Digital Service Team Models

Choose the model that best fits your goals, structure, and constraints

Executive and Enterprise Models

The two most common digital service team models are executive and enterprise teams, though some governments combine elements of both in a hybrid model. These models describe where a digital service team sits and how it operates across government. Each comes with tradeoffs in speed, scope, sustainability, and influence, which we outline below.

Understanding the difference between these models will help you:

• Set realistic expectations for what your team can achieve

• Align your structure with your goals

• Avoid common pitfalls when launching or scaling digital services

Teams in either model can use AI tools to augment their delivery to support research, design, development, analysis, and other parts of the work. This changes how the team works, not where it sits organizationally.

Executive team

Executive teams sit within top-level leadership offices (e.g., a governor’s, mayor’s, or agency head’s office). Their placement gives them the visibility and influence to challenge existing approaches, test new ideas, and drive change across organizational boundaries.

To turn that influence into sustainable services, executive teams need strong partnerships with IT, program teams, and operational staff who provide technical expertise, service knowledge, infrastructure, and ongoing support.

Best for:

• Moving quickly on high-priority initiatives

• Testing new approaches and demonstrating what is possible

• Driving coordination across departments or agencies

• Delivering visible, short- to medium-term results

Strengths:

• Greater flexibility to challenge existing processes and introduce new approaches

• Faster decision-making and execution

• Strong authority to remove barriers across teams

• Clear alignment with leadership priorities

Tradeoffs:

• May be less stable during leadership transitions

• Priorities can shift with political or executive direction

• May become disconnected from technical and operational teams

• Can be difficult to sustain long-term or system-wide improvements without an operational home and ongoing funding

Enterprise team

Enterprise teams sit within operational parts of government (e.g., central IT, shared services, administration, or an innovation office) They support multiple departments and build digital service capacity that can continue through leadership changes.

It's critical that these teams have an executive champion. A dotted-line relationship to an executive leader can help protect the team’s priorities, reinforce its cross-government mandate, and remove barriers. This complements the critical role of IT while giving the digital service team enough space to work across product, research, design, technology, and service operations.

Best for:

• Building long-term digital service capacity

• Supporting multiple departments

• Establishing shared tools, practices, or services

• Improving services that require sustained operational support

Strengths:

• More stable and less tied to political cycles

• Connected to critical technical infrastructure and expertise

• Better positioned to maintain services over time

• Able to establish consistent practices across government

Tradeoffs:

• Existing processes may be designed for traditional IT operations rather than iterative, user-centered delivery

• Digital service priorities may be deprioritized within a larger operational portfolio

• Departments may view the team as a technology provider instead of a partner in improving services

• Cross-department work may move slowly without executive support

Hybrid team

Hybrid teams combine elements of the executive and enterprise models. They may have executive sponsorship and authority while operating within, or in close partnership with, an operational department.

Best for:

• Balancing near-term priorities with long-term capacity

• Moving work across organizational boundaries

• Supporting both high-priority initiatives and ongoing services

Strengths:

• Combines executive influence with operational stability

• Can move quickly while building lasting capabilities

• Connects leadership priorities with organization-wide needs

Tradeoffs:

• Roles, ownership, and decision-making can be unclear

• Requires strong coordination between executive and operational leaders

• Competing priorities can make it harder to maintain focus and accountability