Report by Merici Vinton & Faith Savaiano & Laura Sigelmann: “The book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard P. Rumelt states “Good strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes.”
In every retrospective we hosted, participants bemoaned the lack of a strategy and a longer-term theory of change in their work, or “how”, tied to outcomes. No shared strategy of work and functional purpose across the federal teams – USDS, 18F/TTS, OFCIO, and beyond – led to confusion, competition for limited resources, and a focus on individual team or organizational goals rather than shared agency- or government-wide outcomes. No shared strategy for mission outcomes at the government-wide or agency level meant we heard time and time again during the retros that teams at all levels of government felt like they were missing a chance at making an even greater, deeper impact. In the absence of such shared mission outcomes, digital service teams felt like their participation was the metric for success and their activity was a substitute for long-term progress. This is emblematic of a systemic problem – digital service initiatives operate within silos, compete for limited resources and talent, and often operate at agencies that lack a clear sense of how digital service initiatives contribute to their goals, ultimately diminishing the impact.
The lack of strategy impacted not just the teammates trying to do the work, it also impacted the agencies and stakeholders digital service teams interact with. A strategy defines a set of priorities that is repeatable and accountable, making it easier to partner, delegate, and work fast; it also communicates what you don’t want to work on, transparently outlining priorities. For digital service teams, strategy was absent but should exist at multiple levels. At the highest level, it articulates the theory for how digital services contribute to societal outcomes – how digital and service design improves public health through better access to benefits such as SNAP, or simplified access to healthcare. Strategy also exists at the government-wide level, defining priorities and processes for achieving those outcomes. And at the organizational and functional level, strategy defines the logic model for how diverse teams – including crisis response, modernization, implementation, product building, and operations and maintenance – work together across government.
And now, at a moment of significant technological change and demands on government, the stakes of having no strategy at each of these levels are higher than ever. Without a clear position on AI, government won’t even get their tactics right — they’ll spend all their time debating tools instead of outcomes. A strategy doesn’t require consensus. It is a signal of what you value, and provides the concrete steps to get what you’re trying to achieve, and why — so that people can ignore it, engage with it, challenge it, or build on it.
Moving forward, the digital service community should be a part of articulating an ambitious, outcomes based strategy at each level for what we want to achieve across the country in the next 5-10-20 years; and to look at defining foundational elements that make a strategy effective: building user-centered government and how to reform our institutions to become modern, responsive organizations…(More)”.
