Government Digital Service (GDS)
Team
Company | Institution
Category
Type
Project description
Government Digital Service (GDS) of the United Kingdom is honored for its exemplary culture change through design. Through openly communicating about and sharing their work, they provide an inspiring model for the U.S., Australia, and others.
In recognizing Government Digital Service (GDS) of the United Kingdom, jury Chair Kim Goodwin had this to say:
"I think that as designers, we bring to our practice not just the craft, we also bring a set of values that can influence the work that our organizations do, because impact is about a thousand decisions that are made by employees we'll never even meet, not just by the artifacts that we create. And in order to change the values in an organization, we have to approach that in a very systematic and thoughtful way to have that kind of impact.
Government Digital Services has done that very well. The team that began that work started in a very intelligent way. They said, look, we know hiring is very high impact. So they worked to build up a team of people embedded in the different government organizations so that they could create change from the inside. They also looked at things like, how do we identify good early wins?
One of the projects they worked on was an ePetition, a fairly self-contained thing, so they could demonstrate value early on. And then from there they said, what are the 25 top priorities we can focus on that make the biggest difference to the most citizens? I think this is also a group of people who have decided, you know what, I'm willing to spend a lot of time away from home, and I'm willing to take a big pay cut to serve. That's a thing that not that many of us in design have chosen to do, and I think we should honor that as well.
There are two other things the Government Digital Service has done really well. They've shared a body of work. They've published a whole bunch of examples of the work that they've done and the impact they've had. These stories are inspiring, and they will be to other people as well: the Government Digital Service, even the folks in Code for America, in the US.
Digital service now in Australia, lots of people are doing terrific work. GDS was first. Dana Chisnell from the USDS said to me, in many ways, they were the template for us. People are learning from them in tremendous ways, and there's lots of evidence out there. Team members, past and present, have been doing tremendous work.
What I hope people take away from this award is the idea of focusing on change, focusing on values, helping people take risks that maybe they couldn't before. Helping them define problems in new ways that are user centered and not self centered. Really working with the cultures that we're in and not just saying, we're going to go do some design over here, but we together are going to change how we think about these problems."
In recognizing Government Digital Service (GDS) of the United Kingdom, jury Chair Kim Goodwin had this to say:
"I think that as designers, we bring to our practice not just the craft, we also bring a set of values that can influence the work that our organizations do, because impact is about a thousand decisions that are made by employees we'll never even meet, not just by the artifacts that we create. And in order to change the values in an organization, we have to approach that in a very systematic and thoughtful way to have that kind of impact.
Government Digital Services has done that very well. The team that began that work started in a very intelligent way. They said, look, we know hiring is very high impact. So they worked to build up a team of people embedded in the different government organizations so that they could create change from the inside. They also looked at things like, how do we identify good early wins?
One of the projects they worked on was an ePetition, a fairly self-contained thing, so they could demonstrate value early on. And then from there they said, what are the 25 top priorities we can focus on that make the biggest difference to the most citizens? I think this is also a group of people who have decided, you know what, I'm willing to spend a lot of time away from home, and I'm willing to take a big pay cut to serve. That's a thing that not that many of us in design have chosen to do, and I think we should honor that as well.
There are two other things the Government Digital Service has done really well. They've shared a body of work. They've published a whole bunch of examples of the work that they've done and the impact they've had. These stories are inspiring, and they will be to other people as well: the Government Digital Service, even the folks in Code for America, in the US.
Digital service now in Australia, lots of people are doing terrific work. GDS was first. Dana Chisnell from the USDS said to me, in many ways, they were the template for us. People are learning from them in tremendous ways, and there's lots of evidence out there. Team members, past and present, have been doing tremendous work.
What I hope people take away from this award is the idea of focusing on change, focusing on values, helping people take risks that maybe they couldn't before. Helping them define problems in new ways that are user centered and not self centered. Really working with the cultures that we're in and not just saying, we're going to go do some design over here, but we together are going to change how we think about these problems."
