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Government agencies around the world are navigating major shifts in how they work. While private-sector “digital transformations” often grab headlines, the reality is that public-sector teams grapple with equally—if not more—complex challenges.
At our recent TeamForm meetup on “Ways of Working Change in Government,” we heard firsthand from three leaders on the front lines of public-sector transformation:
- Nicky Jones (Auckland Council)
- Michael Crago (Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads)
- Georgos Papanastasiou (ServiceNSW)
Their journeys reveal powerful insights into overcoming budget constraints, balancing short- and long-term objectives, and engaging diverse stakeholders in government contexts.
Below, we break down these three common challenges and offer practical tips inspired by the meetup discussion.
Challenge one: Overcoming budget constraints
When budgets get cut—especially in large government organizations—the immediate reaction is often to “do more with less.” But that doesn’t mean cutting the lower hanging fruit – sometimes you need to take a step back and rethink what you’re delivering in the first place.
Key Insights
- Define the real problem: Rather than churning out the same services with fewer resources, ask: “What outcomes are we trying to achieve?” Then align resources to the highest-value activities that actually deliver on those outcomes.
- Find the impact metrics: Shift the focus away from checking off outputs (e.g., “number of bins collected”) to evaluating the real impact (“Did waste to landfill actually decrease?”).
- Cut the clutter: Most organisations will realise that they can no longer rely on incremental cuts. By bringing leaders together to clarify outcomes, organisations can eliminate low-value work and free up resources for higher-impact initiatives.
What you can try
- Hold an “Outcomes-Only” Review: Gather cross-functional leaders, zero in on the impact you want to see, and assess whether current initiatives are moving the needle. Anything not directly serving those outcomes might be ripe for redeployment or discontinuation.
- Visualise Your Work: Make all projects visible—across departments—to spot overlap and duplication. Large organizations often discover multiple teams are trying to solve the same problem. Merging efforts can save money and time.
- Double Down on Iterative Ways of Working: Agile or iterative ways of working can help reduce risk (especially financial risk). Smaller, more frequent releases help you see tangible results sooner, so you can pivot quickly if an idea isn’t delivering real value.
Challenge two: Balancing the short and long-term
Government agencies must continually serve pressing citizen needs while also planning for the future. This tension increases around election cycles or when large-scale modernizations (like legacy system overhauls) can’t happen overnight.
Key Insights
- Adopt a “Balcony and Dance Floor” Mindset: Borrowing from the work of adaptive leadership thinker Ron Heifetz, encourage leaders to step onto the “balcony” to see the big-picture outcomes, then jump back down to the “dance floor” to guide day-to-day execution.
- Pivot Between Detail and Strategy: Moving from a ministerial briefing (the “balcony”) directly into an internal team issue (the “dance floor”) can cause “mental whiplash.” However, being conscious of which level you’re addressing—and clearly communicating it—can help keep teams aligned.
- Make Strategy Actionable: Strategies can exist at multiple levels and take multiple shapes, even though they all might be focused on delivering the same outcomes. When multiple government-wide strategies exist, it’s helpful to try to distill those strategies into shared objectives to help create greater clarity and alignment. By defining specific measures against those objectives, teams can stay laser-focused on near-term action that aligns with long-term goals.
What you can try
- Create Dual Cadences
- Strategic Cadence (Balcony): Quarterly or bimonthly sessions focused on outcomes and cross-department alignment.
- Tactical Cadence (Dance Floor): Weekly or biweekly stand-ups, sprint reviews, or operational check-ins to solve immediate issues
- Show, Don’t Just Tell: When proposing a new initiative, build a simple prototype or walk stakeholders through a live demo—even if it’s rough. Demonstrating a service or feature (rather than just describing it) can eliminate months of abstract debates.
- Standardise Key Processes: Standardising certain aspects of team workflows (like shared planning rhythms or coding standards) can help make it easier for people to change teams while also keeping up momentum, even in the face of shifting priorities or resource constraints.
Challenge three: Engaging and aligning diverse stakeholders
Perhaps the most universal challenge in government is stakeholder complexity. It’s not just one CEO or board: you might have multiple ministers, local boards, unions, interest groups, and the public to satisfy. That’s a lot of perspectives to align!
Key Insights
- Tailor Your Story: Senior stakeholders often respond better to clear “so what” benefits rather than deep technical details. Meanwhile, frontline teams need specifics on “how” work gets done.
- Balcony vs. Dance Floor Communication: Taking the same analogy from above, different groups often need different communication modes: outcome-focused updates for elected officials (“balcony reporting”), while day-to-day operational teams get more detailed metrics and tasks (“dance floor reporting”).
- Embrace Visual Storytelling: Complex projects can become more tangible through images or maps that show their scope.
What you can try
- Map the Stakeholder Journey: Identify each key stakeholder group—ministers, boards, frontline staff, etc.—and articulate what they most value. Then design your comms and reporting to address those unique concerns.
- Use Visual Aids: Whether it’s a system map, a big bold infographic, or a two-page snapshot (instead of a 110-page report), visuals can clarify complex realities and reduce fear or confusion.
- Leverage Senior Champions: Having your chief executive or a high-profile elected official voice support for new ways of working cements buy-in. When your top-level stakeholders publicly endorse concise, outcome-driven reporting, the rest of the org can follow suit more smoothly.
How TeamForm can help
Ultimately, TeamForm provides a single, reliable source of truth for organizational structures, how teams are allocated to work, and how that work connects to outcomes.
In government settings—where budget pressures, shifting priorities, and complex stakeholder environments can overwhelm even the best-intentioned teams—TeamForm’s clarity and transparency prove especially powerful.
By making it easy to see who’s doing what (and why), leaders gain the agility and confidence needed to navigate the complex network of stakeholders, adapt quickly, and deliver meaningful outcomes for the communities they serve.
If you are working in Government and want to get guidance on how to get started with addressing some of the key challenges identified, book a call with us today!
Final Thoughts: Purpose Makes It All Worthwhile
Government transformations are rarely easy—but every panelist agreed on a unifying source of motivation: purpose. Knowing your work directly benefits your community can keep you energized, even in tough times. Because these challenges are complex, people working in the public sector have a unique opportunity to tackle deeply meaningful problems and truly shape society.
When we combine clear outcomes, iterative ways of working, and a strong sense of purpose, even the biggest budget deficit or multi-year modernization can become a more manageable—and inspiring—journey. And in government, that journey delivers real impact for entire communities.
Here’s the full video if you’d like to watch the full panel!
