Empower for action

Government workers need modern tools, decision-making power, trust, and collaboration

A government focused on delivery is a government that empowers its people to deliver. Empowerment comes in many forms: providing modern tools, enabling decision-making by individuals and teams, trusting employees over creating layers of validation, and staffing teams with policy and implementation at the same table. Build the belief that better is possible, a mindset of curiosity, and the support structures that will get you and your team there.

The Vision

  • Teams include mixed disciplines, particularly implementation and policy expertise.
  • Teams communicate openly, and work together regularly.
  • People throughout the organization feel ownership over their portion of the work and are empowered to make decisions.
  • Skills and capabilities are grown at various levels to meet the organization’s needs.
  • Job descriptions are written by the community of people performing that job.
  • Hiring and recruiting processes are streamlined to be rapid, and are a good experience for potential candidates.

Resources

Hiring is a Broken Government Service
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The CIO problem: Identifying what kind of leadership talent you need
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18F: De-Risking Government Technology Projects
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GOV.UK: What Each Role Does in a Service Team
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18F: Labor Category Descriptions for Agile Procurements
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18F: Product Owner, M.D.
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18F: How We Work
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Success stories

How Designers and Engineers Collaborate to Build Accessible Public Services
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Building Product Management Capacity in Government Part 2 – Interview with a Product Manager
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Procuring Differently: How Colorado Used User Research and Active Vendor Management for COVID-19 Technology
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