##Key areas where education can support product teams.
These topics are specifically focused on what new skills are needed to move projects forward and foster agency transformation on the day-to-day level.
###Define the product owner role in order to empower product owners to make decisions.
We heard a lot about how both unempowered and untrained product owners are a barrier in getting something done in the government space. We specifically heard requests for training on everything from project management techniques to how to be a good product owner. In addition, many of the problems we heard revolved around the product owner not being empowered to make decisions, or they have that authority but feel reluctant to exercise it.
###Teach people how to advocate for their work to leadership, legal counsel, and other groups.
Many projects are stalled because the team or the people around the team can’t properly advocate for the project. Education has the potential to give people the confidence to advocate for good practices in their projects.
###Impart a deep understanding of the agile mindset, not just the practices.
Many teams are trying to move their agencies from a waterfall process to an agile one, but apply the practices of agile without embodying the tenets of agility.
Interestingly, through these discussions, some participants used the term “agile” as a bucket term for the introduction of a range of modern practices, including human-centered design and iterative development as well as agile methodologies. Because of this, there is an opportunity for TTS Education to use experiential, project-based, or embedded “agile training” as a core offering for partner agencies.
“I can tell you about agile all day long, but if you haven’t run sprints and been involved, you don’t know what’s involved.”
###Enable people to use design processes to create great services.
One problem we heard throughout the research is that there is very little comprehension of design thinking and the design process in government agencies. People often understand that good customer service is critical to a mission's success, but lack the skills needed to deliver it.
There is an opportunity here to teach both the value of design thinking and human-centered design, but also practically how to do user research and speak to users in a government context. A few topics we heard through this research include:
- How and when to talk to users.
- How to schedule and host user research sessions.
- How to conduct a usability testing session.
- How to learn from your research notes and apply them to improving the platform/product.
##Key areas where education can support leadership.
These topics are specifically focused on what executives and those in leadership need in order to foster proper transformation in their agencies.
###How to build and empower agile teams.
We found that people newly assigned to product manager roles are reluctant to assume decision-making authority. As mentioned above in the product ownership section, an unempowered team can be a serious roadblock for any project. Those in leadership are uniquely positioned to make a difference here if they understand how to build a good team and how to empower them to make decisions. ###Show how new processes can help mitigate risk.
Often, leadership sees agile processes, human centered design, and other techniques as riskier than the status quo, usually because they are unfamiliar. A better understanding of how these processes help mitigate risk may be helpful in growing leadership support of these efforts.
“Because HCD and agile seem crazy until you know that they work. Everything in government is about adding more and more restrictions and bureaucracy because they’re trying to legislate away the risk. Which we all know is not how you mitigate risk. But a human reaction to something being risky. So blowing all of that out of the water to do something better seems crazy.”
###How to determine program value and priorities.
Leadership can unintentionally stymie transformation efforts by not prioritizing work and not measuring value. The lack of prioritization means that staff are overworked and pulled in too many directions. Understanding why and when to do something is important to getting the right things done in the right amount of time. There are many strategies to prioritize work and determine the value of a product that can be taught to help those in leadership properly scope and manage a project team.
“Organizations are bad at prioritizing things and reducing workload. New things just get added to your list, they don’t shuffle. ‘You’re working on 10 things? Here’s the 11th.’”
##Key areas where education can support ‘adjacent audiences.’
There are some groups who are adjacent to the day to day product team work, but who are involved on a regular basis. Lawyers, contracting officers, and policy groups can either support agile processes or present roadblocks to their adoption. There may be an opportunity to focus training on these adjacent audiences to help foster design thinking and other modern practices in other parts of the agency so they can better support these projects. We know there is interest among contracting officers to specialize in digital procurement, is there also interest in digital specializations among other groups?
- Project Home
- Executive summary
- Overview
- What we found
- Effective government education considers context, people, and format.
- Educational topics that we heard are needed the most. < You are here!
- Barriers and challenges to digital transformation.
- What makes education stick?
- What would we like to do if we had three more months?
- Methodology supplement