Workbook
Make the Mission Yours
Role: Federal Agency - IT Stakeholder
Use these activities to apply each principle to your current product, service, or project. These activities are a sample to get you started, not an exhaustive list. Adapt and expand them based on your team's context and needs. Capture your answers, share them with your team, and revisit them as you learn.
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Important: When Using AI Tools
When using AI-assisted activities, always double-check for accuracy and meaning each and every time. AI tools can help accelerate your work, but human judgment, validation, and critical thinking remain essential.
Review AI-generated content with your team, validate it against real user feedback and domain knowledge, and ensure it truly serves your mission and user outcomes before proceeding.
2) Break Down Silos
Collaborate across IT teams, security, compliance, and product teams to deliver integrated solutions.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 2) Break Down Silos section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Run a joint technical planning session with product, security, compliance, infrastructure teams, and vendor technical teams to align on technical approach and constraints.
- ☐Create a shared technical board that includes all IT stakeholders and vendor teams; remove duplicate function-specific tracking.
- ☐Document technical decisions and security/compliance requirements in one place and review with all stakeholders including vendor leads.
- ☐Hold a 30-minute live technical decision review for security or compliance concerns instead of async email chains; include vendor representatives.
- ☐Pair with product owners to agree on technical constraints and acceptance criteria for the current initiative.
- ☐Establish regular technical sync meetings with vendor teams to break down silos and ensure shared technical context.
- ☐Create a vendor technical onboarding process that includes security requirements, compliance standards, and collaboration expectations.
- ☐Document vendor technical handoff points and establish joint working sessions to reduce context loss between agency and vendor IT teams.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐When AI generates technical designs or architecture documents, have cross-functional stakeholders (product, security, compliance, infrastructure) review them together to ensure they serve citizens and align with agency mission.
- ☐Use AI to help draft technical briefs or architecture documents, but ensure all stakeholder groups contribute their perspectives during actual planning sessions.
- ☐Have AI analyze technical handoff patterns and stakeholder communication gaps, then use those insights in cross-functional discussions to improve collaboration.
- ☐Use AI to help structure technical collaboration sessions, but ensure human team members make decisions together about what to build and how it serves citizens.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Fewer misalignments between IT, security, compliance, and product teams.
- ☐One shared technical board is used across all stakeholder groups.
3) User Engagement
Understand citizen needs and technical constraints to inform infrastructure and security decisions.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 3) User Engagement section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Participate in at least one citizen engagement session this quarter (interview, usability test, or shadowing) to understand technical needs.
- ☐Review citizen support tickets related to technical issues and identify one infrastructure or security improvement you can make.
- ☐Work with help desk teams to identify top technical pain points citizens face and prioritize infrastructure improvements.
- ☐Review citizen feedback channels for technical concerns and adjust infrastructure priorities based on real signals.
- ☐Partner with product teams to understand how technical constraints affect citizen experience and find solutions.
- ☐Invite vendor technical team members to participate in citizen engagement sessions to build their understanding of technical user needs.
- ☐Share citizen technical feedback and infrastructure research findings with vendor teams in a structured format.
- ☐Establish a process for vendor technical teams to contribute their observations from user interactions back to infrastructure planning.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐Use AI to analyze citizen technical feedback, support tickets, or infrastructure logs to identify patterns for technical decisions, but always validate AI insights through direct citizen engagement or observation.
- ☐Have AI generate questions for technical interviews based on your infrastructure assumptions, then use those questions in real conversations with citizens or citizen-facing staff to build genuine empathy.
- ☐Use AI to help summarize technical research findings for infrastructure planning, but ensure team members review the summaries and add their own observations from direct citizen interactions.
- ☐Have AI analyze technical behavior patterns from logs or support data, then discuss those patterns with actual citizens or support staff to understand the "why" behind the technical issues.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Technical decisions reference citizen quotes or observed technical behaviors.
- ☐You can cite recent citizen engagement that influenced a technical decision.
4) Outcomes Over Outputs
Measure technical success by citizen impact and mission advancement, not just infrastructure delivery.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 4) Outcomes Over Outputs section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐For the current technical initiative, define 1–2 citizen outcome metrics enabled by your technical work and a review cadence.
- ☐Add outcome hypotheses to technical documentation and review them at quarterly technical reviews with vendor participation.
- ☐Post a short outcome readout after infrastructure changes; propose next actions based on citizen impact data and share with vendor teams.
- ☐If a technical metric missed the target, write one hypothesis and a concrete next experiment to validate.
- ☐Align with product and analytics teams on exact technical events/metrics for this initiative before implementation starts.
- ☐Establish shared technical outcome dashboards with vendor teams so everyone can see progress toward citizen impact goals.
- ☐Include vendor technical teams in outcome review meetings and require them to report on how their technical deliverables contributed to citizen outcomes.
- ☐Create outcome-based acceptance criteria for vendor technical deliverables that focus on citizen impact, not just technical completion.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐When AI generates technical solutions or infrastructure designs, define citizen outcome metrics upfront and measure whether AI-generated technical work achieves intended citizen outcomes, not just technical completion.
- ☐Use AI to help analyze technical outcome data and identify patterns, but have human team members interpret what those patterns mean for citizens and the agency mission.
- ☐Have AI help draft outcome definitions and success criteria for technical initiatives, but ensure the team validates them against real citizen needs and agency goals before proceeding.
- ☐Use AI to track and report on technical outcome metrics, but schedule human team reviews to discuss what the metrics mean and how to adjust technical strategy based on observed citizen impact.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Each technical initiative has defined citizen outcome metrics and scheduled reviews.
- ☐Post-implementation actions reference citizen impact data, not just technical completion.
5) Domain Knowledge
Understand federal IT regulations, security requirements, and agency technical ecosystem constraints.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 5) Domain Knowledge section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Create or refresh a technical architecture map showing how your infrastructure fits into the broader agency IT ecosystem; share with vendor teams.
- ☐List key security and compliance constraints (FISMA, FedRAMP, NIST) in technical documentation and review with security, compliance teams, and vendor leads.
- ☐Identify the top two upstream/downstream agency systems or services per initiative and involve their technical owners early.
- ☐Review a recent security or compliance incident in this domain and note one technical mitigation you will enforce in the current initiative.
- ☐Call out one regulatory or security risk in the current technical plan and secure owner/mitigation strategy.
- ☐Conduct technical domain knowledge transfer sessions with vendor teams to ensure they understand federal IT regulations and agency ecosystem constraints.
- ☐Create a technical compliance checklist for vendor deliverables and review it together before work begins.
- ☐Establish a process for vendor technical teams to ask questions about domain constraints and get timely answers from agency IT experts.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐Use AI to help summarize federal IT regulations, security requirements, or agency technical policy documents for infrastructure planning, but validate AI-generated domain knowledge through direct engagement with security and compliance experts.
- ☐Have AI generate questions about federal IT compliance or agency technical ecosystem relationships, then use those questions in conversations with security and IT experts to build deep understanding.
- ☐Use AI to help draft technical architecture maps or ecosystem diagrams, but ensure team members review them with agency IT experts to verify accuracy and completeness.
- ☐Have AI analyze past federal technical decisions or security-related issues, then discuss those insights with the team and agency experts to identify patterns and prevent similar problems.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Technical initiatives reference security constraints and agency IT dependencies explicitly.
- ☐Stakeholders acknowledge and plan for shared technical dependencies and security requirements early.
6) The Art of Storytelling
Use narrative to communicate technical decisions and their impact on citizens and agency mission.
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Learn More
For more information and deeper understanding of this principle, refer to the 6) The Art of Storytelling section in the framework.
Workbook Activities (do now)
- ☐Write a one-page narrative for the current technical initiative: citizen technical need, agency mission alignment, technical impact, and success signals; share with vendor teams.
- ☐Prepare two versions of technical updates: one for executives (citizen outcomes/risks) and one for the team including vendors (technical decisions/next steps).
- ☐Share a before/after technical story at quarterly review tied to citizen outcome metrics with vendor participation.
- ☐Add a real citizen quote or data point about technical experience to anchor the story in human impact.
- ☐Record a 60-second update for agency leadership focusing on how technical work enables citizen impact and next decision points.
- ☐Conduct storytelling workshops with vendor technical teams to help them articulate how their work connects to citizen impact and agency mission.
- ☐Include vendor technical team members in narrative development sessions so they can contribute their perspectives and understand the full story.
- ☐Create a shared technical narrative document that vendor teams can reference when making decisions, ensuring alignment with agency mission.
AI Assisted Activities
- ☐Use AI to help structure or draft technical narratives and updates for federal stakeholders, but refine them with real citizen anecdotes, emotions, and personal observations about technical experiences.
- ☐Have AI generate different versions of technical updates for different audiences (agency executives vs team), but ensure each version includes authentic human stories about real citizen technical impact.
- ☐Use AI to help summarize technical work in reviews, but lead presentations with human stories about real citizens' technical experiences, using AI-generated summaries as supporting material.
- ☐Have AI help draft technical documentation or updates, but always include real citizen quotes, data points, or anecdotes that connect your technical work to human impact and agency mission.
Evidence of Progress
- ☐Agency stakeholders can retell the technical narrative and success signals.
- ☐The team references the narrative when making technical trade-offs.