Building by the rules: A crash course for federal technologists

Shipping user-centered products in government requires understanding public policy. U.S. Digital Corps Fellows, who quickly learned how policy impacted the work led by their teams and other technology teams across the federal government, created this six-part guide, “Building by the rules: A crash course for federal technologists,” to explore why public policy matters, share the different types of public policy, and discuss a case study for navigating three key federal policies most relevant for web and digital teams across government.

Why public policy matters

When you think about it, we all have rules that we live by. For example, some rules we live by include, “I always drink oat milk” or “I never sleep past 10 a.m.” In short, the rules for your life can govern your diet, budget, relationships, and much more.

In general, our “private policies” help to:

• Make our behavior intelligible and predictable
• Help us translate goals into action
• Organize our options to inform a course of action
• Set expectations and clarify our responsibilities with other parties

Public policy is similar, but at a much larger scale. It is:

• What the government chooses to do or not do about a shared problem
• Made on behalf of the public and meant to apply generally
• Directed towards a goal or ideal state

Public policy as opposing forces

When government technology teams consider a change to a government service or information technology system, policy may be a force for or against that change. There are many frameworks for understanding this concept, including Kurt Lewin’s force field analysis ^[1]. The diagram below is a high-level adaptation of Lewin’s analysis.

Public policy as a force for change grants permission to innovate or improve. For example:

• The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (21st Century IDEA) requires executive branch agencies to modernize their websites, digitize services and forms, accelerate the use of e-signatures, improve customer experience, and standardize and transition to centralized shared services.
• Executive Order 14058, Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government directs agencies to employ a customer experience approach that ensures the public is able to do basic tasks with the government in a manner that is simple, seamless, and secure.

Public policy as a force against change places constraints or conditions on how innovation takes place, often in a tradeoff with other important considerations. For example:

• The Privacy Act of 1974 protects personally identifiable information (PII) and prohibits disclosure of protected information without consent. For instance, this may preclude use of software tools available to the private sector or limit access to data for secondary or experimental uses.
• The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 requires that agencies obtain Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval before requesting most types of information from the public. As public servants, we must make sure the data we collect from the public is accurate, helpful, and a good fit for its proposed use.

Overall, public policy plays a vital role in how federal agencies serve the public. There are hundreds of requirements for federal websites and digital services. As web and digital practitioners in government, we need to keep in mind different circumstances where policy serves as a potential accelerator or blocker to innovation.

Keep reading to learn more about the different types of policies and useful frameworks for understanding how they work.