The Speed Problem Facing Government Tech Innovation

"You have to move as slowly as us."

This was the advice from a government official who was visibly worried by the rapid pace we were suggesting for a technology project. It wasn't the first time we'd heard it. It won't be the last.

The comment captures something real about the structural problem facing government technology in Australia. The public sector has obligations (accountability, probity, equity of access) that private sector technology teams don't. But these obligations have been allowed to become excuses for a pace of delivery that consistently fails the people government is meant to serve.

The COVID test

COVID-19 exposed this starkly. Governments around the world were forced to build and deploy digital services in weeks that would normally have taken years. The MyGov crash in March 2020, when 100,000 people hit the site simultaneously, was a failure, but the response, scaling to handle the load within days, demonstrated what's actually possible when the urgency is real.

The question is why that urgency is treated as exceptional rather than standard.

The infrastructure argument

As Australia looks to post-COVID economic recovery, the federal government's instinct has been to reach for physical infrastructure spending. Roads, rail, construction. These are visible, they employ people, and they feel substantial.

But the most consequential infrastructure investment Australia could make right now is digital. The efficiency gains from well-designed government digital services don't just benefit the agencies delivering them; they compound across every interaction those agencies have with citizens and businesses.

What fast looks like in government

Speed in government technology doesn't mean skipping governance. It means doing governance differently:

• Iterative delivery over big-bang releases: ship working software early and improve it
• Cross-functional teams with decision-making authority, not committees
• Modern procurement that allows government to buy outcomes rather than specifications written years in advance

The technology to move faster already exists. The constraint is organisational, not technical. And changing that starts with someone deciding that "as slowly as us" isn't good enough.

Originally published in The Australian.