21st Century IDEA: How To Keep Your Digital Transformation Momentum Going
Your journey toward modernizing service delivery can (and should) consist of small, steady steps.
Image source: Adobe Stock / Digital Transformation.
The 21st Century IDEA has been in effect since December 20, 2018. In a previous post on this topic, we explained the legislation’s primary objective (i.e., to modernize the experiences federal agencies provide to the public). We also described four top benefits agencies can achieve through modernization.
After one year since the legislation was signed and became law, agencies are asking themselves, “Have we started to think about what web and digital services we need to prioritize? Do we have a plan to fund these critical initiatives?”
To help clear things up, let’s take a brief look at what’s happened so far, what’s coming up next, and what steps you can take to ensure your journey toward digitalization is smooth and successful.
What’s happened with the 21st Century IDEA?
June 20, 2019 marked the first milestone for these modernization requirements, which are staggered over time. By now, agencies should have submitted their plans for accelerating the use of e-signatures and ensured any new or redesigned web-based touch-points comply with IDEA Sec. 3 requirements.
Upcoming deadlines
The next set of milestones is coming up fast. Here are some key deadlines to keep in mind:
December 20, 2019 – Within a year of the law’s enactment, agencies that maintain a website or digital service that is made available to the public shall provide:
- A list of the websites and digital services that are most viewed, used, or important for public engagement.
- A prioritized list of websites or digital services requiring modernization to meet the new 21st Century IDEA federal website requirements.
- The estimated cost and timeline to modernize these websites and digital services.
December 20, 2020 – Before the law’s 2nd anniversary hits, agencies must ensure that any paper-based form used to serve the public is digitized, fully functional on common mobiles devices, accessible to individuals with disabilities, and designed around user needs leveraging qualitative and quantitative data.
What you should know: IDEA is a springboard for true transformation
The requirements laid out in the 21st Century IDEA legislation open up a valuable opportunity for you to implement digital initiatives that will help your department reduce costs, increase efficiency, and delight citizens. Here are some examples.
A McKinsey report on government digitalization found that agencies can “fulfill their missions with greatly increased efficiency” through digital transformation, including:
- 20% improved customer satisfaction
- 15-25% higher operational efficiency
- 20-30% increased employee engagement
The State of Hawaii streamlined their signature processes while increasing the efficiency of service delivery, not to mention reducing cost and their environmental impact using Adobe Sign and Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. The impact of modernization included:
- Saving $5M in 2.5 years by reducing printing and labor costs from signing paper documents
- Reducing transaction time to less than 300 minutes
- Delivering over 400K documents, saving 24K pages of paper every day
The City of Denver modernized their website experience, ensured consistency and improved the efficiency across 50 agencies by investing in modernization. Using Adobe Experience Manager for Government they were able to:
- Increase the number of website visitors by 28%
- Decrease the number of authors from 300 to 100
- Reduce the number of internal service tickets to just 10 a week
How to create a modernization roadmap that’s right for you
At Adobe, we know the path to digital transformation will not be the same for every government agency. And that’s okay.
Whether you’re looking to catch up, stay on track, or push ahead, we can help. Our digital government solutions make it easy to strengthen your relationship with citizens, add value for your agency, and deliver on the ideals of the 21st Century IDEA.
Adobe Document Cloud for Government, for example, allows you to implement a range of modernization initiatives — from digital forms and workflows to modern e-signature solutions. Document and signature processes play a key role in bringing the vision of the 21st Century IDEA to life and improving digital experiences. And the process to modernization doesn’t have to be daunting, here are four easy ways to improve.
No matter where you are in your transformation journey, our experts will help you create a holistic (and realistic) modernization strategy. One that you can execute incrementally based on your budgets and timelines.
Click here to find out how easy modernization can be.
Click here to find out how you can transform your document and signature experiences in Government for 21st Century IDEA.