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Green Shoots in the Brownest Field: Being a Startup in Government
The document outlines the initiatives of the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), highlighting its role as a startup within the government aimed at enhancing digital capabilities and fostering innovation. Key principles include user-centered design, iterative development, and the necessity of reducing risk while promoting agility in government IT solutions. Challenges such as legacy systems and the need for integration strategies are also discussed, emphasizing the importance of providing developers with space to innovate.
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Green Shoots in the Brownest Field: Being a Startup in Government
- 1. Green shoots inthe brownest field Mat Wall (@matwall) Government Digital Service https://www.gov.uk Being a startup in government Friday, 8 March 13
- 2. InfoQ.com: News &Community Site • 750,000 unique visitors/month • Published in 4 languages (English, Chinese, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese) • Post content from our QCon conferences • News 15-20 / week • Articles 3-4 / week • Presentations (videos) 12-15 / week • Interviews 2-3 / week • Books 1 / month Watch the video with slide synchronization on InfoQ.com! http://www.infoq.com/presentations /UK-gov-gds-tools-techniques
- 3. Presented at QConLondon www.qconlondon.com Purpose of QCon - to empower software development by facilitating the spread of knowledge and innovation Strategy - practitioner-driven conference designed for YOU: influencers of change and innovation in your teams - speakers and topics driving the evolution and innovation - connecting and catalyzing the influencers and innovators Highlights - attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007 - held in 9 cities worldwide
- 4. GDS Government development skillslargely outsourced in 80s Government IT vendor driven, procurement focussed People who can write code (not COBOL) very rare Friday, 8 March 13
- 5. GDS set upabout 18 months ago Bring digital capability & vision into government Stimulate economy of smaller vendors A startup within government Friday, 8 March 13
- 6. Initially build alphaof GOV.UK Now fully released into production Migrating government department sites Beginning to work on transactions Friday, 8 March 13
- 7. Design Principles 1. Startwith user needs 2. Do less 3. Design with data 4. Do the hard work to make it simple 5. Iterate wildly 6. Build for inclusion 7. Understand context 8. Build services, not websites 9. Be consistent, not uniform 10. Make things open: it makes things better https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples Friday, 8 March 13
- 8. reboot the government Friday,8 March 13
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- 10. Quick answers Friday, 8March 13
- 11. Quick answers Friday, 8March 13
- 12. Quick answers Friday, 8March 13
- 13. Detailed guides Friday, 8March 13
- 14. Detailed guides Friday, 8March 13
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- 17. Department sites Friday, 8March 13
- 18. Department sites Friday, 8March 13
- 19. Light weight architecture& development Focussed on user needs Good example of “How to do it” across government Friday, 8 March 13
- 20. Strategic architecture Friday, 8March 13
- 21. Very common ingovernment IT Small number of in house architects Often not hands on Almost all development outsourced Friday, 8 March 13
- 22. Lay down groundrules Select technologies up front Often vendor focussed / led Friday, 8 March 13
- 23. Attempt to: reduce risk minimisecost produce predictable results Friday, 8 March 13
- 24. Insert strategic architecturehere Friday, 8 March 13
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- 31. ESB ESB OPAEDM WEB WEB WEBWEB Friday, 8 March 13
- 32. ESB ESB OPAEDM WEB WEB WEBWEB Security stuff Friday, 8 March 13
- 33. ESB ESB OPAEDM WEB WEB WEBWEB Security stuff XML translation layer Friday, 8 March 13
- 34. ESB ESB OPAEDM WEB WEB WEBWEB Security stuff XML translation layer SAN SAP Friday, 8 March 13
- 35. ESB ESB OPAEDM WEB WEB WEBWEB Security stuff XML translation layer SAN SAP Enterprise app servers Friday, 8 March 13
- 36. ESB ESB OPAEDM WEB WEB WEBWEB Security stuff XML translation layer SAN SAP Enterprise app servers Now, what shall we make? Friday, 8 March 13
- 37. ESB ESB OPAEDM WEB WEB WEBWEB Security stuff XML translation layer SAN SAP Enterprise app servers Imagine being a developer here Most decisions made for you Little room for innovation Friday, 8 March 13
- 38. reduce risk =no innovation, create lock in minimise cost = ha ha predictable results = slow delivery Friday, 8 March 13
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- 40. Platforms first =bottom up architecture We want to focus on user needs first Friday, 8 March 13
- 41. Most of ourapps start out as a rough idea on someones laptop, not as a platform Friday, 8 March 13
- 42. Platforms emerge byconstant delivery Friday, 8 March 13
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- 44. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services Web routing Provisioning Configuration management Services / libraries Persistence Monitoring Friday, 8 March 13
- 45. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services Ruby / rails / sinatra/ jekyll Scala / play 2.0 Java / dropwizard MongoDB, MySql, ElasticSearch, Redis nginx, varnish, Akami puppet statsd / graphite / nagios / ganglia funkload Friday, 8 March 13
- 46. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services Space Friday, 8 March 13
- 47. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services .gov.uk frontend inside gov smart answers licensingsearch Content API Publisher Panopticon MongoDB MySQL CMS tools Licensing admin Sign onneed-o-tron Friday, 8 March 13
- 48. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services .gov.uk frontend search Content API Publisher PanopticonMongoDB need-o-tron routing Friday, 8 March 13
- 49. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services .gov.uk frontend search Content API Publisher PanopticonMongoDB need-o-tron routing Content model split across apps Complex interaction between apps Brittle, what if interaction fails? Friday, 8 March 13
- 50. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services .gov.uk frontend search Content API Publisher PanopticonMongoDB need-o-tron routing Friday, 8 March 13
- 51. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services .gov.uk frontend search Content API Publisher PanopticonMongoDB need-o-tron routing Friday, 8 March 13
- 52. Prototyping ProvisioningConfiguration Persistence CDN, web &routing Continuous integration Monitoring Alerting Performance test Libraries/gems/jars/utils Services .gov.uk frontend search Content API / Panopticon Publisher MongoDB need-o-tron routing Event broadcast Friday, 8 March 13
- 53. Space Help developers createa safe space Create small, simple apps in that space Provide lightweight components & processes, and ability to create more Don’t worry about trying to solve all of the problems up front Allow for innovation & learning Friday, 8 March 13
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- 55. Momentum We far prefermomentum to strategy Make decisions as late as possible Short iterations mean you can’t go to far wrong Easy to put things back on track Allows for innovation, experiment & learning Friday, 8 March 13
- 56. New system: applyto register to vote (ERTP) Initially seemed quite simple Surely just a form and a database? Real world is more complex Friday, 8 March 13
- 57. Local authority 1Local authority 2 Local authority 387.... Citizens DWP Friday, 8 March 13
- 58. Citizen API Local authAPI MatchingAPI Local authority 1 Local authority 2 Local authority 387.... DWP Web space LA space DWP space Friday, 8 March 13
- 59. Citizen API Local authAPI MatchingAPI Local authority 1 Local authority 2 Local authority 387.... DWPMongoDB Frontend web Feeds Monitoring Friday, 8 March 13
- 60. Local auth API MatchingAPILocalauthority 1 Local authority 2 Local authority 387.... DWP Frontend web Friday, 8 March 13
- 61. Local auth API MatchingAPILocalauthority 1 Local authority 2 Local authority 387.... DWP Frontend web Friday, 8 March 13
- 62. Local auth API MatchingAPILocalauthority 1 Local authority 2 Local authority 387.... DWP Frontend web Friday, 8 March 13
- 63. Local auth API MatchingAPILocalauthority 1 Local authority 2 Local authority 387.... DWP Frontend web Anything goes to keep momentum Friday, 8 March 13
- 64. Legacy / complexsystems Friday, 8 March 13
- 65. So far mostof our systems have been very simple Easy to be small, beautiful & agile But that will change with transactions Friday, 8 March 13
- 66. Government IT estatecomplex, old Pre-web technologies Oldest system I have found so far is 40 years! How can we work in this environment? How can we retain our momentum? Friday, 8 March 13
- 67. ESB ESB OPAEDM WEB WEB WEBWEB Security stuff XML translation layer SAN SAP Enterprise app servers Friday, 8 March 13
- 68. Integration strategies: Could rebuildold system. Could export data from old system into new. Use what we have learned to create our own space, with our own momentum Friday, 8 March 13
- 69. Shiny application Domain APIDomain API Create prototype application backed of simple REST domain APIS Each API encapsulates a single domain concept (ie: User profile, transaction history, application service) Domain APIs filled with mock data HTTP integration test suite produced Domain APIDomain API Friday, 8 March 13
- 70. Shiny application Domain APIDomain API Integration tests form spec that can be shared between old & new world Api built by new team, using old APIs / integrations APIs can be built in existing system, by existing team Or as a joint effort, using a facade Domain APIDomain API Friday, 8 March 13
- 71. Shiny application Domain API Newspace Old space Friday, 8 March 13
- 72. Shiny application DomainAPI New space Old space http, JSON GET /user/341353/transactions select * from transactions where userId=431353 Friday, 8 March 13
- 73. Shiny application Domain API Newspace Old space database Data feed Friday, 8 March 13
- 74. Give developers space thenget out of the way Momentum is king Friday, 8 March 13
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