief Operating Officer Tom Nieto. But the emerging challenge for government technology leaders is to think beyond crisis response and incorporate IT priorities into broader government initiatives.
We have an opportunity to not just reimagine how we deliver services, but also the organizations used to deliver those services, said CDG Chief Innovation Officer Dustin Haisler.
Reimagine internal and external experience: User experience matters now more than ever — both to residents and government employees. Internal and external constituents expect to access services and information from anywhere at any time. Reimagining digital services and accessibility from the user's perspective involves addressing technical debt. But it also demands rethinking how government operates.
Interim Seattle CTO Jim Loter urged roundtable participants to consider common situations, such as reporting a damaged fire hydrant. “Would people think to call the water utility or the fire department? How are residents supposed to know that?” he asked. “They just know they have a problem with a fire hydrant.”
Apply an equity lens: The pandemic magnified inequities around Internet connectivity, accessibility of services and resource allocation. Attempts to address these issues have gained urgency since the beginning of the pandemic. But governments must move beyond patchwork efforts toward broader initiatives, which will require better coordination across departments and aggregated data to ensure that programs serve the needs of all citizens.
“When you get into topics like equity and transparency, data is at the core of that, and how you pull that together is going to be essential,” Accela’s Nieto said.
Optimize revenue and efficiency for long-term sustainability: Historic levels of federal funding available through the various COVID-19 relief programs and the new Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act are temporary. New technologies and services launched with these dollars must be designed with financial sustainability in mind to survive the "fiscal cliff" when federal funding programs end.
The good news, according to CIOs at the roundtable, is that digital services generally outperformed expectations during the pandemic, helping to justify further investments. Modern technology platforms and services can also boost efficiency.
“If we do the types of modernizations that help us reduce the costs of running IT, it will solve the problem of the fiscal cliff,” said Mattmiller, who is now director of government affairs for Microsoft.
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
Modern, cloud-based technology platforms can help agencies address current and future priorities by simplifying digital service delivery, facilitating remote work, lowering IT costs, and enabling data aggregation and analytics to support greater transparency and more equitable decisions.
Technology leaders must ensure these platforms are flexible enough to meet unforeseen needs, connect siloed data stores through APIs and automation, and leverage the potential power of public-private partnerships to find new solutions to ongoing challenges.
The challenges are considerable, but so are the opportunities.
“All these things are converging and creating this perfect storm of innovation around the public sector,” said Haisler. “CIOs are at the forefront of laying the foundation not just for navigating the uncertainty of today, but also leading their organizations into the future.”
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