The "Why?"
Ask questions, improve GX
Recently, John was interviewed by DCX and it's well worth the watch. In this short highlight, he illustrates a point that rings very true for me. My team was able to shave potentially weeks off of a development project just by asking WHY.
Q: "Why do you need this requirement?"
A: "We're required by our state's Revised Code."
Q: "Oh, interesting. Could we look at that Revised Code?"
A: *reads Revised Code* "Actually, it turns out we aren't required by law to do that, so actually we don't need it."
Improving Government Experience (GX) is definitely an uphill battle. It requires getting to the heart of the needs of constituents first, and in order to serve those needs, we need to question the years-old or even decades-old borders and limitations that have been placed around us.
This may initially cause some trepidation, but ultimately it leads to a far better GX.
I love this. In addition to asking WHY, another great question to ask is, What’s the problem? I mean, the underlying cause, the disease, and not just the symptoms that may be most obvious.
Jennifer Pahlka talks about this kind of situation in multiple parts of Recoding America. It's probably the most common lowest-hanging-fruit we run into when working with government teams. So far, the teams we've worked with have been willing to take on our questions and think about it with us, which has been really rewarding. I've always gotten really itchy anytime I hear the phrase "well, that's the way we've always done it."