Checklist for Launch

A practical checklist to help your government plan, launch, and sustain a digital service based on your organization's capacity, constraints, and goals

Digital Service Team Launch Checklist for Governments

Use this checklist to turn the decisions from earlier sections of the toolkit into a realistic plan for launching your digital service team. You do not need perfect conditions or a fully staffed team to begin. Start with a clear purpose and manageable scope, then build the structure and support the team needs to begin delivering value.

Launching a team is not a single event. Establish what the team needs to begin delivering value, learn through its early work, and grow over time.

Checklist

Downloadable copy

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1. Assess your starting conditions

• Confirm your current digital maturity stage

• Use the Current State Inventory to review existing services, systems, tools, vendors, contracts, and data

• Identify the funding, staff, tools, and organizational support available now

• Review organizational risks, constraints, and lessons from previous efforts

• Set realistic expectations for the team’s initial size, scope, and level of investment

Why this matters: Launch the team for your current conditions, not an ideal future state.

2. Confirm the team's purpose and position

• Define the long-term result the team should help create

• Identify who the team will serve and the value it should provide

• Choose an executive, enterprise, or hybrid model

• Confirm where the team will sit and who it will report to

• Use the team’s directive to clarify its mandate, decision-making authority, and escalation path

• Identify an executive sponsor who can champion the team and remove barriers

Avoid: Launching a general-purpose technology team without a clear reason for its workAvoid: Launching a general-purpose technology team without a clear purpose or mandate.

3. Align ownership and stakeholders

Use the Alignment Workshop to work through these decisions with the people whose support, expertise, or approval the team will need.

• Assign one leader who is accountable for launching and operating the team

• Align sponsors and key stakeholders on its purpose, initial priorities, and expected outcomes

• Clarify responsibilities across the digital team, programs, IT, leadership, and other partners

• Identify the specialists, reviewers, and approvals the team will need

• Document unresolved decisions and assign owners

Avoid: Moving forward while fundamental questions about purpose, ownership, or priorities remain unresolved.

4. Choose the initial work

• Select a focused service, workflow, or user need

• Explain why the problem matters and who is affected

• Define the outcome the team should help achieve

• Set boundaries for what the team will and will not take on

• Confirm that the work fits the team’s authority, capabilities, funding, and time

Start with: Work that allows the team to deliver something useful, learn, and demonstrate value.

5. Assemble the team

• Confirm how the team will cover the core digital service roles and capabilities

• Clarify ownership when one person covers multiple areas

• Identify where shared or dedicated specialist support is needed

• Choose the right mix of existing staff, new hires, contractors, and shared specialists

• Onboard team members and provide access to the tools, systems, users, data, and environments they need

If the team will use AI-augmented delivery, confirm that approved AI tools, review processes, technical infrastructure, and a path from prototype to production are available.

Key principle: A small team may combine roles, but every required capability still needs a clear owner.

6. Establish delivery and operating practices

Revisit Foundations for Success as you establish how the team will deliver, make decisions, and support its work over time.

• Create a simple process for intake, prioritization, planning, and decisions

• Involve users, frontline staff, program staff, and service owners throughout delivery

• Test ideas before making large investments

• Release manageable improvements and iterate based on feedback

• Define when security, privacy, accessibility, procurement, legal, and other reviews will occur

• Plan for rollout, communications, training, and support

• Assign responsibility for monitoring, maintenance, and continued improvement

• Require vendors and contractors to provide documentation and knowledge transfer

Critical: Plan to operate and improve the work after its initial release.

7. Launch, learn, and adjust

• Communicate the team’s purpose, leadership, initial scope, and ways of working

• Begin work on the initial priority

• Track decisions, dependencies, risks, and blockers

• Gather feedback from users, frontline staff, team members, and stakeholders

• Review whether roles and responsibilities are working

• Adjust the scope, staffing, and practices based on what the team learns

• Keep sponsors and stakeholders informed about progress and decisions

The Keep the Momentum Going section provides additional guidance for reviewing progress, keeping stakeholders engaged, and adjusting priorities over time.

Early success: Deliver something useful, show what the team can make possible, and learn what it needs to work effectively.

8. Measure value and plan for growth

• Define a small set of user, service, operational, and team outcomes

• Establish baseline measures where possible

• Track whether the team is improving services or how government operates

• Share results, challenges, and lessons with stakeholders

• Use evidence to adjust priorities and the team’s roadmap

• Plan for ongoing funding, staffing, tools, maintenance, and leadership

• Build a pipeline of future work that fits the team’s purpose and capacity

• Expand the team’s scope only when its capabilities and support can sustain the growth

• Assess when the team is ready for long-term codification

Early success: Deliver something useful, show what the team can make possible, and learn what it needs to work effectively.

Ready to Begin?

Before beginning the team’s work, confirm that it has:

• A clear purpose and manageable initial scope

• Accountable leadership and an active executive sponsor

• The funding and capabilities required for its initial work

• Alignment among key stakeholders

• Access to the tools, systems, users, data, and specialists it needs

• A plan to operate, maintain, and measure what it delivers

Want help building your Digital Service Team? Request support here