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Getting prepared to prototype
January 30, 2018In product development, we often use prototypes to understand user needs and reduce risk. Prototypes are a great way to test out ideas or approaches before you actually commit to building anything, but governments are not always set up to develop and use prototypes efficiently before building digital services.
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Renata Maziarz: Model civil servant
December 12, 2017In the course of our engagements, we’ve had many amazing partners who have been practicing similar innovative techniques long before 18F existed, but usually in isolation. Today, we’re highlighting one of those amazing partners: Renata Maziarz, at the Bureau of Fiscal Service in the Department of the Treasury.
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TTS projects forward Open Government Partnership principles
December 15, 2016The U.S. Open Government National Action Plans promote the Open Government Partnership’s principles of transparency, facilitating access to government services for the public, and citizen engagement. 18F has worked with several agencies to advance the these goals through projects like DATA Act, eRegulations, USEITI, College Scorecard, and the Public Participation Playbook.
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Vendors and government strengthen partnership at Technology Industry Day
September 19, 2016The Technology Transformation Service (TTS) is already absorbing the first-mover risk of introducing modern tools and techniques, but we know that only with the help of industry will this transformation be able to spread across the federal government. As we all bring agile methodologies, human-centered design, and modular design to the government, the opportunity to improve federal digital services is immense.
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DATA Act prototype: Simplicity is key
August 29, 2016To ensure that agencies could focus on the important work of joining their internal systems without unnecessary technology distractions, we (the 18F and Treasury prototype team) sought to deliver the simplest possible interface that would accept agency data using the simplest possible format for that data.
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The DATA Act is a “tremendous undertaking …[to] standardize how federal agencies report their spending data.” It has the potential to provide unprecedented insight into how the federal government spends money, and it comes with a statutory deadline. Any delay in implementation is a delay in cost savings and transparency, so we’re trying to help the government deliver on the promise of the DATA Act in a timely manner.
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Treasury and the DATA Act: Full of sunshine
March 15, 2016To celebrate Sunshine Week, we’re highlighting some groundbreaking open government work by the Department of the Treasury, one of 18F’s partner agencies.
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In May 2014, President Obama signed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) into law. Once implemented, the DATA Act will make it easier to understand how the federal government spends money.
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