The format has been running for almost 5 years.
On Tuesday, my colleague Charlotte hosted the latest edition of ‘Let’s talk vision’.
In week #57, our Chief Product Officer Stephanie participated in the format. In week #108, it was Chief of Staff & Strategy Magdalena’s turn. Now, Chief Technology Officer Erik sat down for our discipline’s questions and an extended exchange.
Questions for him that we discussed included:
- Why does the German administration landscape specifically need a service provider like us?
- Coming from a global tech consultancy, what was the biggest culture shock you experienced in your first 90 days at Digital Service?
- How do we balance responsible AI use with a healthy green IT stack?
- In 5 years, are we a ‘delivery shop’ or a ‘strategic partner’? How do we get there?
We had about 20 people, both in person and remotely, join for the 90-minute afternoon exchange. The team continues to find skip-level conversations with members of the executive team highly valuable. So we should continue them. Currently missing is our Chief Financial Officer, Anja. We should down with her later this year.
Celebrating 4 years at Digital Service
I used to think of 4 years as an eternity. In my first 2 jobs, I very much wanted to leave after that time, and so I did. I saw little to learn and wanted to move to new horizons. It couldn’t be more different now.
This week marks 4 years at DigitalService. Thanks to the tireless work of colleagues, we are now in a position to bring about greater change. Re-reading my weeknotes from May 2022, I see many of the things we missed then addressed:
We have a mandatory Service Standard that all levels of government have to follow by law. Running a discovery, conducting user research, and measuring impact aren’t optional anymore. We have a cross-gov brand and design system, which we lacked 4 years ago. So, people don’t have to reinvent the wheel anymore. And we have a strong user-centred design team of almost 50 highly capable people, including 5 distinct profiles. 100s of user-centred experts have joined public sector organisations in recent years. People from 18 different organisations are part of our monthly community exchange.
With all that built-up capability, we have developed successful tax, justice, and benefit services. We established a scalable platform for justice services and brought research-based approaches to policy teams. Now we are linking service design to policy, and looking at end-to-end services across significant life events, such as starting a business. We are developing patterns for others to use and creating essential guidance on good digital practice for all public servants in the country. The accessibility tools we’ve built and shared are lauded – and there are more to come. Soon, we will open up our service design training and run more cross-sector peer reviews.
While we have done and achieved much in the 4 years I’ve been here, there is so much that will keep us busy for many years to come. People have been talking about ‘once only’ for a good decade, but users still have to re-enter their information almost every time. Despite our earlier efforts in the space, proving who you are online remains astonishingly cumbersome. Plenty of regulations hinder good digital transformation of services. Also, almost every service in Germany looks and behaves differently, and people have little idea of what good looks like. Users don’t know what’s waiting for them after the next tap or click. Quality of service is still a niche topic, government procurement sets projects up for failure, and backed systems are often not yet connected.
These are just a few things from the tip of the government transformation iceberg. And these aren’t things we can solve as a small-ish Federal government unit. It needs strong alliances across the German public sector to make a common effort while we still can – including politicians, members of parliament, and senior officials who are willing to spend their political capital. It’s only 250 of us, but we have made many allies and friends along the way. So, let’s see what we can achieve next. Together.
Planning for GAAD and other events
Spring was relatively calm. As we are getting closer to summer, event season warms up.
On Thursday, we discussed a 3-hour accessibility event with the NExT Netzwerk community manager, Melike. We plan to run it with colleagues from other units on Global Accessibility Awareness Day – or GAAD for short. Two people from the Federal Information Technology Centre (ITZBund) will give a short introduction to accessibility. Their director-general will do the introduction. Prof Dr Erdmuthe Meyer zu Bexten, the State Commissioner for accessible IT of the State of Hesse, has offered to do the keynote.
Our part will be a 45-minute workshop session utilising our Chrome extension ‘Simulating accessibility personas’. We are currently preparing additional languages, a new web page for the personas, and a visual redesign for the extension. The language tests are complete, and we should submit our update to version 1.2 shortly so it’s in the store on time.
In our accessibility ambassadors planning session this week, we were surprised that we suddenly hit 1,000 users.
After producing the outline for a new blog post on accessibility with Marion last week, I’m ready to write it in full next week. It’s been 2 years since our last accessibility post on the blog – not counting last year’s article on reuse in the Service Gazette. Much has happened since then. So, the topic deserves an update, and we have plently to share.
I should also get my colour variation of Simon Morgan-Wilson’s brilliant stickers ready for the printer. I set them up last year, but never finished them.
For early June, we are currently putting together another local meetup. As some great folks are attending the CityLAB Summer Conference this year, we decided to piggyback. We plan to discuss ‘Money & taxes’ on the occasion of our 13th edition. Again, we plan to have 3 talks. Over the weekend, I might draft the poster.
What’s next
Next week, I will continue talking to candidates for our open content design roles. We considered closing them, but then more demand manifested. So, we will wait until we have certainty that we can fill at least 2 roles, preferably 3.
We will open user research roles at regular and senior levels in the coming week. And on Friday, I interviewed a service design professional from our talent pool. Hiring doesn’t stop at the moment.
As there is a public holiday, I will travel in Europe by train. In Latvia, I have a meeting with a design colleague whom I met last December at the OECD in Paris. He is working on end-to-end services linked to life events. While in a workshop in Paris, I didn’t have a chance to hear more about his work. Hence, we’ll meet in Riga as I will be there anyway.
As it’s a 1.5-day train journey, I will also spend time with the whitepaper draft on issues with digital identity in Germany.