Optimizing for Outcomes: Digital Services are the Perfect Environmental Partners
Hello and welcome to the first blog I’m writing for EPIC! My name is Cole, and I joined the team here to apply my expertise at the intersection of data for social good, innovative cultures, and creative problem solving to preserve and promote a thriving planet. I’m excited to kick off with the impact that Digital Service teams can have on environmental outcomes by using their own blend of technological skills and modern methods. In this blog, I’ll share more about what Digital Service teams are for folks that may be unaware, as well as some environmental examples for Digital Service teams to consider if they haven’t worked with the agencies in this space.
Environmental agencies’ current approach to data and technology needs a significant overhaul to accelerate progress toward their goals. We know this because of extensive engagement with environmental agency staff who frequently lament the outdated tools and limited resources they are working with. More than anyone, they want to remedy the fragmented ecosystem and halting pace of current methods that cost more money, time, and energy than we can afford. Those methods are both the symptom and the cause of a bureaucracy that is ill-suited to rapid, flexible development practices. The best solution for agencies seeking to jumpstart these processes is to engage with expert Digital Service teams that bring collaborative, responsive, flexible skills and practices.
What are Digital Services (DS)?
Definition
Digital Services are agile teams that offer a suite of technical skills to build, improve, maintain, or strategize with government units on digital solutions and technological tools. Some work within government, like the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) or 18F. Many others are corporations, B-corps, and non-profits that contract with government agencies. They are operationally independent and self-sufficient, while frequently placing a premium on client collaboration and user-centered design.
Impact
The fundamental structure of Digital Service providers addresses several critical barriers to technological innovation. Moving between silos opens up unforeseen opportunities for collaboration. Supplementing programmatic experts with contracted technology teams circumvents hiring barriers. Shifting development responsibilities to a Digital Service team harnesses the best of all contributors: technologists build technology, domain experts guide it towards mission-positive outcomes, and oversight bodies ensure compliance and accountability along the way.
Technological modernization and innovation in government is constrained by numerous factors; Digital Service teams can address them.
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Their natural agility and widely applicable skillsets allow them to shuttle across the fabric of government. They become connective threads, a vantage point from which mutually beneficial collaborations are more apparent. DS teams can identify and advocate for data-sharing opportunities that improve decision-making, or connect agencies with similar needs to codevelop tools. This kind of collaboration reduces risk by sharing it among agencies, saves money by splitting costs, improves program delivery, and sets agencies up to reap these benefits repeatedly over the long run.
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A government agency’s capacity for technological innovation is a function of the resources it commits to technology talent and modern digital tools. When these elements are thrown out of equilibrium, agencies can enter a decaying spiral where insufficient staffing degrades digital infrastructure, which in turn discourages current staff and disincentivizes job seekers. The ratio of technical to other talent at an agency can be a proxy metric for technical debt - the extent to which an organization is made less effective by outdated and ill-fitting digital infrastructure. Government hiring rules frustrate internal teams and deter external technologists with everything from archaic and inaccurate naming conventions, to sub-market payscales, to asinine qualification screening rules. Engaging with a Digital Service provider isn’t necessarily easy for a government agency. However, it is the difference between a single complex contracting process that secures the talent and expertise needed for a project (a DS team), and multiple difficult hiring processes that may not result in hires that are suited to the purpose (traditional approach).
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The peculiarities of government funding and oversight are poorly suited to developing modern technologies. The agile development framework that DS teams rely on necessitates experimentation, iteration, and user feedback. They prioritize product delivery and outcomes over deliberation and activity tracking. Traditional government processes employ arduous accountability measures focused on liability and risk management rather than productivity and efficacy. In partnership, agencies provide the domain and bureaucracy expertise to set goals and ensure they are achieved to the letter of the law, while DS teams employ modern development methodologies to deliver products that meet those goals.
Despite the benefits, environmental agencies have underutilized DS teams. Here’s why that should change.
Digital Services can deliver benefits to the government on the whole, but perhaps nowhere more so than with environmental agencies. The general vulnerabilities delineated above are exacerbated by the structures, mission-alignment, and relative technical lag of environmental agencies.
Many environmental agencies have decentralized structures and divided missions. Take the U.S. Forest Service for example. The Forest Service is broken into 9 regions, each of which breaks down further into the 154 individual National Forests. Unlike the National Parks Service primary focus on preservation, the National Forest System’s mission supports a variety of land management uses including recreation, timber, grazing, and wildlife preservation. Additionally, the Forest Service is a subagency of the Department of Agriculture, whose primary remit is only partially focused on environmental issues at all. This decentralized, split-focus state of play complicates the strategic planning and procurement of technology solutions. Two areas in which Digital Services are ideally designed to support operating units. As the DS’ technical and product experts move between atomized operators and support multiple missions, they gain unmatched familiarity with the scope of issues facing the agency. Drawing on that knowledge, they become irreplaceable strategic advisors for planning and budgeting for data and IT solutions. When it comes time to seek external assistance through procurement processes, DS teams serve as key translators ensuring that the tools, timelines, and processes proposed by the vendor align with what they know the agency needs.
While the internal nature of agencies may be decentralized, the overarching goals of environmental agencies are inextricably intertwined.
A DS team that operates between them can foster cross-agency collaborations that save money and time while delivering improved outcomes for each partner agency. Making data sharing standard amongst environmental agencies would immediately improve the efficacy of their conservation, climate, and land management modeling efforts. Agencies with shared tooling needs could save money and improve interoperability by contracting with a shared Digital Services provider on its development. The most impactful benefits arise on cross-jurisdictional efforts. Environmental issues do not respect the operational boundaries we use to address them. Imagine watershed management where every Tribal, local, state, and federal operator is rowing in the same direction by employing the same data and tools. The strategic use of DS makes that possible.
All of these benefits flow downstream from the primary role of a Digital Services team: technical development. Environmental agencies have a backlog of mandated work. At their current pace, many of those projects won’t be completed before the mandate dictates the start of a new project cycle. These are acute needs that require specific, domain driven technical solutions. Embedded Digital Service teams can work alongside program experts to scope, develop, and scale data and tools for accurate, efficient operations and mission delivery. As they work in this manner, DS teams can identify shared needs, anticipate future requests, and develop their own domain expertise to better serve the full array of environmental agencies and their needs.
Digital Services have an opportunity to forever change how environmental problems are addressed with data and technology. The IT fabric between environmental agencies is a relatively open field. Interagency DS teams can engage and support agency technology teams to establish a culture of innovation and collaboration for developing and deploying tools that accelerate the pace of environmental action. EPIC has developed this slide deck of foundational information and guidance for Digital Service teams looking to engage with environmental agencies. For more, you can investigate our research and proposal on a Digital Service for the Planet, or get in touch!