Civic Innovations

Technology, Government Innovation, and Open Data

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  • The Other Side of Chesterton’s Fence

    Chesterton’s Fence is a useful reminder that government processes exist for reasons, even when those reasons aren’t obvious. But the principle only gets you so far. Understanding why the fence was built doesn’t tell you what to do when the world it was designed for is changing faster than the fence can be redesigned.

  • It’s The End of Agile (As We Know It)

    AI is changing the way government teams will practice agile. Are agencies ready for the change?

  • Using AI to Reverse-Engineer a Legacy Application into a Modern Software Specification

    In this post, I demonstrate a hands-on example of using AI tools with a legacy technology system to build the foundation for a modern software solution.

  • Ending the Sugar Rush

    A new study reveals a troubling pattern in open source projects adopting AI coding tools. The fix, it turns out, may lie in an idea as familiar as a CONTRIBUTING.md file — but updated for the AI era.

  • Modernizing Government Regulations with AI

    Finding administrative burden hidden in government regulations has a surprising structural kinship with legacy system modernization. Here’s how SpecOps can be used to reform government regulations.

  • From Sharing Code to Sharing Knowledge

    For two decades, the vision for government technology has been “build once, share widely.” But as AI changes the economics of software development, the future may look less like sharing code and more like sharing the knowledge that makes building easier.

  • Government Software at the Crossroads

    Government tech leaders are signing longterm software contracts during the biggest shift in how software works since cloud computing. The assumptions behind those decisions may already be obsolete.

  • The Collapsing Cost of Software Development

    The cost of generating software code is collapsing. AI coding tools have matured faster than most realize. For governments, this changes everything.

  • Disposable Software and the Future of Government Technology

    AI is driving a toward “disposable software” and this could have significant implications for the public sector. The SpecOps method offers one way for governments to adapt to this potential change.

  • AI-Powered Automation: Taking ATO Modernization Beyond the Bottleneck

    Strategic use of AI tools can support efforts to automate the ATO process and dramatically reduce the time to authorize new technology systems.