The General Services Administration’s (GSA) 18F digital consulting arm has released a report aimed at identifying digital modernization approaches that will work on a long-term basis, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.
Alex Pandel, director of the human services portfolio at 18F, told the publication in an interview that the report, titled “The Best Practices in Digital Transformation”, highlighted technical and infrastructure debts as major obstacles to iteration efforts in modernization programs.
Government hierarchies also prevent teams from independently making decisions for transformation initiatives, she added. According to Pandel, direct feedback and diverse perspectives can help agencies establish cross-functional teams that produce actionable long-term results.
“It takes multiple levels and multiple folks working together,” she said. “The agencies that we worked with, who have been the most successful, after our engagement has ended, are the ones where they really had a strong product leader inside the government … who was running the show and calling the shots and how the product evolved.”
