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However, the evidence of “policy fatigue” being a major blocker in digital teams understanding
the governance and standards, enabled the alpha to test the range of products.
3) Preventing siloed working
The Skills & Capability team was one of three strands under the Legacy IT Programme. The other
two were audit and governance, and commercial. The three strands met weekly to ensure that
interdependencies were highlighted, including stakeholder communications.
The deliberate breakdown of the strands ensured that the resulting products and policy development
are holistic and complementary of each other. In particular, the Digital Standards in Government
course focuses on ensuring all civil servants understand the audit, governance and commercial
considerations when embarking on any digital programme.
Next steps
The products will be judged through the measurement of their direct impact on two key measures:
• Increased allocation of funding to address legacy IT
• Increased success rate of service assessments
GDS challenged the status quo of writing more guidance to address a problem. They looked at
this from a behavioural change point of creating services and products, which support and sustain
change by enabling the people who have the power to use it in the right way.
Of course, technology will inevitably always become legacy – what is new today will be old tomorrow;
but GDS delved into possible ways to encourage and embrace behaviours, governance, teams,
processes and cultures that allow for, and welcome, ongoing digital transformation.
Viewing the products, it is evident that everything has a module or chapter design, which is a
deliberate design feature to allow for continued iteration at a low cost. There is also a feedback
loop in the Digital Standards in Government Course to encourage all voices to share their real-life
experiences keeping the content fresh and engaging.
4.1.2 Understand user needs
Develop a deep understanding of users and the problems to solve for them.
60 Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities | May 2023