Digital Transformation Roadmap for State & Federal Agencies

For state and federal agencies, the potential risks and rewards of a digital transformation project are profound. Successful digital transformation efforts ensure compliance, higher engagement, and enhanced efficiency. However, poorly executed digital transformation projects can be costly — research from The Standish Group found 52% of IT projects with costs of more than $10 million came in “over budget, behind schedule, or didn't meet user expectations.”

A well-devised and comprehensive digital transformation roadmap helps avoid the pitfalls of undertaking complex IT projects. Our guide will walk you through the critical considerations for devising a digital transformation roadmap that sets you up for strategic success from day one. We’ll cover:

• Why a robust roadmap is particularly crucial for state and federal agencies
• Best practices for securing buy-in and support from leadership
• The importance of research, feedback, and testing
• Choosing the right technology stack for your project
• Pilot testing, agile project management, and building an iterative roadmap

At Palantir, we have more than 25 years of experience helping to manage digital transformation projects that provide tangible benefits to agencies and their constituents. If you’d like to explore how we can support you on your digital transformation journey, learn more about our custom digital services delivery.

Specific challenges for state and federal agencies

A digital transformation project is a large undertaking for any organization. But there are specific challenges public sector institutions face, which can have a severe impact on outcomes. Research by Gartner indicates that public sector IT projects are twice as likely as their private sector counterparts to run over schedule; they also incurred three times higher cost overruns on average. Planning thoughtfully and preparing for constraints can help circumnavigate these pitfalls.

Accessibility

Making digital services as accessible to as broad a range of people as possible ought to be a driving motivation in any digital transformation project. For state and federal agencies, accessibility is not merely a matter of principle – it’s also a tightly regulated legal requirement. State governments must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and federal agencies are subject to Section 508 regulations. The scope of comprehensive accessibility is broad, encompassing everything from how your site’s metadata is structured, to the colors of your branding, to the simplicity of language you use in your content. Staying mindful of relevant regulations at each step in the process will avoid bottlenecks and duplicated work later in the project.

Security & data privacy

It’s vital that state and federal sites have iron-clad security and collect and store user data in a way that fully satisfies the relevant legal requirements. Depending on your agencies’ purview, you may be subject to data regulations such as COPPA (for minors’ data) or HIPAA (for health data). Additionally, for U.S. federal agencies, any third-party vendors you want to work with on your digital transformation plans must be FedRAMP certified, an often intensive and time-consuming process.

Bureaucracy

State and federal agencies typically have to contend with complex bureaucratic processes, organizational silos, and outdated systems on their path to digital transformation. A Gartner report from 2022 found that “siloed strategies and decision making” was the biggest challenge government CIOs faced when trying to implement digital solutions. These hurdles add time and financial burdens that private sector organizations contend with less frequently or on much smaller scales.

Digital competency

Many agencies rely on legacy systems and have employees skilled at dealing with the quirks and nuances of such systems, but who might not be as savvy with modern tech stacks. Beyond infrastructure and software, many popular practices for digital transformation — such as adopting agile methodologies or adhering to user-centered design — might be new for your team. In such cases, training and skill development will be key in advancing your transformation efforts.

The foundations of digital transformation

Before we begin to scope and plan the transformation process, it’s important to understand the current situation and garner support for change. Use data-driven research methods to understand the current state of your digital properties, and use this research to justify digital transformation to the wider organization.

Auditing and research

Building a strong foundation of research and data will set your digital transformation project up for success from day one. Start by identifying the scope of your project, and conducting necessary research. For projects that involve improving your site’s navigation, such research might include a thorough audit of your content architecture and hierarchy, as well as user testing including card sorting. If you’re looking to restructure your site’s content to better meet user demand, you might use proxy indicators like users’ search terms to discover what content your site visitors are trying to find.

Engaging stakeholders and senior management

Gartner found in 2022 that 42% of government CIOS identified “business culture blocking change” as one of the top obstacles to implementing digital solutions. Investing time early in the digital transformation process to educate stakeholders about the project and its intended benefits, identify champions across your business, and secure buy-in from senior decision makers is critical to project success. Take the time to communicate the “why” of digital transformation — the early wins, as well as the long-term benefits and rationale — widely within your organization. Working in tandem with a digital governance committee composed of colleagues from across your organization can also help with fostering wide support for your digital transformation efforts.

Implementing core technologies: Building a modern infrastructure

Identifying which tools are best-suited to your organization’s needs involves balancing a number of factors. The U.S. Digital Services Playbook — a set of “plays” (or strategies) for building digital government services — includes a play dedicated to choosing a modern technology stack.

Their recommendations include:

• Choose technologies that will allow services to scale in an easy and cost-effective manner
• Avoid vendor lock-in, which could obstruct future developments to your digital services
• Default to open source solutions where possible
• Opt for frameworks that are commonly used by private sector entities in your field
• Ensure your engineering development practices are well-documented, to allow members to onboard to new projects quickly

When choosing your tech stack, it’s also important to think about accessibility and security compliance. Choosing software, infrastructure, and data pipelines that have been built with the relevant regulatory statutes in mind will ensure the highest levels of compliance, and avoid headaches further along your digital transformation journey.

Implementation and testing

When planning the scope and timeline of your project, you’ll also need to decide how best to manage your project. The U.S. Digital Services Playbook advocates for using agile methodology. Agile methodology emphasizes developing minimally viable products and deploying new features iteratively throughout the project lifecycle. Feedback and data on each of these deliverables are then gathered, and factored into the execution of the next phase of the project. This differs from traditional “waterfall” project management, which scopes out every phase of the project right at the start, and deploys the entire new service or site at the project’s completion.

Following agile project management practices offers many benefits, including:

• Frequent delivery of new and improved features means tangible results are visible much faster, and your project adds value for your site visitors much more quickly
• The focus on testing and adapting to change emphasizes regularly improving existing services, and tailoring services to user demand
• If mistakes are discovered or new challenges arise, teams are poised to respond quickly and efficiently

If you’re looking to learn more about the strategic benefits of and best practices for agile, more information can be found in our guide to the U.S. Digital Services Playbook.

Agile in state and federal agencies

Rather than scoping out and attempting to tackle every problem that needs to be fixed, start with a pilot project: one discrete service, subsite or department that would particularly benefit from modernization. Once the pilot project is completed, conduct research and solicit feedback, the results of which should feed into the next phases of the project. Continue the project roll-out in these iterative phases, adapting to feedback as you go.

This iterative approach to your digital transformation project helps ease several of the obstacles that particularly obstruct state and federal digital transformation efforts:

• If you encounter resistance to change at the beginning of the project, using data and user feedback from the pilot test and early phases can help demonstrate why such change is useful for your constituents, and for your organization
• Breaking down the tasks into iterative phases decreases the layers of bureaucracy you have to tackle at any one time
• Focusing on gathering user feedback increases the chance that issues with site usability are identified quicker
• If unforeseen issues arise — a security vulnerability in your infrastructure, for example, or a digital skills gap you didn’t account for — working in iterative phases means the problem can be spotted and addressed much faster

Using modern project management techniques will ensure your digital transformation roadmap is not a best-case-scenario plan you develop at the start, then forget about as your project develops — but a robust and adaptable framework that will serve you throughout your digital transformation process.

Takeaways: Best approaches to digital transformation roadmap design

Digital transformation is a vital, if formidable, undertaking for many state and federal agencies. Providing secure, well-maintained, user-friendly digital services is entirely achievable — but requires thoughtful planning to implement successfully. Planning your digital transformation roadmap in iterative phases, following best practices for choosing the right technologies, and leveraging data and feedback throughout the process will give you the best chance of building digital experiences that citizens are happy to engage with.

At Palantir, we’ve accrued extensive experience in building award-winning and user-centric state services used by millions of constituents. If you’re looking for tailored expertise to ensure your digital transformation roadmap sets you up for success, get in touch.