The quiet work of connection

A few years ago, a small group of practitioners came together to create an informal digital community across government. There was no formal sponsorship, no budget, and no authority to require participation. The motivation was simple: too many teams were solving the same problems in isolation, and too much practical learning was being lost.

What followed was not a programme or a delivery vehicle, but something quieter: a space for peers to share what they were actually doing. Sometimes that meant showcasing working solutions. Sometimes it meant talking openly about things that had failed, or about constraints that were hard to navigate. Over time, patterns started to emerge — not because anyone set out to define them, but because people recognised themselves in each other’s challenges.

Running a grassroots community inside government quickly reveals its own tensions.

Legitimacy is one of the first. Without a mandate, participation is voluntary, and trust has to be earned repeatedly. People want to know: who is this for, and who is it not for? Keeping the space open enough to be welcoming, while safe enough for honest discussion, requires constant judgement rather than fixed rules.

Time is another constraint. Community activity sits on top of already full roles. Energy ebbs and flows. Some sessions are busy; others are quieter. Accepting that uneven engagement is normal — and not a failure — is essential for sustainability.

Perhaps the most delicate balance is governance. In government, caution exists for good reasons. Communities that move too fast, or position themselves as “the answer”, risk losing credibility. The most productive moments often came from slowing down: surfacing trade‑offs, acknowledging risk, and resisting the urge to standardise too early.

What was less expected was how influence began to travel.

No one set out to “change the system”. Yet over time, shared language started to form. Similar approaches cropped up in different organisations. Questions raised in community discussions appeared later in more formal settings. Rather than pushing solutions upwards, practice spread sideways — and only later became visible to those looking across the system.

This kind of influence is hard to measure and easy to overclaim, so it’s worth being cautious. What can be observed, however, is that communities can act as early sensing mechanisms. They surface what is already working, where friction sits, and which problems are common across organisational boundaries. For central teams, that kind of signal can be more valuable than polished reports.

For other public servants thinking about starting — or sustaining — similar communities, a few lessons stand out.

First, start where energy already exists. Communities grow from real practice, not from abstract intent. Second, design for low permission. The lighter the barriers to participation, the more resilient the space becomes. Third, accept unevenness. Not everyone will engage in the same way, or at the same pace — and that’s fine. Finally, resist the temptation to formalise too quickly. Trust and shared understanding tend to precede structure, not the other way around.

Grassroots communities won’t replace formal governance, nor should they. But they can complement it — by creating space for learning that formal structures often struggle to hold. In complex systems like government, that quiet work of connection is sometimes where meaningful change begins.

About this reflection — This piece draws on my experience as a committee member of the xGov Low Code Community, a UK cross-government peer network for civil and public servants exploring low-code tools (Power Platform and similar). It now has 1,100+ members across 160+ organisations and is listed on the gov.uk Service Manual where UK civil and public servants can join.