This article is written by Keith Fuchser, IT division manager at Arapahoe County Government

This story begins with a situation familiar to public servants everywhere: a local government department struggling for funding, technological relevance, and citizen approval.

This is the story of the Information Technology Department in Arapahoe County, circa late 2019. I’ve chosen to tell it because I hope that other public servants will be able to benefit and learn from our experiences.

In 2019 there were “areas of concern” for our department. They included rapidly evolving technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, an aging physical infrastructure, and increasing citizen demands, coupled with an increasing distrust of government.

All quickly became problems to be solved overnight when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Hundreds of staff had to start working from home, new systems to track Covid responses had to be brought online, and many of our services had to adapt quickly to a new virtual model.

The county’s IT department determined that it needed to move forward with a fresh approach to providing services and support to citizens, ensuring both continuity and timely delivery of services.

Reality bytes

Traditionally, our department had responded to its needs via lengthy, convoluted procurement processes, followed by costly system implementation. This approach caused several problems, many of which may remind you of your own department.

For example, we found internal and external users demanded increasingly speedy system implementation at increasingly low cost, all with increasingly flexible terms of use. In the age of app stores and subscription models, a 12-month implementation timeline is now pretty much unacceptable. We are having to make these systems work for people almost immediately.

I would encourage public servants to speak up if they feel that their department’s services are likely to throw users off

Our department’s software catalogue is littered with tools that perform many of the same tasks, but which are targeted at individual departments and work groups. Examples of these might be queuing systems, asset management systems, and payment systems, to name just a few. This presents a challenge, because each system comes with licensing and support costs. One way we’ve decided to address these challenges is by looking closer at how our citizens experience working with us.

Building on the user

Citizen or user experience is often an afterthought when it comes to implementing new public service systems. Subsequently, citizens often get services with inconsistent access points, many of which are designed using a lot of jargon. While this language may make sense to us on the back-end, it leaves citizens on the user end confused, and for this reason alone the whole system fails at its most essential function. Some services meanwhile are buried so deep within our website that they are hardly ever noticed by citizens.

I would encourage public servants to speak up if they feel that their department’s services are likely to throw users off. The most effective way to bring this to the attention of someone who can help is to let operational and technical leaders know about the problem, and share the stories of users that have been hindered by a certain function or technology.

In the process of embracing new digital infrastructure, our team spent a significant amount of time learning about several academic and research organisations that have come up with playbooks and methodologies for digital transformation. The examples they provide showed us how we could imitate others’ best practice.

For instance, we learned that by focussing on a citizen-centric approach to digital service delivery, we could easily reduce service delivery, implementation, and support costs, all the while improving the experience of the user. A good example of a service delivery approach, based on citizen experience, is the county’s Five-Star Recovery Partner Program application.

Our department has only just started on this journey, but we have already seen measurable success and learned valuable lessons. Here are a few you might consider citing, should you wish to advocate for similar changes within your own organisation:

Digital delivery can save expenses

Moving our department’s services online has reduced the time that staff spends filling out forms by 30%. Now, staff spends more time reviewing building plans and performing inspections on construction. Moving online has also reduced the time citizens physically travel to use our services and or spend waiting in line. This gives citizens flexibility over how they choose to interact with us, something they increasingly expect from most services.

Without a doubt, the greatest challenge we still face is knowing how best to manage and adapt to the changes we ourselves are initiating

Our older, more analogue model of service delivery relied on a lot of assumptions about user preferences. As public servants ought to know, assumptions about what people want are rarely accurate, and never wise. As things stand, we now know we need to do a better job of working with partners and citizens to understand how they would like to receive our services.

The challenges we still face

Without a doubt, the greatest challenge we still face is knowing how best to manage and adapt to the changes we ourselves are initiating. There is no way around it — change is extremely difficult. Most staff are comfortable with how they already do their job, and while there is often an expressed desire from within the team to “Do things better”, change, in reality, is uncomfortable and can be quickly met with doubt and resistance.

Specific change concerns come in the form of questions and complaints, but those we’ve heard include: “If you automate what I do will I have a job in the future?” “Will this change put the organisation at risk?” “We are so busy, we don’t have time to make changes now.” “Isn’t this just an IT problem?”

These concerns were only amplified by the rapid change and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic.

You get the picture. Formal change management helps answer the question ‘What’s in it for me?’, and reassures staff that digital transformation is not synonymous with job losses. In our department, we have to recognise that this is an ongoing process. Some days feel like we are witnessing the dawning of a new world. Others feel like we’re treading water.

If you’re to take away one thing from this piece as a public servant, let it be this: change is a journey and mistakes will be made. This is okay, so long as you and your team learn from them. The year 2020 showed mine that digital infrastructure can improve citizen satisfaction, and help to reduce costs. I’m glad we managed well enough so that in telling this story, we might make it easier for your department to do the same one day. – Keith Fuchser

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