Wednesday, 7th May 2025

We heard from Aaron Snow – one of the world’s 20 most influential people in digital government.

This presentation was part of a series called Transforming Government - where GOVIS and our partner Silverstripe take a look at some of the ways that digital technology can enable positive change in the way that government operates and delivers services.

We heard from Aaron Snow, who specialises in helping governments serve people better. Aaron has led digital service teams for the national governments of the United States (where he was Deputy Commissioner of the Technology Transformation Service) and Canada (where he was the first CEO of the Canadian Digital Service). Aaron has been named one of the world’s 20 most influential people in digital government. Aaron is currently an advisor with AWS, helping governments around the world on their digital transformation journeys.

Aaron joined us live, online from the United States to share his reflections, insights and predictions for digital government. He spoke in a personal capacity, and his comments do not represent the views of his employers past and present. Here are a some of his general observations:

• It's really important to not just blindly accept received wisdom and rules, but to challenge these and try to get them changed - if it is getting in the way of delivering value to people.

• Maslow's hierarchy of needs can be applied to the public service - the most fundamental thing is legal security (i.e. not acting illegally), then political security (i.e. not getting in trouble with politicians), then bureaucratic security (i.e. not annoying your colleagues), then being able to perform the bare basics of your job, and then finally at the top of the hierarchy you have improving the way you do your job (continuous improvement). So if you want innovation from the public service, then these other things need to be in place first. 

• Conway's law tends to be true - this can be paraphrased as "show me your org chart, and I'll show you your strategy!" One implication of this is having a central government digital design authority is key for making progress in digital transformation of government - otherwise many projects will end up failing, and the user experience will be confusing and fragmented.

• Apps are increasingly important as more and more people use mobile phones for accessing digital services. One important goal for a central government digital design authority should be to offer a single mobile app for accessing government services.

• Make change a performance goal for senior leaders - for example how much automated testing do they do? How rapidly do they deploy new products or features? How many of their services have API coverage?

• Outcome risk is more important than project risk. Disasters like Phoenix payroll in Canada and the Columbia space shuttle can be attributed to a narrow focus on project risk.

• Remember that the public service technology we are building is part of a long game, where we are enabling venerable government institutions to transition to the digital age and continue underpinning our societies for the next hundred years or more.

And here are some of his practical tips for anyone trying to innovate:

• Docs or it didn't happen - be sure to document everything, so you can refine, make decisions, and move on. Documentation means you can't be ignored, and that a discarded idea can resurface when its moment arrives.

• Remember that code is cheap, be prepared to tear things down as readily as you build them (so you don't get stuck with something mediocre).

• Use demos to encourage the art of the possible (a demo is worth a million words).

• Find good examples to copy, most public service innovation challenges have already been solved somewhere.

• Show the whole iceberg of detail of what you did - the good bits and the ugly bits (or less no one else can learn from it).

• A blameless retro culture is key - make a regular habit of talking about what has worked and what hasn't in a way that is about outcomes and not individual performance. Doing it often will keep the stakes low and make sharing easier.

• Remember that being innovative doesn't necessarily require too much bravery. Really, it is more about having clarity and always being honest. If you just focus on articulating the truth, then you don't need to worry too much about the rest of it.