Some of our favourite digital delivery resources from our friends in Government
By: Matt Sawkill
Tags: Digital Maturity, Civic Tech, Updates, Government Resources

Some of our favourite digital delivery resources from our friends in Government

Our community told us recently that they appreciate our role in raising awareness of the great work being done across government, here in Australia and beyond. With that in mind, here’s a selection of resources and frameworks we regularly reference in our work. Matt Sawkill Follow May 20 · 5 min read

Open Government matters

Something you’ll notice about these resources is how they’re licensed for reuse—giving other teams a proven starting point.

So many challenges with digital work in the public sector are common ones between jurisdictions and nations, and taking an Open Source mindset to strategy as well as code has significant benefits for society through efficiency and standardisation.

Delivery Guides

How and why to design with your users, and agile methodology to support iterative delivery.

GDS’s Service Manual

It’s been 9 years since the UK’s Government Design Principles were first published and they soon became a foundation of modern digital government. This work has evolved into the new Service Manual, bringing together guidelines, standards and community.

USDS’s Digital Services Playbook

Another foundational guide that I referenced frequently when working as a delivery consultant. The Playbook format combines executive friendly conciseness with actionable checklists and questions.

18F’s Technical Guides

The US Government’s internal delivery team have also made their standards available for all. One thing we really appreciate is how they provide a layer of government specific context around existing open standards such as WCAG for accessibility.

Victoria’s Digital Guides

Closer to home, the Victorian Government have collated a broad set of guides for their staff. We love that they’ve made practitioners responsible for sharing best practices, and we recently highlighted the work behind their Human-centred Design guide. “Make your project open source” is another standout.

E-Estonia

Not content with service level transformation, Estonia are the worlds first digital nation. This is a great place to start if you’re interested in the future of society.

Making a case

Need to source funding or approval for an approach that’s outside your agency’s usual comfort zone? Here are some tips to get started.

How to overcome barriers to coding in the open

This post from Khidr Suleman of the GDS addresses the common misperceptions of Open Source tech in the public sector. We couldn’t have put it any better.

NSW Digital Restart Fund/Lean Business Case

While this funding application template from the Department of Customer Service is primarily for internal use, we admire how they’re asking applicants to frame challenges around user needs, align their process with the Delivery Manual and mandate the use of shared platforms including the state Design System. You can also trace the influence of the GDS and DTA’s work across the NSW standards.

vTaiwan

It’s hard to think of a bigger Civic Tech success story than the government of Taiwan embracing their hackers and transforming their democracy. vTaiwan is a case study for offline citizen engagement enabled by an Open Source attitude.

Platforms & Services

Digital assets and interfaces you can build your own products around.

Notify

Based on Open Source code from the UK, Notify is a low cost, government ready service that commonwealth agencies can leverage to solve one of the most common needs in digital products.

Australian Government Design System

One of the best documented and most successful government digital design systems, it’s also been forked by NSW to create their own library — an approach that other states should follow.

Behind the scenes

Insights and lessons from the teams behind the work we’ve been profiling.

GDS Podcast

One of the inspirations for our own forthcoming podcast, we love hearing the people behind the products talk about their craft and what they’ve learned in their time in government.

18F Blog

More than 450 posts over seven years tell us a lot about how this influential team go about it.

Victoria’s Single Digital Presence

The technology behind Victoria’s Open Source whole-of-goverment CMS and design system is world class, but we’re just as impressed by their commitment to sharing the story of how they designed and build it.

Do you have a favourite resource you think we could share with our community? Please reach out with your suggestions or any feedback on this post using Typeform, or our online form!