The Digital Government Transformation

There are a lot of benefits of digital governments: expanded access, accelerated and more efficient service, and enhanced transparency. That’s the ideal outcome of a wave of government digital transformation projects taking place around the world, and project leaders are working to ensure those efforts hit the mark.

YOLANDA MARTÍNEZ

The world is digital, and if we want to make sure that no one is left behind, we need to ensure that digital brings equal opportunities to all people. And we really want to make sure all people in society can really take advantage of that by making it very easy to access government services.

NARRATOR

The world is changing fast. And every day, project professionals are turning ideas into reality—delivering value to their organizations and society as a whole. On Projectified^®, we’ll help you stay on top of the trends and see what’s ahead for The Project Economy—and your career.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

This is Projectified^®. I’m Steve Hendershot.

The next wave of digital transformation promises a reimagination of how governments treat critical data, from health records in Australia to mobile driver’s licenses in the U.S. It’s a transition that benefitted from a substantial boost during the pandemic, as 77 percent of public sector leaders report that they’ve seen positive impact from digital initiatives introduced during COVID-19, according to Deloitte.

There’s also an appetite among citizens: 87 percent of people in a multinational survey told Salesforce and Boston Consulting Group that a great digital customer experience would increase their trust in government.

The projects aimed at bringing those experiences to life aren’t easy, given the regulatory challenges around privacy and security, not to mention the technological and design hurdles. But they are happening, and today we’ll meet two leaders working on some major government digitization projects.

We start in Denmark—a leader in digital government according to U.N. and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports—with Katrine Maria Krzeminski, program manager for My Overview at the Agency for Digital Government, based in Copenhagen. My Overview is each citizen’s personal page on the country’s public sector portal. People can log in and see much of what the government knows about them, such as tax records and education and housing data. It’s an effort aimed at greater efficiency and transparency—not traditionally hallmarks of governments—and shows some of the potential for an expanded digital relationship between states and citizens.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Tell me about the My Overview project. What was the brief, and how did you bring it to life?

KATRINE MARIA KRZEMINSKI

My Overview started in our last strategy that was from 2016 to 2020. In Denmark, we negotiate these joint public digitalization strategies every four years. And joint public means between the state, the municipalities and the regions. In that strategy, we had a program or initiative where we wanted to see would it be possible to create something where we could display, for example, a timeline of a case you have with the municipality? As a citizen you can see is it received by the municipality? Are they processing it? Is it done? Things like that.

It was also the ambition to show these things so that we could empower the citizens. And so we started with a smaller proof of concept project, trying to build an index that could gather all these different information from cases, and also social benefits, so we could give you an overview of what kind of social benefits do you get. After the proof of concept, they made a more binding political commitment to say, “Okay, now we have the proof of concept. Yes, we can build something that works. So now we want to create a real initiative that can actually gather all the different information, not just cases or social benefits.”

STEVE HENDERSHOT 

So how do you work with these agencies to get this information displayed on the platform?

KATRINE MARIA KRZEMINSKI

That has been the long process that we have been on. In the beginning, we made a four-year plan saying okay, so the first year, we will gather information about employment, some personal information, some benefits. Next year, we will look at the social areas, transport. So we divided this whole plan in different areas and put them in separate years. And so what we do is that we go to these different public agencies and say, “Okay, Ministry of Transport, it’s your turn. Do you have any interesting data to show citizens?” And then we negotiate with them. What could we possibly show, and what are the systems? Is it possible to get the information? What’s your time frame? Are you building a new system? Of course, we don’t want to force you to make an integration if you know that you’re changing your system in a year. So we are very pragmatic in that way.

We are a mixed group. My role is that I make the initial political negotiations with the different public authorities. And, of course, I tell them, “You are committed to give us the data. So now let’s talk about how and when.” And then, of course, we have a more technical team that gets into it once we’ve agreed upon which kind of data they have and how are the systems, and do they need to build an API [application programming interface] or something like that. We are still in the process of gathering all this data. And of course, we have very strict laws about which authorities can see which information about the citizen. So it hasn’t been an easy task. And also, it’s very important to say that it’s only the citizen that can see their own data. We don’t share any data between public authorities.

STEVE HENDERSHOT 

How difficult was it to pull this off? What did you have to overcome along the way?

KATRINE MARIA KRZEMINSKI 

We’ve had, and still have, a lot of challenges. To name a few, most authorities, they already have a huge backlog. So you always have this—that they weigh nice-to versus need-to. And even though everybody can see the value for the citizens, of course, of My Overview, it’s on the nice-to list for most authorities because they get some EU regulation saying, “You have to build this kind of system.” And then we come and say, “Oh, and could you, by the way, also show this data to the citizen?” So it kind of comes way down the backlog.

One of the other big challenges is resources. We don’t give them money to build this. They have to do it within their own budgets, but sometimes it’s not even money. The competencies that they have in these different organizations are very scarce. For example, our police department, we would really like to show our citizens their passport data. That system was built in 1969. They have two people who can operate the system. So of course, these two people are in high demand, so it has taken three years to get access to these two people who can actually help us build an integration. And that speaks to another big challenge that we have: Since Denmark was a first mover onto [a] digital agenda, we have a huge amount of legacy systems. And of course, that brings problems with data quality, and is it even possible to build an API that can talk to the mainframe without the mainframe breaking down and things like that. 

STEVE HENDERSHOT 

This project is pretty complex, spanning years and involving a lot of stakeholders. How do you build buy-in for a project that’s seen—by some of them, anyway—as a nice-to-have, rather than as a necessity?

KATRINE MARIA KRZEMINSKI

It’s a process. But of course, one of the ways to build buy-in is actually to take the agency’s data and create a mock-up and then go test it with some citizens. If we can come back and say, “Hey, the citizens would love this data,” it’s very difficult for the agency then to say, “No, we think it’s a really bad idea.”

Then we enter into the how and when. Of course, sometimes we have to say, “Okay, it might take you five years before you have your system ready, but now, at least, you know this is coming. When you go out and you source a new system, let’s talk about what that system will need in order to be able to show these data to the citizens.” So we also try to be of service to the agencies that might not be ready yet. We offer them access to some of our resources. We have specialists who can help talk to their specialists about what would be the best thing to build in order to be able to display this data. In the end, when we say that this is politically agreed, of course, they know that at some point they have to. And of course, we are reasonable. When we discuss with these different agencies, if the volume is very low, if you have like 5,000 citizens on a certain area, we say, “Okay, maybe it’s not worth building something just to show it for a few thousand citizens.” Or as we say, “If you have a new system coming in two years, we won’t force you.” So we try to be very of service and be very pragmatic.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

What value is there in sharing this information with citizens?

KATRINE MARIA KRZEMINSKI

Enhancing the trust that the citizens have in the government and how we use their data is a really big factor in creating this. One of the other great benefits that we get is citizen empowerment. The more you have access to your own data, the more you can educate yourself on your own situation. So for example, if you meet a caseworker at the municipality, you have the information beforehand.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

You’re also looking to add more features like citizens’ appointments with public sector agencies, upcoming deadlines and payments. How did you go about building that to-do list—did you start with citizens or with agencies?

KATRINE MARIA KRZEMINSKI

It’s a combination. Since we started with the cases and the benefits, in that process, of course, we identified other areas that could potentially lead to more efficient runnings of the public sector but also could create value for the citizens. Whenever we have an idea that this might be valuable, we user test it. We do interviews and all that to make sure that what we build will actually create value. We’ve learned along the way that it creates a much better product if we actually ask the citizens if they understand it, can they use it, these kinds of things. In the whole process, slowly we are defining areas that have this potential to create value for the citizen if we show them these kinds of information. So it’s a joint venture between the agencies. What do they have on the shelf that they can present to the citizens, and what do the citizens then think would be valuable?

STEVE HENDERSHOT

What are some of the takeaways? How can you use them to inform what's next for My Overview as well as other e-government projects?

KATRINE MARIA KRZEMINSKI

One of the key takeaways is that you need political commitment. Even with the political commitment that we have, it’s still very difficult to get all the public authorities to commit to give us that data. So of course, the more political commitment, the easier it gets. And then of course, as I said, one of the big learnings we have from this program is user testing. We test a lot. We test early, we test in the middle, we test at the end to make sure that we actually create value for the citizen.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

STEVE HENDERSHOT

The emphasis on government digital transformation is also minting a new class of gov-tech project leaders who have demonstrated an ability to navigate the systems and stakeholders necessary to deliver project value.

One of those leaders is Yolanda Martínez. While working for the Government of Mexico, she led an initiative to create a one-stop online portal for accessing services in the country. Now Yolanda is at the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva, working as the global project lead for the GovStack initiative, which aims to help governments take charge of their digital futures. The GovStack team works with countries to develop their own stacks, software components used in various e-government services. She spoke with Projectified®’s Hannah LaBelle about the lessons she has learned from digital government projects and her advice for project leaders taking helm of these initiatives.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

HANNAH LABELLE

Let’s start by discussing the state of government digitization. What does this look like for public sectors across the world?

YOLANDA MARTÍNEZ

This is a very good moment for digital teams around the world to use technology in a way that changes the experience of citizens when interacting with governments. We see a huge digital uptake of millions of users going to [the] internet in order to continue their work, their economic activity, millions of kids that went into online classes, a lot of government services that switch from onsite, physical presence to online availability to be able to democratize access to those services by all citizens, without having to move physically into a traditional office space. This opens huge opportunity for innovation and for proving the value of digital technology as a great tool to democratize access to government services.

HANNAH LABELLE

What projects are you seeing countries implement right now?

YOLANDA MARTÍNEZ

I see a lot of tendency into incorporating emerging technologies into regular government stacks. For example, a lot of initiatives on incorporating artificial intelligence on top of government databases to be able to analyze and understand better user needs, to personalize the experience of citizens when accessing government services. And I think this opens a huge opportunity for simplification of requirements for really taking advantage of data analytics in understanding and solving huge social problems that can be leveraged but using ethically, and responsibly, new technologies like artificial intelligence.

I see another important tendency is blockchain that has been running for many years now with several pilots, mostly in land registry or any type of registry that can allow full traceability of transactions. And another trend that really gathers my attention is the metaverse and opportunities that are coming forward in using virtual reality and augmented reality, as well as part of the different digital experiences that are going to be of easy access for people around the world.

HANNAH LABELLE

You’ve led several digital transformation initiatives in the public sector. In your experience, what challenges do countries face when they are just starting to digitize government services? And how is GovStack looking to help countries address these challenges?

YOLANDA MARTÍNEZ

One of the biggest challenges is the government tends to work on silos, and it’s very common to find certain government entities with a lot of resources—in terms of team and digital capabilities—and other government agencies from other sectors that do not have the same access to technical expertise or technology in itself. So the objective of the global GovStack initiative is to work as a community-driven effort with technical specifications that are technology-neutral and that can really accelerate the process according to the level of maturity that each country is to adopt those technical specifications and really speed up how they build their own stack. And when you think about it, a very good example of a shared digital public good is X-Road.

X-Road is an information mediator software component. It was developed initially by the Government of Estonia to connect all relevant services and to provide a seamless experience for the citizens. Since it’s an open-source platform, many countries started to express interest in using the same source code and making some adjustments to comply with international regulations. And in recent years, the consortium was created. It’s called Northern Institute of Interoperability where three countries—Estonia, Finland and Ireland—share the price of maintaining the code, updating with new features. And we have many other countries, more than 20, using X-Road in their different branches.

So this is an example of how a reusable building block, a reusable set of specifications, can really save time among the different governments around the world and actually allow them to speed up the process of creating a new generation of building blocks, new generation of digital services in a more cost-efficient way, and allow also time to really focus on understanding user needs on solving really, very complex public challenges because you have the technology part well set up.

HANNAH LABELLE

So what are some of GovStack’s upcoming initiatives, and what countries are you working with?

YOLANDA MARTÍNEZ

GovStack started as a co-partner initiative between the Government of Estonia, the Government of Germany, by GIZ, ITU and DIAL (Digital Impact Alliance). So, among these four partners, the objective during 2020 was to set up the first set of specifications for foundational building blocks. That is digital identity, digital registries, payments, information mediator that actually facilitates for any government service to have the basis to identify the user, to architect a solution, to make a payment and to get a final document as a proof of that transaction. The second wave of building blocks is about to be released this year. We’re going to have technical specifications ready for consent management, for workflow, for messaging and for scheduling. By the end of this year, we are going to start with wave three, working on technical specifications associated with UX/UI [user experience/user interface], digital signature, cloud infrastructure, e-marketplace.

Current countries that we are collaborating with are [the] Horn of Africa Initiative where Kenya, Djibouti and Somalia are collaborating in identifying five government services that are common across the three countries. We’re also working with Rwanda in the design of the EPR [extended producer responsibility] registration. We’re also working with Egypt, which is a major champion of the initiative because they are in process of updating their current stack, so everything that they’re going to start rolling out is going to be under GovStack technical specifications, and it’s going to be a very comprehensive reference implementation for other countries around the world to learn from. And from Latin America and the Caribbean, we have a lot of interest from Argentina, Peru, Brazil and other countries within the regional network for the development of e-government, Red GEALC, which is a space for sharing best practices, working in encasing and strengthening regional integration among countries. So, as you can see, it doesn’t matter the place in the world. Challenges are very similar, and using common, reusable components is a very cost-efficient way to accelerate the digitization of government services.

HANNAH LABELLE

What’s the process like when working with these countries? What are some good practices you’ve found when collaborating with multiple stakeholders across agencies, for GovStack or really any digital government project?

YOLANDA MARTÍNEZ

One of the biggest challenges is to be able to identify who are the relevant key stakeholders in this effort and to incorporate GovStack within each digital national strategy as an ecosystem initiative. So, we’re really looking forward in each country engagement on how to create and strengthen digital ecosystems that can benefit from this approach. For example, training startups and IT providers on the technical specifications, making it very easy for digital government teams to incorporate the different software components into their own infrastructure.

One of the launches that we’re going to have this year is the CIO digital leaders forum, which is a GovStack knowledge-sharing platform. We really want to create a network of CIOs sharing best practices on how they went into implement digitization of government services at scale by using this approach. And within those best practices, always a strong ecosystem makes the difference. And for an ecosystem, we mean the startups, the IT sector, universities, NGOs, that by knowing the different standards that are being implemented, they can also develop many other services around them that are easier for citizens at the end to access.

HANNAH LABELLE

What’s your advice to project leaders who are leading these digital government projects?

YOLANDA MARTÍNEZ

It’s super important to have a very clear vision and be able to communicate it correctly. To be able to co-design that vision with the relevant stakeholders of the initiative that you are embracing, and this initiative could be nationwide, can be city-wide, can be state-wide. Digital is everywhere, so that means that you have a different set of stakeholders to whom sit down at the table and align and co-design what do you expect from this initiative.

The second piece of advice is to have a very clear set of priorities. It’s very easy to get lost because there is a lot of things happening. So, having a very clear set of priorities, focusing your efforts on those priorities is extremely relevant to get that expected outcome. And the third thing that is key is having the right team in place, a multidisciplinary set of professionals that are backing you in leading digital because by having the right set of skill sets, you really manage to deliver.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Teams are embarking on digital transformation projects that aim to succeed at what some thought was impossible: building more positive customer interactions and stronger connections between citizens and their governments. It takes collaboration, communication and attention to privacy and regulations to execute these initiatives, but as we’ve heard today, project leaders are more than up for the challenge.

NARRATOR

Thanks for listening to Projectified^®. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to the show. And leave a rating or review—we’d love your feedback. To hear more episodes of Projectified^®, visit Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, Stitcher, Spotify or SoundCloud. Or head to PMI.org/podcast.