What the Public and Private Sectors Can Learn From Each Other

When I made the transition to the public sector after nearly two decades of working with private technology companies, I was eager to bring the lessons from my previous professional life to the public sector. However, being entrusted with the well-being of one million daily riders — while overseeing infrastructure changes within a living system — gave me pause. Decisions have a cascading effect throughout the system, with members of the public being the “users” or “customers” who feel these changes at the end of the day. So how do you innovate in the public sector while maintaining a needed service? The answer is: very mindfully.

When developing new IT processes, the main difference between the private and public sectors is how regulated the latter is. Regulations are not a bad thing — they keep risks low and ensure that the public remains safe, which is our top priority. Regulations also require you to serve everyone in the public sector, including those in hard-to-reach groups and users with minimal digital literacy. While such considerations add time to a project spec, they ultimately increase user accessibility — something IT professionals should be focusing on integrating throughout all applications.

Orchestrating a digital transformation that works within regulations and ingrained processes requires, above all things, a practical application of knowledge. You must first deeply understand the system and processes that you are here to serve. With this foundational knowledge, you can apply some key lessons and thought models gleaned from the private sector, such as:

●    Get obsessed with the users in your system, not the problem you think your system is solving. By focusing on the user journey, you’ll uncover hidden issues faced by the public along the way to their end goal, and will have the insight to create a more fulfilling and secure experience.

●    Invest in innovative talent and motivate them appropriately. Listen to and weigh your team’s opinions against your own. Don’t forget to reward them when their hard work bears fruit — or you’ll sieve your talent to those who will.

●    Endorse cross-departmental infrastructure best practices based on team insights. Once you’ve assembled a team you trust, lean on them to inform development best practices to keep your infrastructure improvements tight and meaningful.

●    Dream big but iterate small. Break your larger aspirations down into smaller projects and deliverables. Improving living systems iteratively and incrementally will drastically reduce your level of risk.

 The public sector is an incredibly satisfying place in which to innovate. Your improvements will have a tangible effect on the lives of your users, something few IT professionals can watch happen in real time. You just need to understand the sensitive landscape and processes you are operating inside of, and remember to always prioritize your end uses’ security and app accessibility above all else. Private companies may have the luxury to innovate faster than the speed of their users, but there is a lesson they can learn from their public counterparts — perhaps they shouldn’t.