5 steps towards a government “Citizen Information Officer” — Closing Notes

Closing Notes

(remark: this article is part of a series, click here to go back to the introduction section)

I advocated in this series for a government CIO to help lead the transformation of citizen services, which is more than being an enabler of common IT services. This is a trend that is ongoing for some years but is being accelerated by events like COVID-19.

Today, citizens expect their interactions with the government to be nothing less than digital, efficient (i.e., always on, immediate ratification), personalized and pro-active. At the same time, government workforce will more and more work from remote locations and needs other ways to preserve the quality of deciding and delivering the requests for services.

The 5 steps presented are based on real projects I worked on in government agencies around the world. It is a synthesis of the trends on the market and best practices in guiding both IT and business teams in their collaboration. Bringing this information together, makes it a comprehensible overview of how a CIO can act today to become a “Citizen Information Officer”, over and above the classical run a change dimension.

While this document has been assembled, new trends are already on the horizon (i.e., metaverse, continued rise of artificial intelligence, etc.). Therefore, this can never be a one-off program, but must be institutionalized as an ongoing cycle of innovation.

Once citizen services are digitized, it is not the end as new technology will push the boundaries. Change is a constant and this is very true for both the CIO and business to keep improving the services. Because digital citizens want digital governments.