Thrive in Five Newsletter: Building the Infrastructure for Sustainable Innovation
Leadership asks for innovation, teams pilot promising technologies, stakeholders get excited—then nothing scales. The pilot dies in committee. The automation sits unused. The new tool becomes shelfware.
The problem isn’t a lack of good ideas. It’s a lack of infrastructure. Real digital transformation happens when you build the organizational scaffolding—governance frameworks, cultural foundations, enabling platforms—that allow innovation to take root and spread.
This month’s resources follow the same progression we hear from federal leaders:
- How do I enable innovation without losing control?
- How do I get my team to try new approaches?
- What tools already exist that I can leverage?
- What’s a proven win I can point to?
- Why does this matter beyond current efficiency?
Each resource addresses one layer of the foundation you need.
1. How do I enable innovation without losing control?
🔗 Creating a Federal Low-Code Center of Excellence: Federal News Network
Why this matters: Teams across your organization are already building their own solutions—spreadsheets evolve into databases, databases become applications. Without governance, you get shadow IT proliferation.
What you’ll get: A practical blueprint for establishing a Center of Excellence that balances empowerment with control. Learn how CoEs provide governance frameworks and technical expertise that let non-technical staff build applications while maintaining alignment with agency goals—including product marketplaces, reusable components, and staying mission-aligned rather than becoming an isolated IT function.
2. How do I get my team to actually try new approaches?
🔗 Building a Culture of Innovation in Government: Partnership for Public Service
Why this matters: You can stand up Centers of Excellence, but if your culture punishes failure and rewards risk avoidance, those structures will sit empty. The biggest barrier to digital transformation isn’t technical—it’s cultural.
What you’ll get: The Federal Innovation Council’s framework built on four pillars: leadership, workforce development, innovative processes, and cross-sector partnerships. What makes it valuable is the specificity—it shows you how to measure psychological safety and provides actionable strategies for promoting experimentation, overcoming resistance, and reforming processes. For managers who don’t control every variable, this offers practical guidance on making innovation part of how work gets done, not an extra assignment.
3. What tools already exist that I can leverage?
🔗 GSA’s 10x: Federal Innovation Studio Resources & Tools: 10x.gsa.gov
Why this matters: Too often, agencies reinvent wheels that other parts of government have already perfected—wasting time, money, and political capital.
What you’ll get: GSA’s premier innovation incubator, responsible for Login.gov and the U.S. Web Design System. Access de-risking guides for federal tech projects, low-code/no-code evaluation frameworks, and rapid digital form templates. Particularly valuable: 10x’s iterative, phased funding approach that demonstrates how to minimize investment in unfeasible projects while scaling promising ideas. Submit your own innovation ideas or leverage existing tools to accelerate initiatives.
4. What’s a proven win I can point to?
🔗 Federal RPA Playbook & 2024 State of Federal RPA Report: GSA Federal RPA Community of Practice
Why this matters: Innovation infrastructure isn’t just about enabling new ideas—it’s about operationalizing them at scale. The difference between RPA as a curiosity and RPA as a capability comes down to having the right implementation frameworks.
What you’ll get: A playbook for launching or scaling automation programs. The 2024 report shows real momentum: 2,739 use cases documented across federal agencies, with GSA running about 30 acquisition-related RPAs that remove administratively burdensome tasks. Get practical guidance on internal controls, program maturity, and real-world applications essential for automating repetitive processes while freeing staff for higher-value mission work.
5. Why does this matter beyond current efficiency?
🔗 Global Governments Boost Productivity Through Digital Transformation: Deloitte Insights
Why this matters: The infrastructure you’re building today needs to accommodate the capabilities arriving tomorrow. Only organizations with strong cultural and structural foundations will be positioned to deploy emerging technologies like generative AI effectively.
What you’ll get: Analysis of how AI enables deep productivity improvements by automating repetitive tasks: retrieving information, communicating with stakeholders, processing documents, analyzing data. The IRS example shows how digital technologies and process transformation can dramatically improve government productivity. For managers who’ve built momentum with RPA and low-code solutions, this helps you understand the next generation of automation tools.
Final Thoughts
The five questions framing this month’s resources are a diagnostic tool for assessing where your transformation efforts might be stalling:
- Governance in place? Without it, innovation either doesn’t happen or creates risk.
- Culture supportive? The best tools won’t help if your team defaults to “how we’ve always done it.”
- Leveraging what exists? Every hour recreating solutions is an hour not spent on mission challenges.
- Can you point to wins? Credibility comes from proven results, not promising pilots.
- Building for what’s next? Today’s infrastructure decisions determine which future capabilities you can deploy.
Change is complex, but it’s manageable when you focus on building scaffolding that makes innovation sustainable rather than episodic. You don’t need to answer all five questions perfectly before you start. But you do need to know which one you’re working on right now—and which one comes next.
Want to see how this plays out in practice? Our recent case study shows how human-centered digital transformation moves from concept to capability.
Start with one layer. Build it well. Then add the next.
