Why municipalities should follow the Digital Services Playbook

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

State and local IT managers should familiarize themselves with the federal government’s new guide on launching digital citizen engagement services, a former state CIO said.

IT managers at state and local agencies would be well served to familiarize themselves with the federal government’s new guide on implementing digital citizen engagement services, a former state chief information officer said.

The U.S. Digital Services Playbook, published online by the month-old U.S. Digital Service (USDS) team, boils the process of standing up engagement projects down to 13 “plays,” or steps. It’s intended for use by federal as well as state and local government agencies, but the latter bunch needs the advice more, said David Taylor, vice president of state, local and provincial government solutions at Software AG and former CIO for Florida.

“I think in many cases, state and local needs this advice more so than federal for many reasons: One, there are a lot more state and local entities than there are federal, so if this is going to make things better, it will make a bigger splash in a bigger environment,” he said. “Also, the federal agencies tend to be large enough that they have access to, I think, a bigger talent pool.”

In other words, there are more rookies at state and local agencies, he said.

Starting with understanding what users need, the guide moves through suggested approaches, budget considerations and team building before getting into technical best practices in Play 8 (choose a modern technology stack). Each section includes an explanation, a checklist and key questions for agency managers to ask.

“It’s an excellent start,” Taylor said. “My first impressions when I read it were that it’s exceptionally well written, very brief, clear and concise. There’s a lot of best practice information out there that’s available to CIOs, but a lot of it is just very poorly written or complex. This just cuts to the ‘What do I need to think about?’ and ‘Can I have a real simple checklist?’”

Additionally, it will help agencies avoid the common mistake of going full-throttle into building apps without considering the big picture, he said.

“There’s a very quick leap from Step 1 – understanding what people need – and then going right in to producing it without thinking, ‘Where is this thing going to be five years from now?’” Taylor said.

When it comes to the technology that will help agencies better engage people, the playbook recommends using a modern technology stack and avoiding vendor lock-in.

“In particular, digital services teams should consider using open source, cloud based and commodity solutions across the technology stack, as these solutions have seen widespread adoption and support by the most successful private-sector consumer and enterprise software technology companies,” the playbook states.

Next, it suggests using a flexible hosting environment that can scale to accommodate demand and automating testing and deployments, which can “provide consistent and reliable protection against unintentional regressions, and make it possible for developers to confidently release frequent updates to the service,” the playbook states.

The guide also suggests  that agencies should manage security and privacy through reusable processes, meaning that they should use certified security components in each layer of one stack and then apply the same ones to other services.

But the playbook doesn’t cover everything, Taylor said. In fact, USDS purposely left room for improvement. The guide links to a GitHub page where users can suggest changes.

Gaps Taylor found include a need for more specifics on application programming interfaces (APIs).

“When you’re developing an application in the modern world now, you really need to think about exposing your data and the functionality of an application through service interfaces both internally and externally,” he said.

Other missing components, he said, include tips on long-term cost and maintenance of applications; documenting business processes, not just code; and developing and maintaining metadata.

Also absent is a discussion about integration.

“If you were to follow the 13 steps, you would end up building a stand-alone application that solves a particular business problem, but you wouldn’t be by design addressing how you connect other systems and make that data and services available to other businesses, other people, other agencies,” Taylor said.

For instance, he said, if an agency has 20 applications with different business rules, it should have a business rules engine that stores all of them so  applications can tap them as needed.

Although the guide is designed for citizen engagement, it’s also applicable to internal application development, he added, because the best practices can be applied generally to any app.

The White House announced the formation of USDS on Aug. 11.  Composed of tech experts who helped fix HealthCare.gov last year, the team will establish standards to bring government digital services in line with the best commercial services and work with agencies on designing, developing and operating citizen-facing applications.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.