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The GovStack Implementation Playbook provides guidance and examples of how governments can incorporate a Building Block (BB) and principles to design and deliver government digital services at national, state, municipal, and local levels. Governments can get started from a variety of different points depending on their objectives, context, and needs. GovStack can be used by governments at any stage of their digital journey.
The Playbook is intended to be used by digital teams - service designers, solution architects, developers, lawyers, product managers, behavioral scientists, and user needs researchers, among others who are involved in the digitization of government services.
Each section of the playbook suggests activities, provides examples, resources, and roles within a digital team responsible for implementing the suggested activity.
The playbook references examples from countries that participate in GovStack communities of practice like the WSIS Special Prize on Service Design, CIO Digital Leaders Forum, and countries that currently are implementing using GovStack tools and resources.
The playbook is a continuous co-design effort by a multidisciplinary team of experts representing GovStack founding partners (ITU, EE, GIZ, DIAL), implementing partners such as EstDev, FIIAAP, Taltech, and digital teams from governments that participate in TAC review.
The playbook also integrates a curated set of best practices coming from different assessment frameworks developed by International Organizations like ITU, OECD, UNDP, and World Bank, among others. It also gathers reference tools and methods from digital services manuals, and design standards developed by different digital service teams worldwide. Like but not limited to:
The Government Digital Service in the United Kingdom
18F in the United States
gob.pe digital service team in Perú
gob.mx digital service team in México
Canada Digital Service
Australia Digital Government Office
Ireland Digital Service
The playbook is in continuous iteration according to country implementation feedback.
The GovStack initiative is a multi-stakeholder initiative led by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Estonia, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Digital Impact Alliance.
The initiative actively seeks partnerships with governments, agencies, private sector organizations and the open source community.
Learn more about govStack by visiting our website.
GovStack initiative is an expert community-driven multistakeholder effort aimed at deriving common technical practice and understanding of the Building Blocks approach as seen in implemented countries.
By unpacking and simplifying the technical approach that goes into building holistic digital government, GovStack aims to accelerate countries’ ownership of e-gov. solutions and in doing so improve services for social well-being.
GovStack model is an extension of the SDG Digital Investment Framework, an earlier effort by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) at the UN Foundation.
The SDG Digital Investment Framework helps governments and their partners to take a whole-of-government approach to invest in shared digital infrastructure to strengthen SDG programming across sectors. The framework accomplishes this by defining four interrelated layers:
SDG Targets define high-level objectives to which governments systematically align their development goals.
Use Cases define the steps necessary to achieve a business objective contributing to one or more SDG Targets.
WorkFlows are generic business processes, such as "client communication" or "procurement", that support the delivery of a Use Case.
ICT Building Blocks are reusable software components that enable WorkFlows and Use Cases across multiple sectors.
A primary aim of this framework is to assist decision-makers and enterprise planners in the identification of common business processes and ICT solutions that can serve as the basis for a shared information architecture. A Use Case is an effective starting point for this analysis, because each step in a Use Case is comprised of one or more business processes, each of which may be supported by ICT solutions.
The example below illustrates the business processes and supporting technologies for an illustrative Rural Advisory Service Use Case.
GovStack building blocks are interoperable, generic Digital Public Goods that enable digital public infrastructure.
GovStack engagement opportunities allow countries to select the level of involvement that best suits their needs. The following are a few streams through which countries can engage with GovStack.
Learn more about govStack engagement opportunities by visiting our website.
We're excited to invite you to our dynamic workspace! 🌟 Join our Slack channel to stay connected with our vibrant technical and implementation communities where we share ideas, and collaborate in real time. Whether it's brainstorming updates to Building Block Technical specifications, problem-solving, or simply connecting, Slack is the hub of our communication. Join our Slack workplace using the following QR or link
For project management and streamlined workflows, we use JIRA. Dive into JIRA to track tasks, current projects, and our milestones seamlessly. It's where our productivity gets a boost and our goals turn into accomplishments.
And when it comes to project documentation, we rely on Confluence. Explore Confluence by using the following QR or link:
Find specifications for GovStack Building Blocks linked .
Reference architecture is the blueprint used to put the pieces of the organizational & systems puzzle together. Digital teams use reference architecture to promote the reuse of common assets and identify capability gaps. It:
Defines a common language for consistent communication within the organization
Outlines all capabilities needed to achieve the best outcome
Provides the ability of systems or software to exchange and make use of information
Establishes standard systems, and a common way to exchange information
Develop the systems/software/platform catalog to identify reusable software components/Building Blocks that can support the digitization of services.
Identify additional Building Blocks/ reusable software components that are critical in building a national stack that can facilitate the development of prioritized citizen-centric digital services.
Define the approach to adding new/updated Building Blocks within the national stack, either through tendering, developing indigenously, or re-using existing Building Blocks. GovExchange provides a catalog of digital public goods that can be used as a reference.
Examples of Reference Architectures:
In Australia, their reference architecture document provides digital teams the guidance they need to align current and emerging tech into a sound orchestration of solutions to enable digital government service design and delivery
Who does what:
Chief government architects - Coordinate the work around the reference architecture
Solutions architects from government entities - Actively participate in the co-design of the document, the reference architecture working group, and the training program
Government Enterprise Architecture
Implementation guidelines
e-learning courses for stakeholders (public servants and ICT service providers)
Over the past years, digital transformation has become a policy priority along with traditional areas such as health policy, economic policy, labor and social protection policies. National Digital Strategies or National Digital Agendas have become guiding policy documents to establish the priorities and focus areas that respond to the country´s context and needs.
In most countries with a Digital Agenda/Strategy in place, digitalization of government services at scale is a pressing issue. Many leading e-government initiatives prioritize the creation of common reusable software components like identity, payments, digital signature, and forms builders, among others, to deliver various government services digitally.
A "Whole-of-Government" approach frequently entails the development of a central digital platform where government agencies across different sectors can build new e-government services without the need to redesign, test, and operate the underlying systems and infrastructure themselves from scratch.
A comprehensive National Digital Agenda/Strategy:
Define activities/action lines, objectives, and goals (KPIs) according to the country's context and needs in an open and collaborative process with all stakeholders of the digital ecosystem in the Country
Define the governance mechanism to coordinate implementation and responsible entities for each action line
Define progress reporting and monitoring of KPIs
Set a digitisation roadmap with time frames for the execution of each action line
Align the Strategy to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Set a public dashboard to share progress in the implementation of the Agenda and its KPIs
Launch the digital agenda with the highest political support - Coordinate a presidential event to launch the agenda where all stakeholders that participated in the co-design are recognized and encouraged to follow with its implementation
Start the implementation mechanism right after the launch to keep the momentum
Make implementation open and collaborative
Promote the agenda permanently
Examples of Digital Strategies/Agendas:
In Australia, the Digital Agenda (Digital Transformation Agency n.d.) sets 2025 as the target to have all government services available digitally.
In Estonia, the e-Estonia Policy (e-Estonia n.d.) leverages all digital capabilities of the Country to support other countries in their digital transformation journeys.
In Ireland, the Ireland Digital Framework (Department of the Taoiseach 2022) sets life events as the guiding principle for their service design and delivery.
In Mexico, the 2013 Constitutional Reform recognized the Internet as a Constitutional Right and made an obligation of the State to have a National Universal Digital Inclusion Policy (Please use Google translate to read in your preferred language).
Who does what:
Head of the Digital Authority – Leads the Digital Agenda Co-Design process, coordinates the implementation and reporting mechanisms, and enables delivery of the action lines
Legal advisors – Prepare a regulatory plan to adapt/update Country legal framework according to the Digital Agenda action lines
The leadership team (chief data officer, cybersecurity officer, chief architect, lead service designer, etc) – Coordinate stakeholder community to participate in the co-design and implementation of the digital agenda
Digital teams in each government entity - Implement, monitor, and continuously iterate the digital services under their jurisdiction in the user journeys
Stakeholder community - Private sector, academia, civil society, and international organizations.
National Digital Strategy/Agenda
Digitisation Roadmap
Public dashboard to share progress in the implementation of the Agenda and its KPIs
Governance mechanism to report progress made on the implementation of the National Digital Strategy/Agenda (This includes a high level advisory board)
There is an existing logical approach practiced by leading e-gov to create a common shared platform to deliver various government services digitally.
A holistic (Whole-of-Government) digital platform that can be used by any government agency across sectors to build new e-government services without the need to redesign, test, and operate the underlying systems and infrastructure themselves every time.
Instead of creating unique and disparate solutions, use a common reusable stack of Building Blocks to form the core platform engine and contextualize various e-government services on top.
Building blocks (BBs) are software modules that can be deployed and combined in a standardized manner. Each building block is capable of working independently, but they can be combined to do much more.
Building blocks are composable, interoperable software modules that can be used across a variety of use cases. They are standards-based, preferably open-source, and designed for scale.
Each building block exposes a set of services in the form of REST APIs that can be consumed by other building blocks or applications.
A whole-of-government approach to digital investment to help achieve the SDGs stands to benefit the entire value chain: citizens, businesses, governments, and their partners, and the supporting ecosystem of ICT developers and implementers.
To maximize ROI, a government must be able to draw a line connecting its national development goals to the programs it is implementing to achieve those strategic goals and to connect each program to the reusable software components that help deliver them.
Common ICT Building Blocks enable generic business processes, or WorkFlows, that can be combined and repurposed in multiple ways to deliver priority Use Cases that contribute to SDG Targets. National governments can prioritize Use Cases according to citizens’ needs (eg improve neonatal outcomes), map functionality across sectors, and then invest in shared infrastructure comprising ICT Building Blocks.
The illustration below describes savings through a reusable digital investment approach:
GovStack has developed technical specifications for the following Building Block (BB). Additionally, you will find corresponding FAQs for each BB linked below:
A government digital service catalog is an online platform or database that provides information about various digital services and resources offered by a government to its citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders. The service catalog can be made available to users with a consistent/unified user experience.
No service lives in a vacuum, thus it is important to understand how they fit together to impact the overall user experience. This interplay of services based on the life events that trigger their need can be mapped using the User/Business Life event map. Once the services are mapped, they can be further analyzed to understand the level of their digital maturity and potential for simplification.
Define the structure of the catalog of services. RFI-II provides a template to assist in Cataloguing the services.
Classify services based on their digital maturity. The level of maturity of services facilitates calculating the financial and technical effort that will be required to digitize/digitalize a citizen-centric government service. An example of classification is as follows:
Level 1- Informative: Information on the service is made available online yet the actual transaction happens in person.
Level 2- Downloadable forms: The users can download and complete the forms while having to submit the same forms in-person or upload the documents.
Level 3- Submission of webform: Users can validate data showcased on the web form, upload the required documents, fill out forms, and submit them remotely.
Level 4: 100% online
Understand how services are related to one another. User/Business Life event map can enable visual mapping of services to life events, their clustering, and identification of relations and dependencies.
Abu Dhabi has developed a catalog that clusters services based on user/business life events.
The following image shows the front end of the one-stop-shop for services offered by Abu Dhabi government
The following images show the services within each cluster within the user/business life events
Who does what:
Head of Service Design - Lead the integration of the service catalog.
Service Design and Delivery Focal point - Complement and update the service catalog with services from their organizations. They follow up and coordinate the actions within their organization to digitize services according to the approved digitization roadmap
Service catalog, with services mapped to citizen/business life events.
The GovStack implementation framework considers incorporating a BB approach at the level of digital institutional governance, ICT policy & citizen-centric co-design & delivery of government digital services.
GovStack gathers best practices from leading digital teams across the world. Below is a suggested journey that covers the most important aspects of digitizing government services at scale:
It starts with understanding the country's context and needs
Identifying current tech stack
Cataloging services based on life events
Identifying priority services to digitize according to feasibility and impact (demand)
Design and delivery of citizen-centric digital services using reusable software components
Development of a scaling strategy that leverages the reusable technology stack
The aim of the GovStack is to facilitate digital teams around the world to build their own digital service design standard and government technology stack organically. Starting with one or two priority services that use a small set of reusable software components (BBs).
The digitization of priority services will allow digital teams to gain valuable hands-on experience in:
Applying UX/UI guidelines, deploying containerized Building Block applications, API integration, regulatory compliance on data protection, integration testing, and more.
Designing of citizen-centric digital services
Re-using software components/building blocks integrated into the national stack across all government services
Tailoring of scaling strategy that leverages the national stack to digitize services rapidly, efficiently, and in a standardized fashion.
GovStack provides a sandbox that allows its users to see the UX/UI guidelines and Building blocks in action.
A real-world example of service design and delivery roadmap is found in the framework put in place by the Government of Ukraine and presented below.
Information about government services is often complicated to access and understand for citizens. Lack of homogeneity in terms of location, format, language, and level of detail results in a lack of understanding of actions and procedures users must undertake to obtain services.
A citizen/business one-stop shop facilitates access to information on government services (Service Catalog), entities, and citizen participation mechanisms, among other resources (open data), in one place in a user-centric way.
Standardise information presentation to citizens/businesses:
Develop a Service Information Sheet Standard (SISS). This sheet would contain standardized fields such as: service name; requirements; cost for the user; the location where the service can be obtained; concrete actions required from the user; and outcome of the service.
Government Entity Information Standard (GEIS): This sheet would contain standardized fields such as the mandate of the entity, the programs it manages, and the services it provides.
Citizen Feedback/Participation Standard (CFPS): A standard for the government to seek input from citizens through surveys, discussion forums, and comments on laws.
The following is applicable in cases of countries following a centralized CMS-based approach.
Set up a Content Management System (CMS) to create, populate, update, and maintain the service catalog.
Designate a focal point in each Government entity to comprehensively capture the information of services corresponding to the agency according to SISS.
Establish a ticketing system to allow the incorporation of citizens' feedback on the service information sheets.
Continuously train focal points on UX writing to ensure that service information sheets are easily understandable by their users.
Structure services within the service catalog according to business and life events, enabling end-users to find what they need by simply identifying the event that triggered the search for service.
Maintain and improve the service catalog.
The following are a few examples of Service Catalogs:
Landing page of Gob.pe that presents the most demanded services.
Each service has its own dedicated service information sheet that presents requirements, citizen feedback on the quality of information on the service sheet, and the date on which the service sheet was last updated.
Tina is a transactional chatbot that retrieves information from Argentina's digital service catalog and presents it over chat to its users. This demonstrates the possibility to share the machine-readable content of services with users via multiple channels.
Shared service team: Develop and maintain the CMS
Digital communications team: Develop UX guidelines and training focal points and perform random auditing on quality of service sheets to ensure they meet the service sheet standards.
Focal point designates: Create service sheets, update them according to citizens' feedback, and implement regulation changes regarding services.
Content Management System (CMS)
Service catalog on CMS
Service Information Sheet Standard
Ticketing system
Training material on UX writing
Defining which services should be digitized first varies from country to country. Prioritization criteria are usually based on selecting high-impact use cases for citizens and businesses and the feasibility of digitalizing them using current and future reusable software components/building blocks - the Country´s technology stack.
The experience gained from deploying and integrating different software components/building blocks and designing the underlying systems needed to enable the priority use cases allows digital teams to gain the necessary experience to work with a building block approach. As more services are developed with reusable software components/BBs, the faster each design and delivery cycle becomes reaching scalability in a more sustainable and cost-efficient manner.
Rank the catalog of services based on your country´s criteria for impact and feasibility.
The below criteria are a reference. Each digital team can calibrate current criterion according to information availability, context & needs:
Continuously recalibrate the ranking based on:
Learnings of the different design and delivery cycles and as re-usability of BBs become common practice across digital teams.
Re-designing user journeys based on live events and proactively delivering them using event-driven architectures. Refer below examples from Estonia's vision documents on proactive services and event-driven architecture:
Who does what:
Head of Service Design - Lead the integration of the service catalog.
Service Design and Delivery Focal point - Complement and update the service catalog with services from their organizations. They follow up and coordinate the actions within their organization to digitize services according to the approved digitization roadmap
Service prioritization criteria
Ranked priority services
- Actively participate in co-design sessions, the reference architecture working groups, and the training program
This section provides an example approach to digitizing government services based on , , and utilizing reusable software components/Building Blocks.
The following image represents the design process using to create a unified digital experience across all government services.
The above guidelines are usually captured in a transversal regulatory mandate defined as a "digital service design standard" or a "design system", which is applicable to all government services and easily implemented through the use of style guides, components, and patterns. GovStack provides to kick-start the design and development of UI/UX components layer for using the GovStack applications and building blocks.
GovStack has also developed for reusable software components/Building Blocks (BB) that enable the digitization of many government services across sectors, ministries, and departments.
More information on how to deploy and integrate building blocks to enable digital government services is available in the .
Set one or two exemplar services from quadrant A to work with implementing the GovStack approach to
Simplification measures applied to the service catalog. For example, eliminating services associated with getting documents that another government entity requires by automatic consultations to different registries in government entities using .
Strategic importance | Users demand |
|
Impact | Complexity to access the service |
|
| Government Impact |
|
| Business impact |
|
| Technical impact |
|
Technical feasibility | Technical capacity |
|
| Financial resources |
|
| Reliance on other technologies |
|
Political feasibility | Political acceptability |
|
| Regional harmonization |
|
| Stakeholder consensus |
|
GovStack design principles guide our design and delivery work. They are based on the Principles for Digital Development and offer specific best practices to make our digital work better. As you engage in implementing a GovStack approach to citizen-centric digitization of government services you will see these principles embedded in our iteration processes, tools and methods. We invite you to embrace them and make this your way of work at your organization and digital team.
Sources: The Principles for Digital Development, Gov.uk design principles
Service Blueprints are a continuum of “to-be” journeys which are a series of diagrams that visualize the relationship between different components such as user action/goals, Building Blocks, and Data Input/output.
A service blueprint is a diagram that visualizes the relationships between different service components - people, properties (physical or digital evidence), and processes - that are directly tied to touchpoints in a specific customer journey.
Source: Nielsen Norman Group
Study the user journeys of the service
Chart all the steps covered in the user journeys on the Service Blueprint template.
For each step on the service blueprint:
Map the goals and actions performed by each service user, provider, and stakeholders
Data Input: Data required from the service users, providers, and stakeholders
Data output: Data presented to the service users, providers, and stakeholders at the completion of the step.
Identify and list the generic workflows that can facilitate the step
Based on the generic workflows and the GovStack technical specifications, list the potential set of Building Blocks that are required for the step.
Upon completion of the service blueprint, map the generic design patterns to the steps on the blueprint.
Who does what:
Service designer - Lead the co-design of the service blueprint
Product owners - Oversee the development of the service blueprint, provide input when required, and review the final blueprint.
Back-end developer - assists in the identification and mapping of generic workflows and Building Blocks
Completed Service Blueprint with:
Goals and actions of each service user, provider, and stakeholder for each step
Generic workflows and Building Blocks required to facilitate the service
Set of Design patterns required to develop the wireframes
Understanding who we are solving a problem for is important for creating user-centric digital services. An 'As-Is' user journey can help identify touchpoints, inefficiencies, pain points, opportunities for improvement and can inform the design of a 'To-Be' user journey that represents the desired state of the user experience after changes have been made.
Abu Dhabi Digital Authority aligned its digitization strategy around 80 user journeys available through TAMM, a one-stop shop for all digital government services.
The 'To-Be' user journey is created in the context of a redesign or improvement of service. Its aim is to create a better user experience by identifying and implementing changes that will improve the user's journey and ultimately lead to greater satisfaction for its users. Redesign of the service can be based on the following simplification principles:
'Public Service Reengineering Methodology' from Moldova, the winner of WSIS Special Prize 2023 is a good example of service re-design guidelines used to train digital service teams across Moldova's Government entities.
Find below a translated version of the aforementioned methodology.
Identify service owners, users, and stakeholders using the glossary for roles as well as the User Persona template.
Ask the service owner if there have been any previous efforts in digitizing the service, and seek out any resulting reports, findings, or raw data.
Conduct user research using interviews, contextual inquiries, heuristic evaluation, with consent. (Source: 18F and TTS)
Use GovStack user journey template to map 'As-Is' and 'To-Be' user journeys. Example of 'Initial To-Be' and 'To-Be' user journeys for Extended Producer responsibility (EPR) in Rwanda.
Synthesize user research: Methods provide instructions on several different ways to tell users’ stories, including journey maps, user scenarios, storyboards. (Source: 18F)
Depending on the complexity of the service, you can request alignment from business leads on initial prioritization to focus on additional research activities.
Present research findings, service design process, user journeys, opportunities for improvement, current & future Building Blocks/DPGs, service architecture, user personas, and service digitization roadmap in a 'Service Design Proposal'. An example of EPR Service Design proposal can be found below:
Who does what:
Legal advisors – Clarify regulations that apply to the service
Service design Proposal:
Service owners and stakeholders
As-Is and To-be user journeys, in which are mapped:
Actions are taken by the user to obtain a service
Legal justification
Touchpoints
Pain points
Opportunity for improvement
Current and future stack
Simplification opportunities
Make wireframes and/or voice command flow
Within this stage we create a testable design based on a thorough understadning of users’ expectations and ''to-be'' user journey. Sketching, wireframes and/or voice command flow will help you ensure your service reflects your users’ needs. It is a reprsentation of a realistic form and functional service.
Wireframes and/or voice command flow enable direct examination of a design concept’s viability with users. It is helpful for gaining feedback on users’ intentions and various design elements and observing users' interaction with the product.
The following are the wireframes developed for the Extended Producer Responsibility service in Rwan
Create a preliminary version of the service using wireframes and/or voice command flow. A good wireframe and/or voice command flow requires:
Using UX/UI guidelines build preliminary Lo-Fi wireframes and/or voice command flow that show structure, placement, and hierarchy for your service.
Steering clear of font choices, color, or other elements that would distract both the researcher and the reviewer. Lightweight designs are conceptually easier to reconfigure. Use this opportunity to start listing what UX/UI patterns you will need.
Reviewing wireframes and/or voice command flows according to the specific 'To-be' user journey to ensure users accomplish their goals and their needs are met.
Using the wireframes and/or voice command flow to get the team’s feedback on feasibility and structure.
Using wireframes and/or voice command flow as a way of safely trying out more radical ideas.
Refer to resources and tools shared by Gov.uk.
Give the wireframes and/or voice command flow to the user (Citizen/public servant/business) and public official user to observe their interactions without instruction. Ask users to perform a specific task.
Ask clarifying questions about why they do what they do. Let the user’s behavior guide the questions you ask. It can be helpful to have them narrate their thought process as they go along.
Iterate! Wireframes and/or voice command flow should be quick and painless to create, and even more quick and painless to discard.
Get service owner approval to proceed with the functional prototype
Who does what:
Service designers/ Design lead – Lead the activities within the 'Activities' Tab.
Legal policy officer– Clarify regulations that apply to the service.
Product/Tech experts - Participate in the iteration session with users to see the reaction to the wireframes.
Countries can catalog services and identify existing software components, choose an initial prioritized service, and procure/develop/adopt additional building blocks to digitize the service.
The specific strategy for scaling can vary depending on the country's financial resources, digital talent availability, GovTech ecosystem maturity among other factors that guide the scope of the activities within a timeframe captured in a digitization roadmap.
The image below is an example of a digitization roadmap template that will be developed as part of the Horn of Africa GovStack collaboration.
Establish digital service teams within each government entity to:
Participate in the co-design sessions of the scaling strategy/digital roadmap
Agree on a follow-up mechanism and KPIs for the implementation of the roadmap
Lead the implementation of the scaling strategy/digitization roadmap within each entity
Align ICT investment/procurement to scaling strategy
Introduce a comprehensive regulatory framework/ set of bylaws to make the roadmap of digitizing services actionable. This will include:
Enterprise architecture,
Shared service policy with a cross-cutting mandate, and
ICT procurement policy
Procure/set-up Building Blocks
Maintain, update, publish, and ensure digital teams across departments use only the latest versions of the:
Reference architecture
Systems catalog
Digital inclusion strategy
Implement a publicly accessible dashboard that showcases the strategy, progress made on the roadmap, and performance indicators. Examples of dashboards are:
Who does what:
The Scaling Strategy requires the following top management involvement:
Chief of Design
Chief Data Officer
Digital teams of each government entity
Digital service teams
Scaling strategy/digitization roadmap
Comprehensive regulatory framework/ set of bylaws to make the roadmap of digitizing services actionable
Capacity-building strategy
A dashboard that showcases the strategy, progress made on the roadmap, performance indicators
– provide the service users' perspective when developing the service blueprint.
-assist in identifying the design patterns for each step in the service blueprint to later use in the development of wireframes.
/ Design lead – Creates a research plan (What are the research objectives, what methods to use, and participants) and guides the creation of user journeys.
– Prepare & conduct user interviews, focus groups, facilitate user journey workshops
– Prepare & apply user interviews, and facilitate wireframe validation workshops with focus groups.
- Prepare the wireframes and iterate them as per user feedback.
The scaling strategy refers to a plan or approach (digitization roadmap) to grow the national tech-stack, infrastructure, capacity building, and the number of citizen-centric digital government services according to the and simultaneously update legal frameworks.
As depicted in the image above, experience from the initial prioritized services digital teams can iterate, streamline, and further customize the GovStack service design and delivery approach to scale it for the remaining services on their .
Publish the digitization roadmap as a legally binding digital norm for all government entities to follow and implement. An example of a digital roadmap is .
Digital Service Standard and Delivery Protocol, following are a few examples: ; ,
Develop a for all public servants involved in the digitization of services and a digital inclusion strategy for the users of the digital services. provides an understanding of the current status quo regarding digital capability in the country.
Design with the user: User-centered design starts with getting to know the people you are designing for through conversation, observation, and co-creation.
Understand the existing ecosystem: Well-designed initiatives and digital tools consider the particular structures and needs that exist in each country, region, and community.
Design for scale: Achieving scale requires adoption beyond an initiative's pilot population and often necessitates securing funding or partners that take the initiative to new communities or regions.
Build for Sustainability: Building sustainable programs, platforms and digital tools is essential to maintain user and stakeholder support, as well as to maximize long-term impact.
Be Data Driven: When an initiative is data-driven, quality information is available to the right people when they need it, and they are using it to take action.
Use Open Standards, open Data, Open Source, and Open Innovation: An open approach to digital development can help to increase collaboration in the digital development community and avoid duplicating work that has already been done.
Reuse and Improve: Reusing and improving is about taking the work of the global development community further than any organization or program can do alone
Address Privacy and Security: Addressing privacy and security in digital development involves careful consideration of which data are collected and how data are acquired, used, stored and shared.
Be collaborative: Being collaborative means sharing information, insights, strategies and resources across projects, organizations and sectors, leading to increased efficiency and impact.
Iterate then Iterate again: The best way to build good digital government services is to start small and iterate wildly. Release minimum viable products early, test them with actual users, move from version to version adding features based on feedback. Iteration reduces risk.
Maintain trace: We should share what we’re doing whenever we can. With colleagues, with users, and with the world. Share code, share designs, share ideas, share intentions, share failures. The more eyes there are on a service, the better it gets, and the bar is raised.
Build Digital Services, not websites: A service is something that helps people to do something. Our job is to uncover user needs and build the service that meets those needs. Of course, much of that will be pages on the web, but we’re not here to build websites.
Design for everyone: Accessible design is good design. Services should be as inclusive, legible and readable as possible. Services should be built for needs and designed for the whole country, not just the ones who are used to using the web.
Do the hard work to make it simple: Making something look simple is easy. Making something simple to use is much harder. Don’t take “It’s always been that way” for an answer. It’s usually more and harder work to make things simple, but it’s the right thing to do.
The following are case studies of actual implementation journeys from countries digitizing services based on the Citizen centric GovStack Building Block Approach.
The following use cases are found present in multiple services offered by numerous departments and/or ministries across multiple countries.
Currently, multiple government websites provide an inconsistent user experience when accessing information about government services. Somalia wanted a one-stop-shop for citizens to access all digital government services in one place allowing its users to navigate to service information sheets in a user-friendly, easy-to-understand, and consistent manner.
Perform a digital readiness assessment
Identify priority e-government services based on the country's context and needs.
Co-design the digital service based on user needs, journeys, and business life events
Identify a DPG/digital product that meets the business requirements of Somalia to integrate it with the national tech stack of Somalia
Digital readiness assessment
An operational CMS integrated with the Somalia national tech stack following the GovStack principles and approach.
Train the Somalia Digital Team
Build a comprehensive capacity development and change management program
At present a student in Somalia is required to travel to the office in the capital, Mogadishu. There they queue up and wait for their chance to: provide credentials, make payment to a Ministry of Finance employee within the same office(In cash or mobile money), collect the proof and present it to a receptionist, collect the physical copy of their result and finally have it attested with official stamps. This makes the process of collecting a high school certificate, time-consuming and complex. Somalia wanted a digital service that facilitates accessing high school certificates in a digital format.
Perform a digital readiness assessment
Identify priority e-government services based on the country's context and needs.
Co-design the digital service based on user needs, journeys, and business life events
Organize a Deep Dive on the Building Blocks needed to enable the 'TO-BE' user journey
Identify a DPG(s)/digital product(s) that meets the business requirements of Somalia to integrate it with the national tech stack of Somalia
Digital readiness assessment
An operational High School Certificate digital service enabled by DPG(s)/digital product(s) integrated with the Somalia national tech stack following the GovStack principles and approach.
Train the Somalia Digital Team
Build a comprehensive capacity development and change management program
Digital teams are organizational teams that focus on the redesign of government services and processes with the aim of providing digital government services faster and in a more user-centric manner.
The following is a sample of a digital team composition was proposed for the government of Djibouti
Sno | Country | Service | Building Blocks used |
---|---|---|---|
Sno | Name | Use case |
---|---|---|
Train the Djibouti digital team on .
Train the Djibouti digital team on .
Digital Execution Team | User Profiles/Roles | Proposed Composition |
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Rwanda
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a service to ensure compliance with e-waste regulation. It is an environmental policy approach that regulates a producer’s responsibility for a product throughout its life cycle.
Information Mediator
Registration
Registries
Identity and Verification
Djibouti
Construction Permit: Issued by a city or municipality's office that allows the construction/renovation/remodeling of a building. The citizen/entity seeking the permit is required to: present/provide reference to required licenses; pay the costs of generating the certificate before the permit is authorized.
Information Mediator
Registration
Registries
Identity and Verification
e-Signature
Djibouti
e-Cabinet (link to be added): This service comprises: eDMS (Electronic Document Management System) document workflow which electronically manages the flow of documents within the cabinet, from creation to storage, retrieval, and disposal.
Information Mediator
e-Signature
Identity and Verification
Unconditional Social Cash Transfer
Unconditional cash transfers (link to be added) are cash payments provided to financially disadvantaged or vulnerable people or households without requiring anything in return (i.e. without conditionality).
Apr 2023: Prioritisation of government service: Content Management System |
Apr 2023: Workshops to understand user needs |
May 2023: Map As-Is user journey, life/business events and current stack |
Aug 2023: Co-design w/user a To-Be user journey, future stack & wireframes |
Nov 2023: Select digital product and service provider to implement |
Dec 2023 - Jun 2024: Integrate selected digital product with national stack (ID, Payment, IM) according to service design proposal & GovStack prototype |
TBD : Launch the service & update iteratively with the user feedback |
TBD : Prepare a scaling strategy |
Apr 2023: Prioritisation of government service: Content Management System |
Apr 2023: Workshops to understand user needs |
May 2023: Map As-Is user journey, life/business events and current stack |
Aug 2023: Co-design w/user a To-Be user journey, future stack & wireframes |
Oct 2023: Plan Deep Dive for Building Blocks required to enable 'TO-BE' journey |
Dec 2023: Deep Dive on technical specifications for building blocks |
Jan - Jun 2024: Define Integration strategy to enable the service |
TBD : Launch the service & update iteratively with the user feedback |
TBD : Prepare a scaling strategy |
Strategy / management | 1 CIO at Government level and 1 CIOs in each Ministry. |
Service design | Internal/ Contract/External Consultants can be onboarded here if required |
Procurement / IT strategy | Internal/ Contract/External Consultants can be onboarded here if required |
Legal and Policy | Internal/ Contract/External Consultants can be onboarded here if required |
Administrative Coordination | Internal |
Program Operations | Internal/ Contract/External Consultants can be onboarded here if required |
Domain Experts | Domain experts for various services | Senior Resources from Implementation Sites / State Govt Depts. who can help in interpretation of rules propose reforms as required |
Coordination + Execution Team | Focal points in each Government agencies involved in the digital agenda | Senior Resources from Implementation Sites / State Govt Depts. who can help in interpretation of rules propose reforms as required |
Technology Implementation Team | Internal/ Contract/External Consultants can be onboarded here if required |
Data Preparation and Coordination (MIS) | Internal/ Contract/External Consultants can be onboarded here if required |
Capacity Building | Internal/ Contract/External Consultants can be onboarded here if required |
Performance and Monitoring | Internal |
Help Desk and Support | Internal/ Contract/External Consultants can be onboarded here if required |
Communications Centre |
Sep 2023: Launch
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This section describes the various stakeholders that support capacity building during the digital transformation process. Each identified role's qualifications are described in equal detail.
This section builds on insights for capacity development and knowledge-sharing, which are essential for the success of digital transformation. Digital government is rooted in a vision that strongly believes in continuous learning for the ultimate beneficiaries of its initiatives: governments and their citizens.
The purpose of learning and exchange activities is to promote a systematic process of Capacity Building that utilizes effective methodologies and fosters cross-cultural knowledge sharing within and across professional and academic institutions. All these best practices are captured within the GovStack Learning and Management System that will enable countries to build sustainable capacities.
Digital skills are essential, therefore, there is a need to understand the existing eco-system and to conduct a meaningful training skills assessment and analysis in line with identified GovStack practices.
Before embarking on the capacity/skills assessments journey, there are two important aspects to take into consideration:
1. Which stage of digital transformation the country in question is at.
2. Which group of people will have their ‘digital’ skills assessed and what are their respective roles in the digital transformation journey.
As part of the preparations for the country implementation journey, it is essential for GovStack, to define the steps below:
The targeted group to be assessed
The assessment methodology
The evaluation process/ criteria
The different stages of the implementation journey and the respective skills needed at each stage.
When evaluating a country's level of knowledge and readiness, the following key roles have been identified, and have to be evaluated:
Technical teams:
Agile S/W development approaches
Cloud hosting
Security
Technical support (Help desks and Call centers)
Open-Source usage
Administrative functions:
Service definition and cataloguing
Developing MOU’s for inter agencies cooperation
Change management
Process simplification
Legislations changing to accommodate digital services
Policy and decision makers:
Strategies setting
Monitoring and evaluation
Roadmaps for services implementations
Prioritization
Interoperability
Shared services
To ensure that there is a solid foundation for informed decision-making and guide strategic planning for capacity building, GovStack uses a rapid assessment tool to facilitate an initial assessment in early stages.
Goal of this tool is to ensure that the digital development training plan aligns with the unique status, requirements and challenges of the government and its ICT practitioners.
Define the recipients and their skills development needs
Design the appropriate content based on the existing level of knowledge
Finally, it is important to develop a report showing the needs and the skills to be addressed in the country engagement journey
Inventory of the staff and technology is also an important part of GovStack's capacity building activities. As a starting point, we have identified various ecosystems and assessment frameworks to help us build a skill matrix.
What is the GovStack Skill Matrix
The skill matrix shows the digital skill in question along with its level of proficiency for each stakeholder and is used to determine capacity-building needs, the topics that should be addressed, and the target group.
Before embarking on the implementation journey, it is important to assess the capability and capacity needs of the identified GovStack profiles. This will enable the stakeholders to be matched with the requisite trainings and skills to enable implementation of GovStack's digitalization and Building Block approach.
The table below provides a comprehensive overview of the training resources for various stakeholders, the necessary skill sets, and necessary trainings that have been developed by various organizations.
This page describes the documents, presentations, and tools related to government engagement that support GovStack's implementation activities in accordance with the implementation framework.
Description of artefact: The presentation outlines the motivation, concept and approach that GovStack uses to accelerate countries’ ownership of digital solutions.
Link to artefact:
Description of artefact: The YouTube channel will house all of GovStack's Long and short format videos
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Description of artefact: These posters can be printed out as physical posters.
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Description of artefact: The presentation describes the engagements in which GovStack is involved across multiple countries and continents.
Link to artefact:
Description of artefact: The artefact describes the project objectives, outcomes, timeline, responsibilities, as well as the resources and roles for the implementation team.
Link to artefact
Part of Module 2 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: The artefact describes the envisioned GovStack activities, deliverables, and the organization in charge of implementing the activities.
Link to artefact:
Part of Module 2 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: A PowerPoint presentation of the High LeHigh-Levelvel Roadmap (MoU)
Link to artefact:
Part of Module 2 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: The artefact provides contact information and role profiles for the country's focal points.
Link to artefact:
Part of Module 2 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 2 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 2 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: The artefact describes the composition of a Country's Digital Transformation Team.
Part of Module 6 n GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: This artefact describes the various stakeholders that support capacity building during the digital transformation process. Each identified role's qualifications are described in equal detail.
Part of Module 6 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 6 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 6 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: The artefact contains guidelines to identifying services, and the approach towards prioritizing and ranking government services.
Link to artefact:
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: RFI-1 enables the country engagement team to better understand the digital service design standard and delivery protocol in the implementing country.
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: RFI-2 is a service catalogue that facilitates the analysis of prerequisites and identification of opportunities to simplify services before establishing a digitalization roadmap.
Artefact:
Links to example of service catalogue from
Gov.ee
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: RFI-3 visualizes a citizen's user and business journey from 'womb to tomb', enabling us to take a user-centered approach when designing services.
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: RFI-4 enables the country team to establish an initial understanding of the current status quo regarding digital capability in the country we are working with.
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: RFI-5 allows us to chart every step that the user must take to avail a service. This includes pre-contact, contact and post-contact phase of the service.
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: The TO-BE user journey charts the development of a new service, following responses from RFI-5, in line with the current draft regulatory sequence and obligations.
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 8 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: User personas are archetypical users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a larger group of users.
Description of artefact: Includes interview guide, focus group guide, mystery shopper instructions, user journey workshop agenda
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 9.1 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: Details the AS-IS user journeys, user personas and user needs assessments
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 9.1 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 9.3 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 9.3 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 9.3 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 9.3 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact:
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 9.3 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: The infrastructure setup outlines the infrastructure environments and aids in the procurement of infrastructure that is in line with GovStack specs and Green GovStack procurement guide.
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 9.3 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: Restate briefly the work carried out, the aims and objectives of research plan. Highlight the most important findings from mapping of User needs, Journeys and Life events. Make concrete recommendations which act as an input to the design of 'To-be' user journey. Shared below is an actual Findings & recommendations report co-developed by Rwanda's digital team and GovStack as part of Electthe ronic Product Registration Service design process.
Examples of Findings & recomendations report:
Part of Module
Description of artefact: A digital illustration or a voice command-based flow of content blocks, navigation elements and available functionalities, and intended behavior of a service. Shared below is an example of a wireframe developed for Electronic Product Registration Service based on the proposed 'To-be' User Journey.
Part of Module on GovStack LMS
Description of service: This document describes standardised, generic journeys (Example: Consultation to a registry, authorisation of a permit, renewal of a service and declining of a service) that accelerate the design and development of digital services in the Mexican context.
Example of List of generic journeys Guide for the Digitization of Government Procedures and Services
Description of artefact: A comprehensive document detailing the journey of identification, conceptualization, development, prototyping, deployment and scalability of services.
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 10 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: Green GovStack procurement guide outlines GovStack's contribution to developing a sustainable society by prioritizing procurement of goods, products and services with a reduced environmental impact.
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 10 on GovStack LMS
Description of artefact: The Digital Inclusion Strategy is a strategic plan designed to ensure that everyone in the community understands the benefits of a digital society and has access to the skills and technology required to participate in that society.
Link to artefact: *to be developed
Part of Module 11 on GovStack LMS
The multidisciplinary approach should be considered as it allows students to increase their strengths as well as fill in gaps in their knowledge in the areas of technical skills, service design, ethics, creative problem solving, the regulation of technologies, legislation, and generally in the digital transformation.
The university education should help to improve knowledge of public services design with the use of new technologies. Through gaining an understanding of co-creation, the design process, creative problem solving, human-centric approach in public services, and prototyping the graduates should use to apply new ways to design and implement services with along the new technologies and process re-design.
1. Management/ Policy Makers
2. Trainers
3. Service Designers
4. IT personnel
5. End Users.
The following are the relevant e-competencies for this phase
The building phase is the second step
The following are the relevant e-competencies for this phase.
The running phase is the third phase
The following are the relevant e-competencies for this phase.
The enabling phase is the fourth phase
The following are the relevant e-competencies for this phase.
The managing phase is the last phase
The following are the relevant e-competencies for this phase.
This knowledge dimension of competency represents foundational and technical components that are very relevant in order to implement GovStack's vision of digitalization.
In order to sustain a digital society, it is equally important to continuously monitor industry trends and emerging new technologies. There is need to establish a digital talent archive that will ensure continuous sustainability in a country's capacity strength.
The successful implementation of the GovStack Approach requires countries to consider a long-term strategy that accounts for the kind of academic support that is needed to achieve digitalization goals. From a short-term perspective, the general GovStack approach is sufficient to keep the GovStack eco-system up and running. However, in order to foster sustainability within country digital teams, academic support is a valuable asset to ensure that long-term goals are met.
While developing university programmes at the Masters' level, universities should consider not only theoretical approaches, but also labor market needs based on different competency and qualification frameworks. These frameworks reflect the skills that are needed in different domains within digitalization.
The main learning outcomes to support the GovStack's approach will give
Enabling an understanding of the different competencies needed for digital journey
Informing different co-design techniques and applying this knowledge to implement the GovStack Approach
The main areas which should be covered in the masters programs are as follows:
Digital Government where the purpose to get students to recognize what is different about governing in an era filled with pervasive digital technologies.
The building blocks of the digital government which is about understanding that government digital systems are made up from components, and that the choice of which components to use is critical. It also lays out the idea of 'Government as a Platform'.
Service orientation in the public sector which is about using practices and technologies of the digital era to rapidly and continually improve government services and policies as well move towards proactive life event services.
Service design where students learn why public servants need to be focused on users and their needs. Instructors will help students understand when and why they will need to apply design methods to solve problems.
Interoperability and next generation government architecture where students will learn about single-source governance and security protocols to be implemented across all data assets
Data management is to help understand statistics as well identify opportunities to use data to solve real world government problems. The practical challenges related to data access and privacy/security
Automatization and data where purpose is to help students to be aware that digital era governments create and manage data as a function for every activity to allow participatory AI solutions for public service a
Participatory governance is to help students understand what it means to ‘work in the open’ in government, and to explain the many different interpretations and manifestations of ‘openness’ that are applied in modern governments.
Legal framework to help students to anticipate the most common barriers related to legal acts and standards which government encounter within real government functions
Identity management and security in networked world where students learn about identity management in data governance – how it to ensure data quality and security through access controls across critical data systems. The topic sums up the policies, processes, standards, metrics, and roles that ensure that data is used effectively to help an organization realize its objectives
Teaching Techniques
As GovStack approach is very focused on country engagement and involves much collaborative tools and techniques, a teaching strategy should follow a logic as listed below:
Design thinking approach, to stimulate creative problem solving, teamwork and action research, and guide participants to develop human-centered solutions;
Project-based learning and team-working on practical projects and real challenges across different types of public institutions, increasing the confidence of students in adopting/procuring the right technology for the relevant societal needs;
Active learning, encouraging peer exchange, dialogue and debate, to create an extensive ecosystem around the adoption of GovStack approach beyond the duration of the programme, thus aiming in the long run to contribute to a shift in the mindset of public officials and policy makers;
The expected learning outcomes should ensure the program meets the following:
Knowing the current potential of technology and data and being able to critically assess their social and ethical impacts,
a. Understanding technology that is used in the delivery of the digital state.
b. Learning to operate with technology and how to create human centric government e-services.
Knowing to design / plan / implement / evaluate a practical digital transformation project for an up-to-date range of public services,
a. Developing strategic management abilities,
b. Learning to analyze and propose digital concepts for governance and public services.
Understanding what digital transformation is, what the different applicative domains are with a specific focus on governance and public service transformation, what features it can have and how to convey services to companies and experts,
a. Understanding the state-of-the-art of digital transformation and the available market solutions with a level deep enough to start implementation,
b. Learning to manage innovative procurement and public-private partnership in public services design and delivery.
Making judgements is the ability to think critically and analyze different use cases for digital transformation through public services in society; ability to create public value through innovative design and implement projects.
Project groupwork and communication skills - autonomously and in groups, students develop the ability to present and discuss their ideas and the attitude to negotiate in teamwork.
The academic study program should serve as an enabler of providing knowledge and skills at the intersection of technology, business and management, design thinking and policy sides. The reason for such an interdisciplinary approach lies in the needs of the labor market.
The three lower levels of provide a clear understanding of the assessment criteria for knowledge, comprehension, and application.
This Rapid Assessment is intended to be used as a protocol for focus group discussion with the selected civil servants (ICT Practitioners) from Government Ministries and/Agencies to collect initial data alongside the country kick-off mission or preliminary engagement with country focal points in order develop a digital development training plan for the government ICT practitioners.
As one of the Capacity Building assessment tools, GovStack uses in order to nail our approach.
Goals/Objectives for
The following link leads to an ITU’s publication on digital skills assessment, describing important issues such as methodology, evaluation, and future steps:
The link below shows USAID's approach to evaluate the digital ecosystem:
The link below shows the World Bank’s toolkit to assess digital skills:
Apart from this information there is a plethora of documentation on the reference applications and implementation best practices available on for SI partners to reference.
Any issues that they may come across can be posted on the
Link to artefact:
Link to artefact:
Link to artefact:
Link to artefact:
Link to artefact:
Link to artefact:
Link to artefact:
Link to .
To understand the current state of education in the digital transformation domain, it is useful to take a look through the lens of established competences and qualifications frameworks. These frameworks help to identify the necessary skills in a certain career path needed in the digitalization journey. It is useful for education institutions in the process of designing curriculum and ensuring the students get the necessary skills to support GovStack approach. Additionally, when designing the curriculum, several issues need to be addressed, as a first step to supporting the long term development of capacity building in the country .
GovStack Approach supportive curricula are following the based on the following categories:
Table Showing , and Relevant Competencies recommended for the Stakeholders Involved
Relevant e-Competencies | Stakeholders Involved |
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Relevant e-Competencies | Stakeholders Involved |
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Relevant e-Competencies | Stakeholders Involved |
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Relevant e-Competencies | Stakeholders Involved |
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Relevant e-Competencies | Stakeholders Involved |
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Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel (Recommended Curriculum Skills Matrix based on )
Additionally to the study programmes should follow the Computing Curricula 2020, CC2020 approach in terms of the elements of knowledge.
GovStack uses a descriptive and e-learning approach, that is the to train the stakeholders.
Within GovStack approach, it is very important to educate the future leaders of the digital transformation who are able to implement the GovStack vision. As GovStack requires various knowledge in the field of transformation the academic education path should follow the .
The is destined for innovative professionals working in public sector organizations. It describes the eight skills that are necessary to promote innovation in the public sector: self-organizations, independent learning, creativity, communication, teamwork, networking, capturing trends and risk management. The framework reflects three primary vector:, the individual, the team, and the organization. To achieve innovation, the individual needs to be action-oriented; the team needs to be cooperative; and the organization must be sustainable.
(ISCO) is one of the main international classifications for which the International Labor Organization (ILO) is responsible. ISCO is a tool for organizing jobs into a clearly defined set of groups according to the tasks and duties undertaken in the job. ISCO-08 is a four-level hierarchically structured classification that allows all jobs to be classified into 436 unit groups. They are aggregated into 130 minor groups, 43 sub-major groups and 10 major groups.
It establishes 41 competences across 5 proficiency levels and provides knowledge and skills examples. The framework distinguishes 5 e-competence areas based on the IT macro processes PLAN –BUILD –RUN – ENABLE – MANAGE.
e-QF is considered an instrument of comparing qualifications across countries and institutions. As of September 2021, 35 countries have linked their national qualification systems to e-QF.
It also recommends including cybersecurity and data science to curricula. Also, the report creators have come up with the list of draft competencies in each of the researched areas.
SFIA introduces 7 different levels of responsibility, at which skills can be exercised. However, the seven levels are not applicable to all skills, as some are necessary at entry level and some at senior roles.
An example of the SFIA application can be found in the Australian work on the creation of the a supporting tool to identify career routes and skill gap.
The framework uses to describe professional roles. The roles are described in a unified manner (name, mission, description of significant activities and tasks, list of competences, trends and factors in change for the job-role, example of a typical deliverable).
The roles are divided into 7 families: Organization and management of changes to the information system, Project management, Application life cycle, Provision of infrastructure and maintenance in operational condition, Support and assistance, Security, Operational Management, Data, Supplier relationships.
In addition to German Qualifications Framework, which covers a broad scope of qualifications, provides a system of career profiles of specialists in the computer, software and telecommunications sectors.
provides along with the toolkit easy steps on how to structure an e-Governance team and how to conduct fact-based training needs analysis for competency benchmarking. It includes 19 identified e-governance roles categorized into 2 major roles: 8 administrative and 11 technical roles.
It covers all kinds of competencies and is not limited to IT capabilities only. The aligns competencies across four dimensions: Professional Skills Set, Knowledge Set, Behavioral Set, and Qualifications Set. It also recommends improvements in recruitment processes and outcomes, and performance evaluation.
A.1. Information systems and Business Strategy Alignment | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
A.2. Service level management | Management/Policy makers, IT personnel |
A.3. Business Plan Development | Management/Policy makers, IT personnel |
A.4. Product/Service Planning | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
A.5. Architecture Design | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
A.6. Application Design | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
A.7. Technology Trend Monitoring | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
A.8. Sustainability Management | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
A.9. Innovating | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
A.10. User Experience | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel, Trainers |
B.1. Application Development | IT personnel, Service Designers |
B.2 Component Integration | IT personnel, Service Designers |
B.3 Testing | IT personnel, Service Designers |
B.4 Solution Deployment | IT personnel, Service Designers |
B.5. Documentation Production | Management/Policy makers, IT personnel, Service Designers |
B.6. ICT Systems Engineering | Management/Policy makers, IT personnel |
C.1. User Support | IT personnel, End Users |
C.2. Change Support | Management/policy makers, IT personnel Trainers |
C.3. Service Delivery | Management/policy makers, IT personnel Trainers |
C.4. Problem Management | Management/policy makers, IT personnel |
C.5. Systems Management | Management/policy makers, IT personnel |
D.1. Information Security Strategy Development | Management/Policy makers, IT personnel |
D.2. ICT Quality Strategy Development | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
D.3. Education and Training Provision | Management/Policy makers, Trainers |
D.4. Purchasing | Management/Policy makers |
D.5. Sales Development | Management/Policy makers |
D.6. Digital Marketing | Management/Policy makers |
D.7. Data Science and Analytics | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
D.8 Contract Management | Management/Policy makers |
D.9. Personnel Development | Management/Policy makers, Trainers |
D.10. Information and Knowledge Management | Management/Policy makers, Trainers |
D.11. Needs Identification | Management/Policy makers, Trainers |
E.1. Forecast Development | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers |
E.2. Project and Portfolio Management | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers |
E.3. Risk Management | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
E.4. Relationship Management | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers |
E.5. Process Improvement | Management/Policy makers, Service Designers, IT personnel |
E.6. ICT Quality Management | Management/Policy makers, IT personnel |
E.7. Business Change Management | Management/Policy makers, Trainers, IT personnel |
E.8. Information Security Management | Management/Policy makers, IT personnel |
E.9. Information Systems Governance | Management/Policy makers, IT personnel |
Traditionally, the world of innovation management and change management have followed different paths. This is due in part to the fact that research and development specialists, who typically have scientific and technical backgrounds and receive their training at universities, tend to focus on innovation management. Meanwhile, change management has traditionally been the domain of management consultants or professors, who acquire their skills through university courses or post-degree training programs, often in Business Schools, to support Human Resources departments. Although this approach is common in many organizations, it is only recently that change management has been recognized as a relevant issue in Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Public Administration programs.
At present, approaches to innovation as outlined in the OECD Oslo Manual rev5. 2018 include organizational innovations such as change management, in addition to innovations in products, processes and services. In this sense qualitative studies such as the OECD, 2015b's report suggest that data collection should focus on digital competences of organizations, as this is a key component of their innovation capabilities.
Course | Description | Intended Persona |
The “GovTech: Fundamentals and Key Concepts” e-Learning course (GovTech 101) introduces the GovTech concepts, focus areas, solutions, and good practices to support digital transformation reforms of governments around the world. The GovTech 101 self-paced course consists of four modules:
• (GovStack LMS module 1)The first module, “GovTech: The Latest Generation in Public Sector Reforms,” presents the definition of GovTech, the evolution of digital government, and GovTech approaches, and introduces the GovTech Global Partnership.
• (GovStack LMS module 2), “GovTech Focal Areas: How They Work in Practice,” explains the four GovTech focal areas in detail.
• (GovStack LMS module 3), “GovTech Maturity Index,” (GTMI) presents the objective, methodology, findings, and conclusions of the GTMI that measures the maturity of four GovTech focus areas.
• (GovStack LMS module 4), “GovTech Solutions for Practitioners,” describes different types of digital government investments, gives examples from GovTech solutions in the four focal areas, and describes GovTech challenges and opportunities. | Public service officers |
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| Public Service Leaders and Officers, Technology Teams (Software Engineers, DevOps Engineers, QA, Delivery Managers, UX Designers, Digital Services Manager, Business Analyst, Architects, Project Manager, CIO, Engagement Manager, Product Manager, Data Engineers and Scientists, CISO) |
The Digital Journey implies a holistic effort to rethink and transform the core processes of government beyond the traditional digitization efforts. It evolves along a continuum from the use of new working methods and relations with the citizens, to changes in IT contracting practices and organizational change initiatives that involve the whole organization's ecosystem.
Definition of Change Management
Change management can be defined as the methods and manners in which an organization describes and implements change within both its internal and external processes. It encompasses not only the technical aspects but also the human side of change.
In this sense, change management is not only a reactive tool for managing resistance against change; it is most effective as a tool for engaging and involving stakeholders, particularly employees, in the change process.
Managing change can be challenging, and part of the problem is that there is little consensus on which factors have the greatest influence on transformation initiatives.
There are 3 Categories of change. These include:
Incremental
Transitional
Transformative
The 3 destinataires/recipients of the change are:
Individuals
Teams
Organizations
Over the past few years, change management specialists have increasingly prioritized soft issues like culture, communication, leadership, and motivation. While these elements are undoubtedly critical for success, managing them alone may not suffice for the successful implementation of transformative projects, especially those required in the context of digitalization. The barriers to change management can be grouped as follows:
Sound research indicates that change projects fail to gain traction when organizations overlook the hard factors. This implies that in parallel with the soft elements, the organizations must pay attention to the hard issues too.
Anticipating common barriers within government bureaucracies prior to deploying digital transformation is critical to ensuring that stakeholders involved in the change are equipped with the necessary digital skills to overcome these obstacles.
Globally, there are common barriers that hinder change implementation, whether digital or non-digital, within organizations, particularly in government agencies. These barriers can be attributed to both soft and hard factors:
Resistance to change in the digital era is a combination of both timeless causes and new challenges that are specific to modern technologies. The introduction of digital era change to governments has occurred through mechanisms that were established well before the digital revolution took place.
In order to deliver successful digital era public services, it is crucial for public servants to overcome these barriers that hinder progress. To achieve this, existing solutions can be utilized or new ones can be created to help overcome these obstacles in a government context.
At a conceptual level there is little that is truly new about how governments adopt digital change, as compared with other kinds of change. Various theoretical models have been developed to understand different types of change, from Kurt Lewin's change model (1947) through to Mark Moore's strategic triangle (1995) and John Kotter's (1995) model. The study of change management began between 1900 to 1945, and from 1945 to 1990, studies improved to understand the mechanisms associated with change. Between 1990 and 2000 change management was established as an academic discipline. This discipline progressed to deepening and modelling concepts and tools from 2000 to 2010, and currently, the focus is on improving the internal capacities of individuals, teams and organizations.
Numerous studies have examined attempts to introduce digital era change in governments around the world. As of today, there are powerful tools that can be deployed as an attempt to overcome the range of barriers to change. However, the effective use of these tools necessitates competencies for the digital team, especially for those in managerial, innovation, and change management roles.
There is no universal model for implementing significant digital change in governments. Even though there are competing ideas about 'what matters most,' we are still away from having clarity on the 'winners.' Nonetheless, some generalizable insights such as geographic, cultural, or sectorial interests, can always be applied in similar contexts.
Digital era government is not just about developing new practices and capabilities. It involves a larger question of whether new practices and technologies will lead to a rethinking of how government institutions are structured and managed. The theories of change towards a 'digital government as a platform' approach are relevant to the digital transformation that governments seek to implement, and this approach is an integral part of the digitization journey.
Various theories have been developed regarding change management, including those proposed by Kotter, Prosci, and Lewis, among others. These theories have been instrumental in providing a comprehensive understanding of the nature of change and in enabling organizations to manage change effectively without disrupting their operations. They help organizations identify the need for change and assess the driving factors behind it.
Lewin's program for planned change and improved performance involves a three-phase process of behavior modification.
The framework proposes that organizations and their routines need to be "unfrozen" in the first phase, which involves reducing the forces that maintain the behavior in its present form and recognizing the need for change and improvement.
The second phase, Movement, entails the development of new attitudes or behavior and the implementation of change. However, there may be restraining forces that work against the driving forces for change.
The second change framework refers to the three phases of change (prepare, manage and reinforce change). This framework is closely aligned with the previous framework and is oftentimes used in practice:
Kotter’s research presented a novel approach to change management. He suggested that organizations should create a new culture where managers view change as an opportunity and modify their business systems to meet continuously emerging conditions (Hussey, D.E. (2000). How to Manage Organisational Change (Vol. 28). Kogan Page Publishers: London).
The following eight steps in the change process are his contribution.
Establishing a sense of urgency
Forming a powerful guiding coalition
Creating a vision
Communicating the vision
Empowering others to act on the vision
Planning and creating short term wins
Consolidating improvements and producing still more change
Institutionalizing new approaches
Effective change management demands five key goals to form the basic ADKAR model:
Awareness of the need to change
Desire to participate and support the change
Knowledge of how to change (and what change looks like)
Ability to implement the change on a day-to-day basis
Reinforcement to keep the change in place (Hiatt 2003)
5 tenets emerge from the Prosci´s ADKAR model and assessment tools:
Tenet 1: We change for a reason
Tenet 2: Organizational change requires individual change
Tenet 3: Organizational outcomes are the collective result of individual change
Tenet 4: Change management is an enabling framework for managing the people side of change
Tenet 5: We apply change management to realize the benefits and desired outcomes of change
As practical result, our GovStack model approach to Change Management includes 6 key stages:
Set goals
Make a diagnosis
Identify profiles
Defining the strategy
Driving the change
Consolidate change
There are some basic questions about Change management which emerge in practice from the referred models in the previous section:
Operational and practical tools are well known and usually used by the practitioners of Change Management, complementing those traditional of Project Management. In many cases they are based in several of the models and methodologies already mentioned.
Some toolkits are better suited to policymakers or managers overseeing a digital transformation initiative or portfolio while other toolkits are better suited to practitioners doing the tactical digital transformation work.
Some toolkits touch on skills and behaviours important for digital transformations. Skills and team formation is important, so browse toolkits that reference team formation or collaboration.
Main tools used in Change Management:
It schematically represents the different stages intrinsic to any change that any individual experiences before accepting the new situation and living it fully: shock/denial, anger/fear, sadness/depression, the search for meaning and serenity.
Implemented by Kurt Lewin, this matrix makes it possible to analyze the different forces - positive AND negative - in the face of a blockage in order to allow it to be unblocked: rectify the situation, reconsider - even sometimes abandon - an overambitious idea/project proving far too complex to implement in view of the reluctance thus listed:
Popularized by Richard Beckhard and Reuben T. Harris, this tool makes it possible to conduct a precise analysis of a given situation by studying the different conditions and possibilities relating to any transformation.
This is a very interesting tool for identifying and measuring the impacts that a change can have at all levels of the company.
This tool makes it possible to analyse and evaluate the organizational and environmental dimensions necessary for successful change: identify the cause and effect links between the different dimensions and allows to make adjustments aiming to improving performance.
This tool allows the collective visualization, analysis and exploration of the direct and indirect consequences of a change, event, problem or even a tendency.
Individual transition behaviour during the change process
The tool to measure the level of employee commitment to change
Add a line to the version history table describing the major changes to the specifications between published versions. Ideally, include links to issues and authors on GitHub.
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Factors | Description |
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In the final phase, after the change process has been implemented, the new routines and procedures are frozen again, ideally stabilizing the change at the new level and reinforcing it (Hardy, 1996).
Version | Authors | Comment |
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Soft Factors
Soft factors can have a significant impact on the success of change programs and projects. While having visionary leadership is often crucial for transformation projects, it may not always be the defining factor. Similarly, effective communication with stakeholders, and positive changes in attitudes and relationships within teams and organizations can also play a critical role in driving success. However, these factors, including culture and motivation levels, can be challenging to measure and translate into reliable data.
Hard Factors
Change management is closely tied to hard factors, which have three distinct characteristics. Firstly, these factors must be measurable in direct or indirect ways. Secondly, organizations should be able to communicate their importance both internally and externally. Finally, organizations must be capable of quickly reacting and influencing these elements. Some examples of hard factors that can impact a transformation initiative include the time required to complete it, the number of people necessary to execute it, and the availability of associated financial resources.
Version for TAC Review
Terminology/glossary used within the specification
Welcome to the single point of access to GovStack terminology compendium. The following terms and definitions facilitate GovStack communities of practices to communicate under the same terms of reference. Is during your interactions with GovStack documents.
Access
A general term that describes the granting and restriction of the right or opportunity to view or use that which has been developed as part of GovStack.
Accessibility features allow for a wide base of users, specialy the differently abled (visualy impared, limited motor ability, loss of hearing) users to have access to a service. Example of artefact W3C accessibility guidelines
Activity
That which is to be done during a specific session.
Administrator/ Analyst
A registrar or a staff of a registrar who is building a new registry.
Affiliation
The organization (legally registered entity) that a subscriber or resource represents in an event or during an activity.
Agile Project Management
An iterative approach to delivering a project throughout its life cycle, composed of several interactions of small steps towards the completion of the project. APM aims to promote velocity and adaptability, releasing benefits throughout the project rather than only at the end.
Alert Message
Specific information to be sent for alerting subscribers and resources (e.g. reminders, triggers (start/end of workflows in BBs), etc.).
Alert Mode
A messaging method that is used within a program for each specified target (SMS/email/URI).
Alert Policy
A rule for sending a notification to specified users and applications within a program’s specific session (reminders/triggers/etc.).
Alert Schedule
A list of dates and times at which specific alerts must be sent.
Alert Status
A text that indicates the state of a specific alert (undefined, armed, qualified, sent, acknowledged, failed).
Alpha
In software development, the pre-release early version of a product that is part of a dedicated testing process. Alpha phase generally begins when some core features of a product are complete but the product is partially incomplete.
Ansible
A suite of software tools that enables infrastructure as code. It is open-source and the suite includes software provisioning, configuration management, and application development functionality.
Application Programming Interface (API)
A connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build such a connection or interface is called an API specification. The term API may refer either to the specification or to the implementation.
Appointment
The booking of specific subscribers (persons/systems) for a specific session, episode and event.
Asserter
An entity that asserts a claim.
Attribute
A property (data, information) relating to an entity.
Authentication
This is the technical process of establishing that the credentials (i.e. username, password, biometric etc.) provided by a party (user, system, other) are valid and that the party can be granted basic access to system resources with default access rights.
Authentication
The process or action of verifying the identity of a user or process. For the purpose of this project, authentication has been replaced with the term ‘verification’ to allow for a clearer definition and for demarcation with other building blocks.
Authorization
The granting to a subject of privileges or rights for accessing the various resources hosted by a system.
Beta
In software development, an early version of a product which is feature complete but there is a possibility that it could contain some bugs and performance issues.
Biographic Data
A set of text attributes representing a person’s identity, for example name; birth date; birth place; parents’ biographic data.
Biometric Data
A set of physical attributes which can be used to identify a person, for example fingerprints, face and iris.
Bottom-Up Approach
A method of working which begins at the specific level and moves to the general, focusing its analysis at a micro-level and then broadening it out from there.
Build-Measure-Learn Feedback Loop
A process of building a product, measuring user metrics and learning from them to better respond to user needs and improve the product.
An interoperable and open-source software component that, when combined with other building blocks, provides key functionalities to facilitate generic workflows common across multiple sectors.
Bulk Payments
A Payment from a single Payer to multiple Payees, for example cash transfer programs from a government or NGO to a set of beneficiaries.
Capability
The ability to execute a specified course of action or to achieve certain outcomes.
Capacity
The ability to perform a task in at least a minimally acceptable manner. Capacities need to be well-structured and recurring behaviours to classify as capabilities.
Capacity building
The process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that organisations and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in a fast-changing world.
Center for Internet Security Benchmarks (CIS)
A set of best-practice cybersecurity standards for a range of IT systems and products. CIS Benchmarks provide the baseline configurations to ensure compliance with industry-agreed cybersecurity standards.
Centralised Identity Approach
A form of user data management where data is stored in one place, so that users can access all of their applications, websites or other systems with the same set of credentials.
The addition of a simple feedback page within a digitized service can allow analytics of user satisfaction with the service. This is a valuable input in driving the improvement of the service. Example Generic feedback form by gov.uk
Civil Registry
A system recording life events (birth, death, marriage, divorce, adoption, name change) It is used to keep track of life events of individuals and to produce statistics for policy making.
Claim
An attribute asserted by an entity, about itself or another entity.
Cloud Native
An approach to building and running software applications that is designed to be compatible with cloud computing from its construction.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
A solution suite that enables administrators to keep track of the way in which both home grown and 3rd party services and applications access public cloud provider resources from a security perspective and enables vulnerabilities to be resolved.
Co-Design
A way of designing products or services with the active involvement of the users and stakeholders, to make sure the product or service meets the users’ needs.
Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)
A known vulnerability in a system or network component which can be exploited by a malicious attacker to gain access or create havoc.
Competency
Applying the necessary knowledge and skill in a real-world environment with full professional responsibility and accountability for one's own actions. Experience in a professional working environment represents the difference between demonstrated skill and demonstrated competency.
Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT)
A group that takes the lead in coordinating the management of cyber security incidents.
Configuration
Technical implementation of all the content and process conditions as defined by the Data Policy for Consent Agreement vis-à-vis creation, reading, updating and deletion, as well as for providing all necessary actors with the required operations.
Consent
A voluntary declaration by an individual to approve the processing of their Personal data. It is one specific justification for personal data processing that is assumed to be required by legal or ethical conditions.
Consent Management Building Block
Enables services for individuals to approve the use of their personal data by defining the principles, functions and architecture of an information system. For organisations that process personal data, it provides the ability to know the individual's will and legitimately process such personal data.
Consent Record
That which is created when an individual signs a consent agreement. It represents a signed consent agreement.
Consent Reference
A unique identifier used to locate and verify the validity of the Consent Agreement.
Contextual Enquiry
A type of field study that involves in-depth observation and interviews of a small sample of users to gain a robust understanding of work practices and behaviours.
Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)
Information that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls consistent with applicable laws, regulations, and Government policies.
Controls Configurator
A tool for a human analyst to define, for each field in the application file and processing screens, what controls will be applied (input format, formulas, actions/checks between fields and with external databases).
Conway’s law
An adage that states that an organisation designs systems that mirror their own communication structure.
Core Competence
An essential asset for the survival of a project in the long term. This can be a mix of skills, resources, and processes.
Country Engagement Success Kit (CESK)
A set of manuals and descriptions on how to set up various GovStack channels and spaces, as well as providing guidance on making workflows more efficient.
Credential
A document, object, or data structure that vouches for the identity of a person through some method of trust and authentication. Common types of identity credentials include—but are not limited to—ID cards, certificates, numbers, passwords, or SIM cards.
Credential Management Services
An API to get access and update the credential associated to the identity, also manage issuance and life-cycle of physical or digital credentials.
Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills
The ability to use ICT to make informed judgements and choices, and then use the information gathered to solve a problem.
Data consumers
A legal entity that requires the Individual's data from the Data Providers according to the consent of the Individual.
Data Disclosure Agreements
An understanding that exists between two organisations where one organisation acts as a Data Provider and the other as a Data Consumer. The DDA captures how data is shared between the two organisations and each party's role and obligation.
Data Leakage Prevention (DLP)
A solution typically used to prevent confidential or private information from leaking outside an organization to unauthorized 3rd parties.
Data Ownership
Both the possession of and responsibility for information.
Data Policy
A formal description of the purpose, nature and extent of consent-based personal data processing, covering the configuration needs and the conditions defined by law.
Data Processing Auditor
An entity (a person or an organisation) responsible for verifying the legitimacy of personal data processing by Data Controllers and Data Processors based on the Data Policies and performed tasks.
Data Protection Impact Analysis (DPIA)
A process designed to identify risks arising out of the processing of personal data and to minimise these risks as far and as early as possible. DPIAs are important tools for negating risk, and for demonstrating compliance with the GDPR.
Data Providers
A legal entity that stores and provides access to an Individual's data, which requires the individual's consent for processing (outside of its primary purpose/location).
Data Residency
The requirement that all customer content processed and stored in an IT system must remain within a specific country’s borders. This is one of the foremost concerns of organisations that want to use commercial cloud services.
Data Sovereignty
The idea that data is subject to the laws and governance structures of the nation where they are collected.
Downloadable forms are an intermediate step within the journey to digitize a service. The following are the attributes of a downloadable form: it has a unique identification number, and follows the official design standards (seals, logos, font, color scheme and more). Link to example Visa application form Gob.mx
Delegate
The person giving consent (signing Consent Agreement); on behalf of an Individual user.
Denormalised Databases
A strategy used on a previously-normalized database to increase performance. In computing, the process of trying to improve the read performance of a database, at the expense of losing some write performance, by adding redundant copies of data or by grouping data.
Design thinking is an approach that puts humans at the center of designing services by empathising with them and encorporating their feedback. It centers around validation of ideas by continuous experimenting and prototyping. At its core, it relies on action rather than thinking itself. By delivering visuals and mockups on a periodic basis, design thinking conveys vision in an impactful and meaningful way. Finaly, by iterating entire design processes, design thinking bosts the possibility of delivering a successful outcome.
Determinant
An attribute, defined in the rule, used as a filter to determine if (1) an entity is subject to a registration and/or (2) what requirements this entity must provide to register.
DevOps and DevSecOps
A set of principles and practices used along with tools that fully integrates and expedites the process of building, securing and deploying code on a scheduled and/or demand basis with the goals of reduced errors, reduced time-to-market, increased security and increased accuracy among others.
Digital Competency
A combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes with regards to be use of technology to perform tasks, solve problems, communicate, manage information, collaborate, as well as to create and share content effectively, appropriately, securely, critically, creatively, independently and ethically.
Digital Enterprise
An enterprise characterized by the creation of digitalized products or services that are either delivered fully digitally (eg, digital media or online banking); or where physical products and services are obtained by the customer by digital means (e.g., online car sharing services).
Government service delivered through digital channels like SMS, virtual assistant, website, web apps, and applications.
Digital Identifier
The key used by the parties to an identification relationship to agree on the entity being represented.
Digital Identity
The unique representation of a subject engaged in an online transaction. It is always unique in the context of a digital service, but does not necessarily need to uniquely identify the subject in all contexts.
Digital Identity and authentication policy
Policies that allow organizations to model security outcomes for application access based on industry-accepted, digital identity practices. They allow organisations to enable contextual, conditional access to services based on the risk and security posture when a user accesses it.
Digital Registries Coding Block
A no-code application meant to offer intuitive database/register creation and management functionalities.
Digital Service
Digital service is a government service available through digital channels. Government digital services are usually classified into the following two categories:
information services: typically websites, or mobile applications, that provide information to the public. This information often includes reports, fact sheets, and videos
transactional services: any services that lead to a change in the records held by the government. They typically involve an exchange of information, money, licenses or goods. Examples of transactional services include:
submitting a claim
registering a business
updating contact details
registering a birth, among others
Source: digital.gov.nz, 2020
Standard provides agencies with unified and consistent guidance on the design (user journeys, user/business life events, UX/UI, web forms, electronic documents), development (micro-services architecture and reusable software components/Building Blocks approach), and implementation (iterative, agile and citizen-centric) of digital services to enable and drive system-wide benefits.
Distributed Identity
An approach whereby the identity is owned and managed by the end person in a form of credentials (physical or digital) for which the owner is in full or as-needed control of its usage. This model if compared to centralized to federated presents lots of benefits in terms of privacy protection.
Documentation
An umbrella term that encompasses all written documents and materials dealing with a software product’s development and use.
Downloadable forms are an intermediate step within the journey to digitize a service. The following are the attributes of a downloadable form: it has a unique identification number, and follows the official design standards (seals, logos, font, color scheme and more). Link to example Visa application form Gob.mx.
E-Competence Framework (e-CF)
Created by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) to communicat the required competencies for ICT professionals, establishing 41 competences across 5 proficiency levels and providing knowledge and skills examples.
e-Participation Index
A supplementary index to the UN E-Government Survey which extends the dimension of the Survey by focusing on the use of online services to facilitate provision of information by governments to citizens (“e-information sharing”), interaction with stakeholders (“e-consultation”), and engagement in decision-making processes (“e-decision making”).
East African Community (EAC)
A regional intergovernmental organisation of six (6) Partner States, comprising Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, with its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.
Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC)
A regional intergovernmental organisation made up of six States: Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, the Republic of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea.
Electronic documents are printable representations of electronic transactions. For example, a birth certificate obtained online is proof of an electronic consultation with the population registry. Link to example Birth certificate gob.mx
Electronic Identity (eID)
A means for the user to prove electronically that they are who they say they are and thus gain access to services. It can appear in a form of certificate, username or email address or phone number.
Electronic Identity Token
A hardware device to be used during electronic transactions in order to provide for electronic identity verification process. It stores a set of private keys with corresponding public keys and carries at least functions of electronic authentication and digital signature creation.
End User
The customer of a digital financial services provider. the customer may be a consumer, a merchant, a government, or another form of enterprise.
End-of-life Product (EOL)
A product at the end of the product lifecycle which prevents users from receiving updates, indicating that the product is at the end of its useful life. With an EOL product, the vendor stops the marketing, selling, or provision or parts, services or software updates for the product.
Entity
A thing with distinct and independent existence, such as a person, organization, or device.
Episode Status
Indicates if a particular episode name within an event is pending/started/ended/no-show/cancelled.
European Qualifications Framework (e-QF)
A broad competency framework establishing 8 levels of knowledge, skills, and abilities to apply knowledge and skills with autonomy and responsibility.
Event Type
A service described by OpenAPI. Each event type is owned by a certain authority (e.g. the MoH might own the “new_birth” event type and define its schema).
Event-Based Gateway
A branching point in the Process where the alternative paths that follow the Gateway are based on Events that occur, rather than the evaluation of Expressions using Process data (as with an Exclusive or Inclusive Gateway).
Exclusive Gateway
A diversion point of a business process flow. For a given instance of the process, only one of the paths can be taken. An exclusive gateway may be used to achieve “looping” or “iteration” because if a condition is not met, the “next step” in the process may be another part of the process that provides a “way back” to the gateway in question after other activities are completed.
eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML)
An open standard XML-based language used to express security policies and access rights to information. It defines a declarative fine-grained, attribute-based access control policy, language, an architecture, and a processing model describing how to evaluate access requests according to the rules defined in policies all in XMLSchema.
Federated Identity
A method of linking a user's identity across multiple separate identity management systems. It allows for clean separation between the service a client is accessing and the associated authentication and authorization procedures.
Federations Services
API allowing federation of identities from external identity providers.
Financial Management Information System
The budget management system of the government treasury, which ensures that government agencies’ payments are processed within the approval budget and releases.
Financial Service Providers (FSPs)
An organisation that is licensed by a regulatory authority to provide transaction accounts which hold customer funds and are used to make and receive payments.
Foundational Identity System (fID System)
An identification system primarily created to manage identity information for the general population and provide credentials that serve as proof of identity for a wide variety of public and private sector transactions and services. Common types include civil registries, universal resident or national ID systems, and population registers.
Functional Description Document
A type of standard system administrator’s document which describes the functionalities of a product. Most parts of this document are produced after consultation with a user or an owner.
Functional Identity
Provides official proof of identity and authorization for particular purposes or sectors. This typically includes identification systems that provide voter identification, ration cards, social security numbers, health cards, tax numbers, and more. In some cases these credentials may also be recognized as proof of identity for other purposes or sectors.
Functional Identity System
A platform which maintains a registry of identity credentials and associates the identity of a person with the entitlement that the functional credential offers.
G5 Benchmark
An ITU developed tool which measures collaborative digital regulation within the development of regulation and policy making. It takes data from 193 countries and expands to cover four pillars, with 70 indicators taken into account – national collaborative governance; policy design principles; digital development and digital economic policy agenda
Gateway
Flow-control elements, which are used to control how activities interact as they converge and diverge within a process. Entered (or “triggered”) by activities, a gateway acts as a function that decides which (outgoing) path to follow based on the result of the evaluation of the given set of conditions.
Generic workflows in digital government services refer to frequently encountered, standardized processes and procedures that government agencies can use to streamline various steps as part of services. These workflows are designed to be reusable and improve efficiency, transparency, and accessibility in delivering government services to citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and European Economic Area, forming the backbone of EU privacy law.
Government Enterprise Architecture
A whole of government approach to support government ecosystems by transcending boundaries for delivering services in a coordinated, efficient and equitable manner.
GovStack
An expert community-driven multistakeholder effort aimed at supporting governments in building digital services. It offers governments open-source tools including building block specifications, a sandbox for testing, and communities of practice.
GovStack Learning Management System (GS LMS)
An ecosystem which consists of materials supporting the understanding of the GovStack approach and helping during the implementation journey by providing an environment with guides, templates and other materials.
GovTech Maturity Index
A World-Bank-developed progress tracker which measures the key aspects of four GovTech focus areas across the globe: enhancing service delivery, supporting core government systems, mainstreaming citizen engagement, and GovTech enablers.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley At (GLBA)
A United States federal law that requires financial institutions to explain how they share and protect their customers' private information. It is also a generally accepted global standard.
Green-fields development
In software development, a project involving developing a system for a totally new environment, without concern for integrating with other systems (especially legacy systems). Such projects are deemed higher risk.
Heuristic Evaluation
A usability inspection method for computer software that helps to identify usability problems in the user interface design. It specifically involves evaluators examining the interface and judging its compliance with recognized usability principles.
HIPAA
The established United States federal standard to protect individuals' medical records and other personal health information and applies to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health care providers that conduct certain health care transactions electronically. It is a generally accepted standard globally.
Host Entity
Identity of an entity that owns the responsibility for the event (Identify of a Hospital, school, Company, Hotel, etc.)
ICT Price Baskets
An ITU Affordability Data Set which provides information about the affordability of ICT services around the world.
ID/ Credential Management Services
Organisations that issue and manage the life cycle of Identity credentials, issuing identity documents, managing their renewal, and declaring them as stolen.
Identifier Management module
A building block that manages identifiers assigned to identities.
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Typically refers to a security suite that implements the infrastructure required for Authentication and Authorization plus the management of identities, roles, groups and access.
Identity and Verification Building Block (IDVBB)
The building block which creates, manages and uses a digital foundational identity. As a part of the overall identity system, it can be interfaced with other building blocks in order to realize the complete set of requirements necessary for the identification and verification of the other GovStack building blocks.
Identity and Verification Services
An API to offer identification services to the 3rd party players . Those services can be identity verification, attributes sharing or answers to claims (ie I claim I’m older than 18 years old) Usage can be multiple in public services, but also private, even cross-countries.
Identity Credential
An identity document in a physical or digital form that an identity credential holder may present to authenticate his identity in a physical or electronic interaction.
Identity Registry
A system for storing and managing the identities. It contains and manages all the data that might need to be collected (according to local laws and regulations) including demographics (ie name), biographics (ie age), portrait, known identifiers, known documents and can offer consultation or management services on them.
Identity Verification Services
A service who allows a service provider to verify an identity or some of its attributes, for example checking a person declared identity or verifying its age.
IEEE/ACM Computing Curricular 2020 (CC2020)
A report examining undergraduate curricular guidelines in computer engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, information systems, information technology, software engineering, and data science.
Describes prerequisits needed to access the service, channels of interaction with the user (In person, Chatbots, voice commands, web applications, virtual assistant and more), information about costs associated with availing the service and legal framework and foundation of the service. The following is an example of a service sheet for applying for a UK passport online.
Inclusive Gateway
In product notation, specifies that one or more of the available paths will be taken. They could all be taken, or only one of them. Unlike the exclusive gateway, an inclusive gateway may trigger the execution of more than one out-going flows.
IndEA
India’s government enterprise architecture, which applies a whole-of-government approach to delivering common public services by guiding investment into digital public goods and facilitating digital payments.
Indian e-Governance Competency Framework
e-CGF provides a toolkit suggesting how to structure an e-Governance team and how to conduct fact based training needs analysis for competency benchmarking. It covers all kinds of competences and is not limited to IT capabilities only.
Individual
A person about whom the personal data is stored in an information system (a.k.a. “Data Subject”) and who agrees or not with the use of this data outside of its primary purpose/location.
Information Management Skills
The ability to access and use information to make informed decisions.
Information Mediator Building Block
Responsible for providing (1) a managed facility through which different GovStack BBs and applications may communicate securely with each other and (2) a facility through which applications may publish and subscribe to different events identified by unique message types, enabling more efficient and resilient communication and application design.
Inputs & outputs
Concrete actions and/or deliverables that need to happen in order for a stage to occur
Instance
The unique thread of execution of a process. It has input data, a start time, end time, log, exit code, and other attributes. There may be N number of instances for a given process.
Internal Kickoff
The meeting that marks the beginning of GovStack activities in the implementing country.
International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO)
One of the main international classifications for which ILO is responsible; a tool for organizing jobs into a clearly defined set of groups according to the tasks and duties undertaken in the job.
Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
A mail client protocol used for retrieval of email messages from a mail server. For the purposes of GovStack IMAP refers to IMAP4 which is defined by the IETF with multiple RFCs.
Interoperability
Ability of ICT systems and business processes in government agencies to share information and knowledge within and across organizational boundaries, in order to better support the provision of public services as well as strengthen support to public policies and processes.
Issuer
Entity which creates a credential for one or more entities
ITU Global Cybersecurity Index
A trusted reference that measures the commitment of countries to cybersecurity at a global level – to raise awareness of the importance and different dimensions of the issue.
ITU Regulatory Tracker
Facilitates benchmarking and the identification of trends and gaps in ICT legal and regulatory frameworks and allows decision-makers to make the case for further regulatory reform toward achieving a vibrant and inclusive ICT sector
Journey Maps
A visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal.
Kubernetes
An open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Google originally designed Kubernetes, but the Cloud Native Computing Foundation now maintains the project.
Legal Entity
An organisation (public or private)that has the rights and obligations to define standards for personal data processing. E.g. a public health authority.
Log Report
Information from log of proceedings of a specified event (e.g. who attended and when, no shows, resource utilized, etc.).
Mapper or account Lookup Directory Service
A dynamic directory matching beneficiaries’ unique identifier and their account numbers to enable multiple programs to direct payments to the same account and beneficiaries to switch payment service providers.
Messaging Event
The (single) act of asynchronous information transfer between the publisher and subscriber.
Minimum Viable Product
A version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development.
Mobile Money (MoMo)
A destination account to distribute funds to end users (in the case of G2P) or an initiation account to enable users to initiate a payment for government services (P2G) which is facilitated by transferring money and making and receiving payments using the mobile phone.
National Catalogue/ Inventory of Government Services
A catalogue of public services is a collection of descriptions of active public services that are provided by public administrations at any administrative level (i.e. local, regional, national or pan-European).
Network Time Protocol
A networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks.
Normalised Database
The process of structuring a relational database in accordance with a series of so-called normal forms in order to reduce data redundancy and improve data integrity.
Notifications allow a service to contact its users, through multiple channels (email, sms and more). Notifications can be templatized (following the official design standards), allow for personalization of messages, bulk sending of information, API integration, seek permissions Example of artifacts Notifications guidelines and tool from gov.uk
Notifications Services
An API that triggers external processes according to events happening on the identity data managed by the identity system (ie name change, death, new child born, document lost or stolen).
OAuth2
An open standards based protocol used for Authentication that uses bearer tokens and is specifically designed to work across HTTP. OAuth provides clients a "secure delegated access" to server resources on behalf of a resource owner.
Online communication skills
The ability to communicate with stakeholders online with clarity. Communication is crucial when working in the digitised platform market because stakeholders often have never met.
Open Data
Data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose, even commercially.
Open Source
Computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose.
Open Standards
Standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development.
Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)
An online community that produces freely-available articles, methodologies, documentation, tools, and technologies in the field of web application security.
OpenHIE
A global community focused on health systems interoperability. While the remit of the Information Mediator is domain independent, we have drawn from OpenHIE because (a) a number of the initial use cases are health-related and (b) the OpenHIE community has developed a mature, well-thought-through, multi-stakeholder specification which can serve as an example (though limited) for GovStack’s purposes.
OpenIDConnect
A simple open standards based identity layer on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol. It allows Clients to verify the identity of a party based on the authentication performed by an Authorization Server, as well as to obtain basic profile information about the party in an interoperable and REST-like manner.
Operator
A registrar or a staff of a registrar who is processing the request of an applicant.
Organizer
A user authorized by Host to manage event schedules using this building block.
Parallel Gateway
Used in process design to visualize the concurrent execution of activities and is used in pairs. When the process arrives at the “parallel gateway node”, all the outgoing flows exhibited from the gateway will be executed simultaneously. The flow will be merged at the “joining parallel gateway”.
Participant
The GovStack team and other stakeholder teams mainly government digital teams in an engagement process with GovStack.
Payee
The recipient of funds in a payment transaction.
Payer
The person/organization whose account is debited in a payment transaction.
Payment
An exchange of funds, credentials, and other necessary information to complete an obligation between end users. A transfer is an example of a payment.
Payment Alias/ Payment Address
May include phone numbers, email addresses, or other handles. They may include globally unique URIs, and may be chosen by the user. These are increasingly seen in new payment systems.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
A set of standards used by the payment card industry to secure payment card data and card holder information including primary account numbers (PAN), credit/debit card numbers, and sensitive authentication data (SAD) such as CVVs and PINs.
Payments Building Block
The building block which enables digital financial payments to be tracked, evaluated, initiated, validated, processed, logged, compared and verified against budgets.
With the help of a standardized set of monitored data, indicators, analytical tools, and reports, performance analytics can provide effective and efficient analysis on various aspects of a service. Performance analytics most commonly used in services are digital take-up, user satisfaction, completion rate and cost per transaction. Example Performance analysis by gov.uk
Period
A range of consecutive days defined by start and end dates.
Personal Data
Any information that (a) can be used to identify the Individual to whom such information relates, or (b) is or might be directly or indirectly linked to the Individual.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
A suite of software components that is fully integrated to provide a secure, convenient and rapid application development and deployment platform for cloud style applications.
Population Registry
A database/system which includes records of the entire population of a country covering citizens but also foreigners staying in the country and also the national diaspora.
Post Office Protocol (POP)
A standard email protocol used by clients to access email once delivered to a mail server in a specific DNS domain. Various versions of this protocol exist but for the purposes of this document POP refers to POP3 as defined by RFC1939 and the extension mechanism in RFC2449 and an authentication mechanism defined in RFC1734.
Postel’s Law
Paraphrased as “be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send”.
Process
A business process is defined as a set of one or more linked activities which collectively realize a business objective.
Process Documentation
Documents produced during development and maintenance that describe steps taken during development of the software. Common examples include project plans; test schedules; reports and meeting notes.
Product Documentation
Documentation that describes the product that is being developed and provides instructions on how to perform various tasks with it.
Professional Technical Skills
The ability to understand various techniques involved in conceptualising, designing, development, testing, integration, operations & maintenance of a software product.
Provisioning
In general, provisioning means "providing" or making something available. Here, a way of propagating the joining or leaving of users from the system and creating/removing the accounts and access rights for users based on their target profile/role.
PubSub
In software architecture, publish–subscribe (PubSub) is a messaging pattern where senders of messages, called publishers, do not program the messages to be sent directly to specific receivers, called subscribers, but instead categorize published messages into classes without knowledge of which subscribers, if any, there may be.
Pubsub Pull Delivery Mode
Within PubSub, when the Room keeps a queue of events and the Subscriber can check that queue.
PubSub Push Delivery Mode
Within PubSub, when the Room sends events via webhook to the Subscriber’s API.
Quick Response (QR) Code
A method of encoding and visualization of data, which are machine-readable.
Realm
A security policy domain defined for a web or application server. A realm contains a collection of users, who may or may not be assigned to a group. An application will often prompt for a username and password before allowing access to a protected resource.
Registrar
An entity that is authorized to register, in a registry, claims submitted by an applicant and to issue a credential proving the registration.
Registration
Any approval/license/certificate issued by a public entity as a result of a request/declaration made by a user of the public service.
Registry
A paper-based or electronic database (centralized or decentralized, i.e. blockchain) where claims are stored and can be consulted.
Regulation
Normative text (law, decree, deed, decision, etc.) issued by a public entity.
Representational State Transfer (REST)
A set of architectural constraints that describes a uniform interface between physically separate components, often across the Internet in a Client-Server architecture.
Request for Information
A common business process whose purpose is to collect written information about the capabilities of various suppliers. Normally it follows a format that can be used for comparative purposes. An RFI is primarily used to gather information to help make a decision on what steps to take next.
Requirement
Information (i.e. claims and credentials) and fees which must be provided in a registration process.
Resource ID
Identity of a specific person/facility/equipment that is used to provide services in an Event
Result
Usually a credential (sometimes called: certificate, license, permit, card, etc.) proving the registration, in addition to the recording of information in a registry.
Room
A GovStack application that handles the distribution of events. Each Room has a set of connected event types. A room is located in the member’s local IM BB implementation and the member is responsible for all types of events in that particular room.
Routing
The process by which a route to a payment address is determined. The mechanism of sending payment information across different systems. This is sometimes used interchangeably with addressing.
RTC Synchronisation
The process of aligning with a real-time clock.
Rule
Any regulation, or part of a regulation, which creates for specific subjects an obligation or a right to register, and defines, for each category of subjects, the results and requirements of the registration.
Rules Engine
A tool transforming legal rules relating to a registration (i.e subjects, results, requirements and determinants), defined by a human analyst, into machine-readable statements.
SAAS
A software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.
Scheduler BB
The Scheduling building block provides services needed for planning, booking, tracking, triggering, notifying and reporting status of events.
Scope
A set of claims and/or credentials required for a registration.
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)
SAML and SAML2 are XML markup protocols designed for federation of identities across identity providers and service providers. Its main use case is for web single-sign-on.
Service
A service is a minimal piece of functionality provided by a building block or use case implementation.
A service catalog is a list of services, which includes information like level of digitization, demand, cost to deliver, how they’re performing in terms of desired outcomes (for users, for policy, for the organization), whether they should exist in their current form, whether there are patterns that are duplicated, who owns and manages them, number of interactions to complete the service among other data that can facilitate optimization and prioritization of services according to the impact and feasibility of digitizing the services.
Source: Gov.uk
Session Locations
Address of physical location of facilities where the event is hosted. If the event is purely online, the location will be “Virtual”.
Session Slot
A slot is the time period of a session defined by its Starting and ending date-time specification to carry specific activity.
Session Status
The current state of a session (proposed/published/booked/started/completed/no_show/failed/canceled).
Shared service policy and catalogue
Policies on services which are shared across government supporting effective and efficient departmental administration. They enable civil servants and others in the public sector to focus on delivering government priorities and public services.
Simple Certificate Enrolment Protocol (SCEP)
Simple Certificate Enrolment Protocol (SCEP) is an open source protocol that is widely used to make digital certificate issuance at large organizations easier, more secure, and scalable.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
A protocol used to deliver e-mail messages over the Internet. This protocol is used by most email clients to deliver messages to the server, and is also used by servers to forward messages to their final destination.
Single Sign On (SSO)
An authentication method that enables users to securely authenticate with multiple applications and websites by using just one set of credentials.
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
An inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana. Its goal is to further regional socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as political and security cooperation among 16 countries in southern Africa.
Subject
An entity obliged or entitled to a registration, or about which a claim is made.
Subscriber
A person or an application that is target audience for specific sessions (students, patients, software apps, devices, etc.).
Synchronous Process
A synchronous process is a process that, once instantiated, will complete before returning a response to the request. The process instance is blocking and should be used sparingly.
System Admin Guide
A type of standard system administrator’s document which explains different types of behaviours of the system in different environment and with other systems.
System Documentation
Product documentation that describe the system itself and its parts. It includes requirements documents, design decisions, architecture descriptions, program source code, and help guides.
Task Flow Analysis
A step-by-step analysis of how a user will interact with a system in order to reach a goal. This analysis is documented in a diagram that traces a user's possible paths through sequences of tasks and decision points in pursuit of their goal.
Technical Skills
The ability to use a smart mobile device, an application, and to navigate online to complete a task.
Test Case Specifications
A type of quality assurance documentation used to verify each feature or functionality of a product. This is based on the approach outlined in the test plan.
Test Checklists
A type of quality assurance documentation in the form of a list of tests that should be run at a particular time.
Test Plan
A type of quality assurance documentation usually 1-2 pages in length. It describes what should be tested at a given moment, and contains a list of features to be tested; testing methods; timeframes; a list of relevant roles.
Test Strategy
A type of quality assurance documentation that describes the software testing approach to achieve testing objectives. It includes information about team structure and resource needs as well as priorities.
The German Advanced IT Training System
In addition to the German Qualifications Framework, the GAITS provides a system of career profiles of specialists in the computer, software and telecommunications sectors.
Top-Down Approach
A top-down approach starts with the broader view, analyzes the macroeconomic factors, and targets specifically from there.
Transaction
A reference to the entirety of the exchange, including a Payment but may also include information between the Payer’s DFSP and the Payee’s DFSP.
Treasury Single Account
A unified structure of government bank accounts that gives a consolidated view of government cash resources. Based on the principle of unity of cash and the unity of treasury, a TSA is a bank account or a set of linked accounts through which the government transacts all its receipts and payments.
UIN Generator
Generates Unique Identity Numbers which are unique in the system. UIN Generator will follow predefined business rules for that generation and will make sure that a new generated number has never been already issued.
UN E-Government Development Index
An index developed by the United Nations to present the state of E-Government development of member states, focusing broadly on provision of online services, telecommunication connectivity and human capacity.
Unconditional Social Cash Transfer (UCST)
Cash payments provided to financially disadvantaged or vulnerable people or households without requiring anything in return.
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
A unique sequence of characters that identifies a logical or physical resource used by web technologies.
Unique Identity Number (UIN)
Stands for Unique Identity Number, this number uniquely identifies a person in an ID system. UIN are an optional approach and not necessary.
A sequence of actions (steps) to achieve a specific goal in a specific context of usage. E.g., in one use case the IM BB may be used to let a BB access a service provided by another BB; in another use case it may be used to relay an event notification from one BB to several other BBs via PubSub. Digital government services are enabled by architecting dfferent use cases according to the service workflow.
User Documentation
Product documentation that is mainly prepared for end-users of the product and system administrators. This includes tutorials, user guides, troubleshooting manuals, installation and reference manuals.
How end users interact with and experience a service, which includes their perception of the actions associated with using that service.
Any tool or activity by which the end-user accesses, uses or otherwise interacts with a digital service.
Voucher
A token that entitles the holder to a discount or that may be exchanged for goods or services.
Voucher Group
A voucher group is a characteristic of a voucher that restricts the function or use case that a voucher can be used for.
Waterfall Project Management
A project management approach that entails a clearly defined sequence of execution with project phases that do not advance until a phase receives final approval. Once a phase is completed, it can be difficult and costly to revisit a previous stage.
Web forms allow capturing and validation of data provided by the user and digital registries. They follow the official design standards (seals, logos, font, color scheme, and more). Link to example Birth certificate gob.mx
Webhook
A webhook (also called a web callback or HTTP push API) is a way for an application to provide other applications with real-time information. A webhook delivers data to other applications as it happens, meaning you get data immediately.
Whole-of-Government Approach
The joint activities performed by diverse ministries, public administrations and public agencies in order to provide a common solution to particular problems or issues.
Wireframe
Software that helps designers and product managers visualize the structure and functionality of a web page or an app screen.
Workflow Activity
A single step in a workflow process.
Workflow Instance
An instance of execution for a workflow process.
Workflow Process
A workflow process contains one or many activities.
X-Road
An open-source software and secure data exchange layer that allows public and private sector databases to exchange data. All outgoing data on the software is digitally signed and encrypted, and incoming data is authenticated and logged.
The first iteration of the Playbook has been co-developed by (listed below in alphabetical order)
Estonian Government-EstDev
Andres Ääremaa
Margus Mägi
DIAL
Brenda Maday
Diana Sang
Jake Watson
Sherman Kong
GIZ
Amrit Singh
Martha Mundas
Moritz Fromageot
Nico Lueck
Niharika Gujela
Nora Hauptmann
Pia Seiffarth
Riham Fakhru
Sarah Fischer
Stephen Odhiambo
ITU
Ayush Shukla
Concord Kananura
Hani Eskandar
Hossam Ragheb
Ingrid Pappel
Luke Cavanaugh
Nabhonil Roy
Dr. P.S Ramkumar
Valentina Stadnic
Vikash Madduri
Yolanda Martínez
eGov Foundation of India
Omkar Ghatpande
Varun Basu
TalTech
Alika Vandtke
Josephine Lusi
Government of Ukraine
Maksym Shkilov
Nienke Haccou
The version for the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) is an early version of the GovStack Implementation Playbook that contains major features under each section and has been released to TAC panel members, pilot countries' digital teams, and the organic public that reach the GovStack website, Govstack GitHub and GovStack community of practices for initial comments and feedback.
This early version will allow the GovStack team to test:
Content structure and relevance
Digital service co-design standard and delivery protocols
Ease of use of the tools and methods included in each section
Graphics and diagrams that explain key concepts
As we move forward with the TAC review process and pilot reference implementations, the content will be updated constantly. Bare with us in this initial version and give us feedback! We are committed to active revision of comments and make every iteration of the playbook better.
Same as contributors | TAC review version is the first iteration of the GovStack implementation playbook with TAC panel members and digital teams in pilot countries. |
May 26th 2023 | Same as contributors | Design elements have been updated |
Jun 15th 2023 | New sections have been added based on country implementation: Change management, one-stop-shop (Service catalog and CMS), Sections withing Design and delivery: Prototyping, Use cases |
Nov 7th 2023 | Restructuring of content in Adopt GovStack and its child pages |
Improper disposal of e-waste poses numerous threats to the environment, economy, and health and well-being of citizens. Rwanda wanted to implement a legally transparent, digitally supported, and appropriately financed EPR digital service for the management of e-waste.
Completion of EPR regulatory framework for e-waste management in Rwanda
Co-design the financial mechanism that producers must pay on Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) that is placed on the market in Rwanda to finance the sound management of e-waste.
A forward-looking e-waste regulation that will allow electronic producers to finance the collection, recycling, and end-of-life disposal of e-waste equipment/product streams.
Facilitate compliance with e-waste regulation through EPR digital service.
Contribute to the digitization roadmap by scaling the GovStack Building Block approach used in EPR for the rest of the services in the digitization roadmap of Rwanda.
GovExchange is a gateway to the world of digital solutions for e-government. No matter which sector or Sustainable Development Goal you are focused on, the Exchange can help you build better services for people and communities through:
The exchange provides a marketplace to connect organizations to opportunities through features such as the RFP (request for proposals) Opportunities Radar, a comprehensive digital product comparison tool, and online storefronts for vendors:
GovExchange is continuously updated with new use cases, specifications, and products.
Browse the library of use cases from multiple sectors ranging from agriculture to education on GovExchange. Identify use cases that are most relevant to your service and get inspired by their sequence of steps, generic workflows, and Building Blocks utilized.
Search the library of digital products/Digital Public Goods that meet the requirements of your use case/services.
Showcase your products on the storefront.
Publish/share tenders to:
Identify Digital Public Goods/Digital Products to integrate into the tech stack of your organization
implement services using the tech stack
Who does what:
Identify Digital Public Goods/Digital Products to integrate into the tech stack of your organization
implement services using the tech stack
Product owners - Review and make decisions on vendors that match the requirements as mentioned in RFPs/ToRs
Vendors/implementors of digital products/Digital Public Goods can:
review RFQs/ToRs for projects that are relevant to your domain
showcase your products on the storefront
Service designer - Find the reference use cases that are most relevant to your service (ease your search by filtering the use cases based on the SDG they target and the sector they belong to) and refer to the steps, generic workflows, and Building Blocks involved in it
Digital teams using the exchange can refer:
Use cases
Building Block specifications
Products
RFPs
A maturity assessment provides stakeholders with a good understanding of the current digitalization landscape providing clarity to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement. Based on that assessment, governments are better positioned to establish policy priorities to reach higher maturity levels.
This section provides references to different maturity assessment approaches stemming from the public sector, the private sector and academia.
Digitally Nascent
Digitally Emerging
Digitally Agile and Integrated
Digitally transformed
Digitally Innovative
The UNDP Digital Maturity Assessment can be used to evaluate the current potential for digital government across six key pillars that include: Technology and Solutions, Policy and Regulations, Skills and Capacity Building, User Centricity, Service Definition and Delivery, Institutional Framework, and Collaboration.
As in the case of Lao PDR, it was used to evaluate how ICT solutions in government can continue to improve operational efficiency and user satisfaction.
Encompassing consistent data sources across 198 countries, the GTMI complements the existing tools and diagnostics by providing a baseline and a benchmark for GovTech maturity and by offering insights to those areas that have room for improvement.
Allow tax administrations to self-assess through internal discussions as to how they see their currently level of digital maturity. There is not a prescribed optimal level of maturity for tax administrations. The level of maturity will depend on each organisation’s circumstances, broader objectives, and priorities.
Provide staff and senior leadership of the tax administration with a good overview of the level of maturity based on input from stakeholders across the organisation. This can help in deciding strategy and identifying areas for further improvement, including areas that require support from other parts of the tax administration or external stakeholders, including other parts of government. A number of administrations have reported that cross-organisational conversations when self-assessing can be useful in joining-up different business areas, helping people see the scope for synergies and identify areas for mutual support.
Allow tax administrations to compare their level of digital maturity with their peer organisations. An administration will know its own level and will be able to compare itself to other tax administrations. It is also possible for tax administrations to reach out, through the Secretariat, to other tax administrations at different levels of maturity for peer-to-peer discussion and learning purposes.
IMAPS is a versatile tool that can be used to assess the interoperability of any public service – from open data portals, and e-voting platforms, to public procurement services, and much more – and applied at all levels of government (international, national, regional and local).
Gartner’s 5 level maturity model includes:
Comparison of mainstream frameworks used in IT
The CMMI and ITIL frameworks use a 5-point maturity scale, and COBIT adds another step to the scale, also describing the 0-level in the model. A summary of the maturity scale of the frameworks examined and the keywords corresponding to the maturity levels is given in the Table below:
The authors propose a new e-government maturity model that addresses the limitations of existing e-government maturity models and supports governments in developing countries to achieve sustainable e-government services. They have considered five determinants — a detailed process, streamlined services, agile accessibility, use of state-of-the-art technology, and trust and awareness. The proposed model was validated by employing an empirical investigation through case study and survey methods. The study finds that both the implementers (government) and adopters (users) of the e-government services benefited from the proposed model, resulting in increased sustainability of e-government services.
This model considered four implementation stages and emphasized the integration of e-government systems before invoking the transaction stage. The stages and the tasks under those stages were identified and are discussed below to provide a detailed plan for e-government implementation.
The initial stage proposed by the maturity model was to introduce basic e-government services. Unlike existing e-government maturity models, the proposed model emphasized using social media and establishing a web presence to communicate with stakeholders. The use of social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.) is great to reach out to masses of people. This stage explained how governments could gain citizens' trust by addressing their queries through a web presence. Furthermore, this stage supported governments in developing awareness among stakeholders in relation to e-government services. The activities needed to be performed to achieve this stage were identified by the maturity model and are listed below.
The maturity model emphasized streamlining e-government services for their sustainability. Streamlined services were defined as complete and integrated services, where stakeholders could acquire specific government services without having to visit relevant government offices. This would require the integration of e-government systems into various government departments. Integration is to be done along with the establishment of the electronic government infrastructure in order to save government resources, and to avoid the risk of data duplication, as shown in the figure. Without horizontal integration, governments could end up with several individual fragmented electronic government applications and data repositories. Horizontal integration would interconnect government departments that shared similar interests in order to avoid data duplication and to enhance service delivery. Furthermore, streamlined government services would eliminate the manual data processing layers from various government departments. This has high implications in the context of developing countries, where citizens have poor access to ICT tools, integrated databases, and authentication systems which would allow local government officials to better serve them. Therefore, we emphasized the integration of disparate and individual databases and applications before moving to the transaction stage.
The tasks required to achieve streamlined e-government services were identified by the maturity model and are listed below.
While most e-government maturity models place transactional services at the second stage, our proposed framework puts it at the third stage, right after the integration phase. Our choice is based on the understanding that, without achieving integration, transactional services cannot be delivered efficiently. The tasks required to achieve the transactional stage were identified and are listed below.
Automation is at the apex of e-government maturity. At this level, users are proactively involved in government activities. Government services are transformed from a push to a pull (demand-driven) format. E-government services also become smarter, synchronize with user accounts, and provide automated services, such as text reminders regarding unpaid bills, license and ID renewals. The tasks required to achieve this stage are described below.
Oct 2022
, ,
,
Co-design the based on user needs, journeys, and business life events
: A library of use cases from health and agriculture to gender and education and see how they meet the needs of people and communities. Use cases describe the sequence of steps and interactions between users and systems that are required to provide a service to the public.
: Enterprise-ready, reusable software components that perform key functions. Each block listed on the Exchange documents the technical specifications required to implement use cases.
: The repository contains over 500 solutions already used to address real-world development problems. Access information on digital public goods, commercial software and apps, and digital public infrastructure.
: Aggregates requests from organizations, allowing vendors to explore a wide range of opportunities in one convenient location. RFP Radar provides unprecedented visibility into the digital landscape and links vendors with opportunities that fit their expertise.
: The online storefronts provide vendors with a dedicated marketing space to highlight their products and services. It enables them to engage with potential customers, establish credibility, and expand their reach.
: Allows organizations to make informed product decisions. This powerful product comparison tool enables the evaluation of multiple solutions side by side by Comparing their features, functionalities, and maturity scores to find the perfect match for requirements.
- Publish/share RFPs/ToRs to:
The is designed to help governments worldwide assess their readiness to undertake digital transformation. It defines five maturity levels:
The (Dener et al. 2021) measures the key aspects of four GovTech focus areas: supporting core government systems, enhancing service delivery, mainstreaming citizen engagement, and fostering GovTech enablers. It assists advisers and practitioners in the design of new digital transformation projects, putting an emphasis on the whole-of-government approach and citizen centricity.
The is an assessment and benchmarking tool that can be employed to gauge the maturity of digital government policies and their implementation under a coherent and whole-of-government approach. The DGI can help governments gain a more solid understanding of their ability to operate in an increasingly digital and globalized context.
The adopts a sectoral approach to measure how well secondary providers in England are using digital technologies to achieve a paper-free healthcare system. The Digital Maturity Self-Assessment helps individual organizations identify key strengths and service delivery gaps. Taken together, these individual self-assessments provide an overview of digital maturity progress across the country.
The contained in this report covers the Tax Administration 3.0 building block paths of growth and transformation. The aim of the Digital Transformation Maturity Model is to:
is an online survey that helps public officials evaluate and improve all key interoperability aspects of their digital public service (legal, semantic, organisational, or technical). IMAPS also allows public officials to monitor service’s compliance with the New European Interoperability Framework (EIF).
by examining the extent to which organizations use data effectively to redesign services and deliver new ones, as well as to transform and manage operations.
Level 2 is not necessarily subsequent to level 1. E-government and open government programs often coexist, with different leadership and priorities. Open government often takes the form of public-facing programs intended to promote transparency, citizen engagement and the data economy. Examples we see today are nascent open data initiatives, often in the context of such as the .
For maturity models fod ITSM see also: (based on ITIL)
(Almuftah, Weerakkody, and Sivarajah 2016) article compares 17 different e-government models. It emphasizes that most models have three main stages that capture the following dimensions: presence, communication, and integration. The table below shows the mapping of each model’s stage to the three proposed main stages (presence, communication, and integration).
The article titled (Joshi and Islam 2018) discusses main hurdles in the effective implementation of e-Government services.
Apr 22 Prioritisation of government service: EPR |
May - July 22 Workshops to understand user needs |
July - Aug 22 Map As-Is user journey, life/business events and current stack |
Mar - Sept 23 Evaluation of possible Digital Public Goods (DPG) to digitize the service |
Once the wireframe and/or voice command flow is approved, we are ready to start developing and orchestrating a functional prototype of the service. The prototype is iteratively developed. Each successive iteration adds new functionalities and refines the prototype based on user feedback. This results in a service that meets the desired level of functionality and usability.
Develop Product and Technical specifications for the service.
Develop the front end and back end of the service according to the Product and Technical specifications and approved wireframes and/or voice command flow.
Develop a test script considering all the branches of "To-Be" user journey.
Prepare
test scripts
security and quality assurance checklist
digital service release plan
stabilization and maintenance routine
Prototype service, using GovStack sandbox or a test environment of your preference.
Launch α, β versions to a limited set of citizens/business users, admins, and public officials.
Collect their feedback on the functional prototype and identify concrete steps to improve it.
Iteratively developed and deliver the launch version that meets the requirements and needs of citizens/business users, admins, and public officials.
Prepare the plan for migration of the prototype to the production environment.
Prepare the launch of the service.
Who does what
Service designer – Lead the service co-design journey
Front-end developer – Develops front-end applications following UX/UI style guide
Solution architect – Architects the service according to the BB integration plan
Back-end developer – Adjust BB, connects legacy systems, and test the application
Digital security manager - validates compliance with digital security policy
Cloud architect - Designs cloud strategy and microservices architecture that supports the digitalization of government services
Deliver a functional prototype of the service which:
Complies with the approved 'To-be user journey' and wireframe and/or voice command flow
Complies to Country digital service design standards. This includes standards for:
Complies with Country enterprise architecture, including digital security protocols approved by the country technical team
Traditionally, cabinets have relied on physical documents, memos, and meetings to discuss and decide on various issues related to governance, policy-making, and administration. An e-cabinet system streamlines these processes by digitizing the entire workflow. Djibouti wanted to implement a legally transparent, digitally supported, and e-Cabinet digital service.
Some key features of an e-cabinet system include:
Document Management: All cabinet-related documents, such as proposals, reports, and meeting agendas, are created, stored, and shared through the platform. This ensures real-time access and version control, minimizing the risk of miscommunication, information loss or duplication.
Collaboration and Communication: it enables seamless communication and collaboration among cabinet members, allowing them to share feedback, comments, and ideas on specific documents or proposals.
Decision Tracking: It maintains a record of all decisions made during cabinet meetings, along with the reasons behind them. This historical data can be valuable for reference in the future and for maintaining organizational memory.
Security and Access Control: it implements robust security measures to ensure that sensitive government information remains confidential and accessible only to authorized individuals.
Perform a digital readiness assessment
Identify priority e-government services based on the country's context and needs.
Co-design the digital service based on user needs, journeys, and business life events
Identify a DPG/digital product that meets the business requirements of Djibouti to integrate it with the national tech stack of Djibouti through an open call
Train the Djibouti digital team on GovStack Building Block approach.
Digital readiness assessment
An operational e-Cabinet service integrated with the Djibouti national tech stack following the GovStack principles and approach.
Build and train the Djibouti Digital Team
Build a comprehensive capacity development and change management program
Traditionally the application for construction permits, inspections, fee payments, and approval has been "over the counter" and paper-based. This makes construction permits time-consuming, complicated to understand, and difficult to comply with.
Digital Construction Permit streamlines the building plan approval system with configurable workflows for effective management through different phases of approval in a user-centric manner. The service provides the following functionalities:
Online submission of building plans
Online scrutiny of building plans
Online fee calculation, payment & reporting
Site visit scheduling & reporting mechanism
Online application tracking (pending, rejected, approved)
Configurable workflow and functionalities
Perform a digital readiness assessment
Identify priority e-government services based on the country's context and needs.
Co-design the service based on user needs, journeys, and business life events
Digital readiness assessment
An operational e-construction permit digital service integrated with the Djibouti National Stack following the GovStack principles and approach.
Build and train the Djibouti Digital Team
Build a comprehensive capacity development and change management program
Nov 22 - Feb 23 Co-design w/user a To-Be user journey, future stack & wireframes
Nov 7-8 23
– Lead software product development according to the service blueprint
Identify a DPG/digital product that meets the business requirements of Djibouti to integrate it with the national tech stack of Djibouti through an
Train the Djibouti digital team on the .
A referenceto be demonstrated on the GovStack Sandbox
Today’s ever-changing technology landscape requires a combination of knowledge and skills that is very different from what it was few years ago. Having digital skills enables individuals to fully participate in their social and professional lives. For example, the “new normal” following the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that still exist when it comes to connecting households and people, and the digital skills required to participate effectively in an increasingly digital world. The need for a digitally competent population and the demand for a digitally skilled workforce have grown even more pronounced today.
Digital skills include a “combination of behaviors, expertise, know-how, work habits, character traits, dispositions and critical understandings” (Broadband Commission, 2017). Thus, digital skills could be further divided into multiple different skills as follows:
Technical skills: the ability to use a smart mobile device, an application, and to navigate online to accomplish a task
Professional technical skills: the ability to understand various techniques involved in conceptualizing, designing, development, testing, integration, operations & maintenance of software products. These broadly include Software Development Life cycle (SDLC), Project management (Agile), Open Source, Open Data, digital infrastructure including cloud, architecture, and so on.
Information management skills: the ability to access and use information to make informed decisions
Online communication skills: communication is crucial to create effective and trustworthy digital channels, especially because interactions among stakeholders are often exclusively remote, with no face-to-face encounters
Critical thinking and problem-solving skills: the ability to use ICT to make informed judgments and choices, and then use the information gathered to solve a problem
Enterprise Skills: Communication, collaboration, project management, continuous learning, product management lifecycle, problem-solving, digital leadership, and design thinking.
Other skills supplementary to digital skills: the ability to apply skills in practice, proficiency in the English or the working language, presentation skills, mind-set and behavior in terms of self-motivation to learn, interest in lifelong learning, and a “go the extra mile” mentality.
GovStack is a unique approach that emphasizes the use of building blocks over existing monolithic solutions. This approach calls for a few more additional skills to what has been described as part of digital skills.
The following are suggested technical focus areas that are recommended for the implementation of the GovStack Approach. These skills may be acquired by various stakeholders as relevant to them.
Software Reusable components
Building Blocks / Lego bricks game
Open Source Solutions
Workflows
Interoperability
Service Standards
Sandbox environment
Software Testing
Agile Project Management
User stories
User experience
Design thinking
User journey
Cloud Computing.
Security
Privacy
Enterprise Architecture
Suggested non-technical focus areas include:
Understanding the difference between digitization, digitalization and digital transformation
Awareness at all levels
Communication/Publicity strategy
Ethics
Citizen engagement
The proposed behaviour, knowledge, and skills will come in hand at various stages of the stakeholders’ activities lifecycle. For example, a citizen can learn about GovStack through citizen engagement activities and demand for non-listed services. Similarly, a government department can gain a better understanding of what key competencies it needs to conceptualize, design/co-design, plan, and implement various digitalization activities while adopting the GovStack Approach.
There can be different kind of stakeholders (government and internal) and external stakeholders who support capacity building during the digital transformation process. GovStack has identified various internal stakeholder profiles that support the implementation of citizen centric digital government services. The profiles are as follows:
GovStack approach provides different training topics in accordance with user profiles which support to better implement the GovStack approach. In order to establish right approach and move towards digital services first the general knowledge according the GovStack eco system as well digital governance era with respect to digital transformation is needed. GovStack has developed main training topics to each stakeholder who will be involved with the GovStack implantation journey and is involved or assist digital teams. However, many open-source courses are available which can support our approach during the implementation stages.
The main tenets of such training programs are -
1. Easily understandable training content
2. Regular, frequent, dedicated support
3. Channels of training support
All training objects and learning materials can be found on GovStack LMS
For best outcomes, it is advisable to kick off the training plan with a strategic discussion will all the key stakeholders involved with digital transformation activities. This initial stage typically starts by setting a common understanding of the benefits that can be reaped through digitization for all relevant parties. This practice allows us to root everyone’s focus on a user-centric perspective of service transformation. This can then be followed by more encompassing technical training sessions
For example, in e-Chhawani program in India, pieces of training were delivered once every quarter. A special emphasis was laid on ensuring easy access to training materials with repeated reminders of how to access them. In addition, a specific time every quarter was dedicated to training and these trainings were calendarized for the entire year. For example the 2nd week of each quarter.
Oct 2022: Prioritisation of government service: Construction permit and eCabinet
Dec 2022 - Jan 2023: Workshops to understand user needs
Jan 2023: Map As-Is user journey, life/business events and current stack
Jan - Feb 2023: Co-design w/user a To-Be user journey, future stack & wireframes
Aug 2023: Launched Open call for digital product
Nov 2023: Select digital product and service provider to implement
Dec 2023 - Jun 2024: Prototype & iterate with the user
Launch the service (TBD)
Prepare a scaling strategy (TBD)
Oct 2022: Prioritisation of government service: Construction permit and eCabinet |
Dec 2022 - Jan 2023: Workshops to understand user needs |
Jan - Feb 2023: Map As-Is user journey, life/business events and current stack |
Mar - Apr 2023: Co-design w/user a To-Be user journey, future stack & wireframes |
Nov 2023: Select digital product and service provider to implement |
Dec 2023 - Jun 2024: Integrate selected digital product with national stack (ID, Payment, IM) according to service design proposal & GovStack prototype |
Launch the service & update iteratively with the user feedback(TBD) |
Prepare a scaling strategy (TBD) |
Aug 2023: Launch
This playbook section underscores a systematic and synergistic approach to learning and knowledge-sharing. Furthermore, it outlines the framework and steps for Capacity Building, digital skills in relation to Capacity Building, capacity assessment, and how academic institutions support a country's capacity development.
It describes:
1. Capacity building framework
2. Capacity building journey
3. Digital skills in relation to capacity building
4. Assessment of capacity.
5. Academic support to Capacity development
The service is ready to be launched in a production environment once the functional prototype is tested and QA steps are followed. Migration process is dependent on the sandbox used to develop, test and iterate the service.
Release the newly digitized service on the country's production environment.
Plan and identify material to be added to the assisted digital strategy and implementation plan for training users and public servants in the use of service. Consider the example of UK Government approach to assisted digital service
Prepare strategy and carry out awareness-building activities on the use of the digital service and its functionalities to enable users and public servants best utilize it. Following are examples of awareness-building activities:
Train public servants on the use of service and on regulations that frame the newly launched service.
Prepare a cutover plan that includes a minute-by-minute launch, stabilization, and monitoring plan. Consider the example of Uk Cutover, Go Live, Adoption, Early Live Support, Floorwalking, and at the elbow support
Prepare service performance dashboard. Consider the example of Gov.uk measuring success.
Set up a robust support infrastructure to assist users and public servants adapt to the new service. For example, setting up user support hotlines, forums, newsletters, FAQ pages, and more.
Iterate and improve the service based on user feedback and service performance. For example: Increase infrastructure if the service has a higher demand than expected, adjust infographics and information sheets to better clarify user questions, and guide them in using the service to its best potential.
Who does what:
Service Owner - Lead the successful operation and continuous improvement of the service
Service designers/ Design lead – Incorporate user feedback where applicable
Communications manager - develops communications strategy for the launch of the service
IT operation - Manage the launch and maintain the service
Cutover plan
Launch of functional service in the production environment
Awareness campaign
Service Dashboard
GovStack focuses a lot on process and people within the implementation journey. Capacity building is a process in which individuals, organizations and societies, develop, strengthen and maintain the skills to implement GovStack’s Building Blocks. Capacity development is not a single intervention but an iterative process of design-application-learning-adjustment.
Capacity building activities include:
Conducting training needs assessment
Engagement of stakeholders on capacity development
Assessment the capacity needs and assets
Formulation and implementation of capacity development response
Evaluation of the capacity development.
Digital government services require a robust and active knowledge management cycle. The knowledge management cycle is a continuous where information is identified, created, shared, stored, utilized. GovStack's knowledge management cycle relies on three critical pieces: people, process and technology.
The key to knowledge management is sharing of information. Sharing knowledge leads to innovation and improvement of the quality of work. Thus, the result is an efficient learning organization where employees' skill sets are constantly improved.
In its ongoing efforts to improve how governments can reap the benefits of digitalization, the GovStack team frequently asks key questions to guide the development of its activities. These questions include; how can governments become more open and transparent, while simultaneously dealing with various challenges, such as data sensitivity? Which technologies are available to make governments more open and to use open government data? How can data be turned into smartness?
The GovStack Initiative strongly believes in the principle to "reuse and improve." We do not have to reinvent the wheel - when it comes to reusing building blocks, but also regarding education material. Many organizations in the field of government technologies as well as Open Source communities and Governments have published readings, guidelines and training material to support public sector digitization. We would like to make use of all this material and channel it to our partner countries looking into increasing their skills and knowledge. These are a few ways to support GovStack Capacity Building:
Creating new training resources
There are still training gaps concerning the whole-of-government approach and the development of digital infrastructure
Sharing e-learnings, guidelines, toolkits or training material
Numerous institutions, both from the public and private sectors, have created their own learning materials to increase the skills needed to push the digital transformation of government services forward
Knowledge sharing formats
Participate in Communities of practice and share knowledge and insights into your digitization process. Create forums for exchange within the digital ecosystem in your country or regionally.
Training centers
Establish a training center in your country and link GovStack to the institution(s) responsible for capacity building in your country.
Change management
Foster openness to change and change management. Digitizing Government Services is not only about creating digital tools and infrastructure, it is also about changing processes, simplifying them, creating citizen-centered services. This new approach means a lot of change for government processes, and therefore change management is a big part of the digitization journey.
The starting point of the GovStack approach was the development Communities of Practice in order to share knowledge and experiences between various stakeholders and countries' focal points.
The GovStack approach relies heavily on best practices, experiences and knowledge sharing. The Communities of Practice (CoPs) are topic-related or regional exchange forums to share knowledge and experiences concerning the GovStack approach. The current CoPs are the following:
Aim: Provide an impartial opinion on results provided by the building block working groups.
Opportunities to get involved:
Provide expert guidance to each BB WG
Advise on output formats and mode of work e.g. where to properly document BB specification, suggestion on version control methods/tools, on release and management of end deliverables
Review, validate, approve final deliverables at each milestone
Inform BB WG and Governance Committee of challenges and propose solutions
Aim: Exchange knowledge to strengthen the global GovStack community
Opportunities to get involved:
Share respective country (implementation) experience
Aim: Map and identify opportunities to collaborate and extend existing work related to facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment of digital public goods and digital public infrastructure for the GovStack
Identify potential DPGs that are likely to also comply with building blocks specifications.
Identify existing DPGs that can be used to inform specifications of building blocks – where these specifications are not yet in place/still evolving.
Create alignment and coordination for how to accelerate the discovery of these DPG Building Blocks eg. via a digital marketplace.
Participate in bi-monthly discussion rounds to exchange on DPGs as well as definitions for building blocks and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
Share best practices with and learn from other experts.
Contribute to the publication of GovStack relevant definitions (e.g. building blocks, DPI).
Additionally, the CoPs seek to learn from other countries such as India and Singapore, as described below:
Excellence center, as an umbrella, is a shared facility or an entity that should provide leadership, best practices, research, support and/or training for a focus area to support GovStack approach.
To complement the practical and theoretical view within knowledge sharing, technical support is also needed. GovStack Tech Community consists of:
Building Block Working Groups (BB WG)
Technical & Operations Group
Technical Committee
This ecosystem also contributes in policy making level by giving valuable insights for the further development of the strategic and policy making standards and documents in terms of digital service design and transformation.
GovStack supports its governments throughout the knowledge management cycle with different resources and tools. Internally, Teams, Jira and Confluence are the communication channels for co-creating knowledge pieces. On the other hand, and are the resources used to disseminate to the public, the Technical Specifications and Training materials that aids the GovStack implementation journey.
Participate in events to exchange best practices with other e-government leaders and learn from the experience of other countries.
GovStack CoP in cooperation with the
See the recent work:
Apart from the CoPs, the academia has been involved by involving universities such as and Mexico university on board with different research topics in Masters' and doctoral levels. This research gives valuable feedback not only for ongoing projects, but also helps to set a roadmap for future development.
The division has conceptualized “” for the years 2013-15. MeTP intends to build the capacity of central government employees for implementing e-Governance projects.
Subsequently, the National eGovernance Division (NeGD) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), has extensively conducted a research with various key stakeholders and has developed for Digital India with Implementation Toolkit” in the year 2014. This is a crucial document for conducting all the eGovernance Capacity Building initiatives for the civil servants of federal/state/union territory ministries/departments in India.
Singapore is committed to becoming a world leader in digitalization. Capitalizing on the huge potential opened up by technology, Singapore is putting forward an overarching vision that is based on three pillars: , , and . Taken together, these three pillars are responsible for effecting significant shits across all sectors and policy areas.
Citizens:
The Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), Government of Singapore has a set of portfolios to drive the digital transformation. One such is “Digital Readiness” with four strategic outcomes (a) Digital access (b) Digital Literacy (c) Digital participation and (d) Digital inclusion by design. In regard to “Digital Literacy”, the “ blueprint recommends the following.
The recommends raising digital capabilities to pursue innovation so that the government is able to “think fast, start small and act fast” to seize new opportunities. The Government has been deepening its technical capabilities through a Centre of Excellence (or CentEx) for ICT and Smart Systems, where specialist engineering expertise will be grown to support the WOG. The CentEx will house capability centers such as Data Science and AI, ICT Infrastructure, Application Development, Sensors and IoT, Cybersecurity, and Geospatial. The CentEx may expand into new technology capability areas as the need arises – for example, in robotics, VR/AR, digital twins or blockchain.
In Singapore, the Institute of Systems Science at plays a pivotal role in building the capacities of digital leaders and professionals. has been appointed as The Digital Academy (TDA) operations partner, established by The Government Technology Agency (GovTech Singapore) for Whole Of Government (WOG). As Operations Partner of The Digital Academy, NUS-ISS is partnering GovTech in developing training roadmaps and managing the enrolment, logistics, publicity and training processes.
Communities of practice are groups of people working in the same field in government. They bring those people together to share ideas, show their work, solve problems and explore best practice. These include:
Apart from the above CoP's, the Australian Government has established the as part of the Australian Government with the aim to lift the digital capability of the Australian Public Service (APS) to transform government services and build a government fit for the digital age.
The UK as part of their Government Digital Service (gov.uk) has created a set of service manuals and several communities of practice. One of these manuals is a handbook for people developing communities of practice in government -
The Communities of practice are for people who share common job roles, responsibilities or remits. They do well through regular interaction and common goals.
- For anyone with an interest in accessibility.
- For anyone interested in using agile methods to deliver government projects.
- For anyone procuring, designing or managing assisted digital support.
- For anyone involved in content or website publishing.
- For anyone designing and building data products and services.
- For anyone interested in data science best practice and using evidence to make decisions.
- For anyone working in interaction design, graphic design, service design or content design.
- For anyone in the public sector buying digital data and technology services.
- For anyone working with data and analytics.
- Discuss and learn about the role of policy design in government.
- For anyone using product management methods to deliver government products and services .
- For anyone designing, implementing or assessing government digital or technology standards.
- For anyone interested in writing about technology.
- For anyone working in backend development for services.
- For anyone working in frontend development for services.
- For anyone working in technical architecture for services.
- For anyone working in web operations for services.
- For anyone interested in improving user research practices across government.
- For anyone working in user support for services.
As detailed in the GovStack Competence Building Module, the successful implementation of the GovStack Approach requires countries to consider a long-term strategy that incorporates the necessary academic support that is needed to achieve their digitalization goals.
The latest publication of DigComp 2.2, presents the consolidated framework of digital competencies used in Europe, including examples of knowledge, skills and attitudes (Dimension 4) as well as use cases (Dimension 5) that address Change Management. These are equivalent to e-CF E7 Business Change Management L.4-5, and (almost generalised) Change support.
CEN/CENELC e-Competences Framework
ICT Professional (soft) Role Profiles
Learning to learn attitude
Collaboration skills
Communication skills
Business knowledge
Situation Awareness
Innovation skills
Critical thinking
Global understanding Leadership/persuasion
Digital profiles (job position and education)
Digital Consultant
Tertiary education, preferably Business School Graduate
Activities to perform
Technology watching - L.5 Business Plan Development - L.4 Product or Project Planning - L.3 Risk Management - L.3
Business Change Management L.4-5
Capacity-building process involves establishing and enhancing skills, instincts, abilities, processes, and resources that organizations and communities require to survive, adapt, and thrive in a rapidly changing world. Organizations share information, skills, and best practices through capacity development. GovStack's methodology is highly iterative and co-creation based (ITU 2022).
The main activities within GovStack GovStack Capacity Building approach is described as follows:
The process of these activities and main tools used can be found in the Capacity Building Framework Journey below.
Additionally, GovStack has created a supportive environment for capacity building by creating various training materials collected in GovStack LMS. It consists of different modules which are aimed towards supporting capacity building phases during the whole GovStack implementation Journey.
GovStack focuses a lot on process and people within the implementation journey. Capacity building is the process in which individuals, organizations and societies, develop, strengthen and maintain the skills to implement GovStack’s Building Blocks. Capacity development is not a single intervention but an iterative process of design-application-learning-adjustment.
The model employs design-thinking and human-centric design methodologies for learning and performance. Thus, instead of focusing on learning a topic or combination of topics, it focuses on solving problems and achieving stated organizational goals.
It involves 3 phases as described below:
What is the concept you are exploring? Develop a capacity building framework that complements launching digital government services (GovStack/BB) as well helps to build digital competency/readiness among Government agencies.
What is the challenge or opportunity this concept addresses?
Which groups need to be involved in addressing the concept? (Stakeholder map)
a. Who // What we know and what we need to know // Concerns and expectations // Desired impact // Motivation
Which groups are NOT impacted by it and how might they react? (Stakeholder map)
Capacity building assessment
Gap analysis and adaptation plan
Organizational context:
Goals, strategies and structure
History (recent success or failure)
Internal Environment
External Environment
Multi-level approach
Individual
Communities of practice (technical, intra-organization, etc.)
Stakeholder interaction
Enabling conditions
Data Sources
Primary source (government documentation)
UN e-Government Knowledge base
World Bank Country Diagnostics
UNDP
Policy and strategy documents
Data Gathering (Capacity building)
UNDP - Digital government capability assessment
World Bank Digital Government Readiness document and tutorial
United Nations Public Administration Network
Current assets
Refine the problem (multi-stakeholder engagement)
National Digital Strategy and National M&E Plan
National Strategy and National M&E Plan Is there a National Strategy related to the relevant use cases addressed by the Program or project(s)? Is there a National M&E Plan linked to the National Strategy?
Goals and Objectives of the Program/Project(s)
Are the goals and objectives of the Program or project(s) in line with the National Strategy and are they time bound and measurable?
M&E Indicators in the Program/Project(s)
Do indicators have clear definitions, data sources with baselines and targets? Were indicators selected in collaboration with national/international M&E partners? Is indicator data linked with the National M&E system?
Communication Plan and Transparency
Will data from the Program or project(s) be disseminated properly and will sensitive data remain confidential?
Capacity Building Budget
Has the Program or project allocated sufficient financial resources for M&E?
1.Why Digital Transformation
a. Challenges and Opportunities
b. Case studies
c. Country approach (successful approach and lessons learned)
d. Capacity building in a Digital government
2. GovStack Life-cycle and competencies framework
a. Governance and Strategy
b. Digital Service Design & Delivery Standard
c. Capacity Building
Learner personas
Leader: strategy blueprint GovStack implementation and Individual level (user profile "Top management")
Chief Information Officer (user profile "Top management/IT specialist")
Chief Technology Officer (user profile "Top management/IT specialist")
Project Manager (user profile "Middle management")
Domain Experts and architects (user profile "IT specialist")
Service designers (user profile "Service design")
Change Management and Capacity Development (user profile "Trainers")
Finance (user profile "Middle management")
Citizen Engagement (user profile "Trainer")
Policy Makers (user profile "Policy maker")
d. Curriculum adaptation
e. Action Plan. Find below an example
Priority setting and action planning (multi-stakeholder exercise)
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
Capacity building template:
Background
Learner persona
Objectives
Thematic focus
Methodology
Instructional Design
Evaluation: Pre-training survey, after
Agenda
Implementation plan
What, how and who
Timeline and target dates
Accountability
Assumptions
Budget
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
Risks
5. The training plan as an important plan of the capacity building:
The platforms and tools which can be used as a training platform
Different level of the trainings (top/middle management, end users, service designers, technician who should know the BB)
Implementation methodology and possible timeline (what kind of trainings are needed, who is responsible)
Effective strategies for imparting training:
For many years, research and practice has recognized differences between how children and adults learn. Thus, this section highlights high-level adult learning theory along with recommendations to enhance practice for the effective implementation of GovStack's BB.
Adults need to know the reason for learning something
In practical terms, it is important that instructors clearly describe the learning objectives and provide spaces to understand participant’s motivations when preparing learning materials (e.g., collecting participants’ information during the planning stage, mapping participants’ expectations at the beginning of capacity building sessions and making connections between the content presented throughout the sessions
Adult life experiences are a rich resource for learning (or barrier)...
Over the years, adults accumulate knowledge and experiences that can be leveraged as learning resources. In fact, cognitive science has shown that adults tend to resort to past knowledge as a primary learning tool. These experiences can be harnessed through pairing exercises, groups discussions, and problem-solving exercises.
As people mature there is a change in time perspective...
Adults tend to prioritize acquiring knowledge that ca be applied immediately. In that sense, knowledge that can directly applied to life or work-related situations can be more attractive to adult learners than purely academic or theoretical approaches
Learning styles are influenced by personality type, educational background, career choices, and current job role and associated tasks. Designing capacity building programs that engage different learning styles techniques and adapt to different contexts can be an effective way to ensure that learning objectives are met.
Detailed description of the Strengthening Measure
Responsibility
Timeline
Total Funding
Funding source
Technical Assistance