Delivering a Customer-Focused Government Through Smarter IT

The Obama Administration is formally launching the US Digital Service.

Mikey Dickerson, a top private-sector engineer who was part of the team that helped fix HealthCare.gov will serve as the new Administrator of the US Digital Service and Deputy Federal Chief Information Officer. The digital team has one core mission: to improve and simplify the digital experience that people and businesses have with their government by:

  • Establishing standards to bring the government’s digital services in line with the best private sector services;
  • Identifying common technology patterns that will help us scale services effectively;
  • Collaborating with agencies to identify and address gaps in their capacity to design, develop, deploy and operate excellent citizen-facing services; and
  • Providing accountability to ensure agencies see results.

With this announcement, the Administration is also releasing for public comment two crucial components in our growing IT toolkit that will help enable agencies to do their best work -- the Digital Services Playbook and the TechFAR Handbook.


Delivering a Customer-Focused Government Through Smarter IT Improving and Simplifying Digital Services (Read fact sheet) White House launches ‘US Digital Service,’ with HealthCare.gov fixer at the helm (Washington Post) White House creates strike team to improve government technology (The Hill) White House tech team to improve government websites after HealthCare.gov rollout (Reuters) Lesson Learned from Healthcare.gov Rollout: White House launches US Digital Service (nextgov) White House Names Tech Team to Improve Government Websites (Revere Digital) New U.S. Digital Service launched to keep healthcare.gov disaster from repeating itself (GigaOm) Senate Dem praises new White House tech strike force (The Hill)