How we use Visual Thinking approaches to design Digital Government Services that are focused on user needs?

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At GovCrate, we use visual thinking approaches to focus our teams on delivering services that address users needs and to facilitate greater collaboration and understanding. This is especially critical when designing digital government services because the design of these services requires team members from the different disciplines that make up the governance stack (Legal, Policy, Operations and Technology). These team members need a common language to collaborate efficiently and effectively. Because of this we developed a visual thinking methodology that has allowed us to quickly and easily get team members speaking the same language. It’s an unorthodox application of the visual thinking approach but it’s use is critical for us in building up highly effective and efficient multi-disciplinary teams that actually deliver services that focus on user needs.

Digital transformation in Pacific Governments

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Many government agencies departments in the Pacific still paper based processes despite decades of advancements in information technology. These processes are based on ink and paper based technology and are used to manage large swaths of public sector systems. This leads to manual work that is inefficient, ineffective, and susceptible to corruption. It ensures that Pacific economies will continue to fall behind other countries in an increasingly competitive globalized environment 🌎. Addressing these issues and pain points will require resources to be invested (i.e. time, money, capacity, technology, and social networks).

What is the Governance Cube?

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We developed a framework called the governance cube a few years ago to help multi disciplinary teams build a common understanding of government systems. It looks at government systems as having 3 dimensions. These dimensions are:

Governance Domain: these are the places where constraints can be imposed on a system to influence the behaviour of the entities operating within it;

Governance Functions: these are the tasks that are carried out by governments to ensure the entities adhere to the rules;

Governed Entities: these are the entities whose behaviour we are trying to govern.

What is innovation accounting and how does it help manage innovation?

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‘Innovation Accounting’ is a loose term for the idea that organisations need new metrics to manage innovation, the dominant competitive force driving value today. After building a few government as a service platforms the only thing I’ve seen reliably produce valuable innovation is intentional and consistent experimentation. Increasingly many teams are practicing some form of … Read more

Innovation Options: A tool for governments to help structure Investments into Innovation

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Innovation is a key driver of economic growth and social progress, and governments around the world are increasingly looking for new ways to encourage innovation and investment. One emerging tool that is gaining attention is innovation options, a financial instrument that provides a financial incentive for private sector partners to invest in new technologies or … Read more

What are sense making frameworks and why are they important to e-Government strategy?

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Sense making via an elephant

Different people have different perspectives. We need a way to bring all the different perspectives together. To do this we need to establish a set of common sense making frameworks to build a common understanding of what is going on.

Exploring Metcalf’s Law and Its Impact on Cryptocurrency Prices: Understanding the Network Effect

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Metcalf’s Law is a principle in network theory that states the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of its users. In the context of cryptocurrencies, this law suggests that as the number of users or participants in a cryptocurrency network increases, the value or price of that cryptocurrency may … Read more

Are blockchains a governance technology?

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Public blockchains operate without the need for a central authority and allow individuals to self organize and manage themselves in a more transparent, accountable, and efficient way. Transactions are executed by individuals and these are not just recorded, but also verifiable by other individuals without the need for a centralised authority, creating a transparent, tamper-proof … Read more

Chainlink + Swift: Bringing traditional banking onto the blockchain

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Global bank messaging system SWIFT has partnered with decentralized oracle network provider Chainlink to conduct experiments exploring the integration of major financial institutions with blockchains. The tests will leverage Chainlink’s technology to enable value transfer between private blockchains, between private blockchains and public blockchains like Ethereum, and between two public blockchains. By building on existing … Read more

What are the flaws inherent in the Fiat system?

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Modern fiat currency systems are subject to criticism based on several flaws. In “The Bitcoin Standard,” Saifedean Ammous discusses several flaws of modern fiat currency systems and explores how Bitcoin addresses these perceived shortcomings. Here are some key points from the book: It’s important to note that “The Bitcoin Standard” presents a specific perspective on … Read more