Navigating red tape, barriers and hard places in government

The Code for Canada fellowship program is no longer active. To learn more, visit our fellowship yearbook.

Hi there! My name is Gillian, and I am the UX Design Fellow that is part of the 5th cohort working at Code for Canada to improve digital governance. Alongside my teammates Malik Jumani (Product Manager Fellow) and Ian Cappellani (Developer Fellow), we are working with the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) to improve the tools that Canadians use to participate in hearings regarding energy projects regulated by the CER.

To learn more about us, click here.

Early in the fellowship, my team discovered the different challenges that impacted our work. Some of these included navigating challenges around cross-team collaboration, red-tape during decision making, systems as a barrier, psychological blockers and recruiting user research participants.

Challenge 2: Red tape around approvals and decision making

Challenge 3: Systems as a barrier

Challenge 4: Risk tolerance and psychological barriers

Challenge 5: Recruiting user research participants

The combined weight of laws, vested interests, and “the way we’ve always done it” can feel permanent, like forces of nature, but these are expressions of a dominant culture. We have to constantly remind ourselves that institutions and the systems they form are the accumulation of human decisions previously made (or abdicated). As such, those same choices can be made differently tomorrow. Or today, for that matter.

— Legible Practises by Bryan Boyer, Justin W. Cook & Marco Steinberg

Working with various bureaucratic constraints external to your control can feel frustrating at times. If my time working within the government has taught me anything, it is that people in your organization want to see the changes as much as you do. So find allies, reach out to others across the government department for support and understand that you are not alone.

Most importantly, build relationships with the people you work with, and co-create with the end-users of your product. Bringing them along the journey helps develop trust and creates transparency. You might find an advocate in your project.

You're here to help residents, and we're here to help you. Interested in how to bring digital tools and skills into your department? No matter where you are on your digital government journey, learn more about how Code for Canada can support your work.