GOV.UK: multidisciplinary teams embedded with public-service users

Government Digital Service showed that public-sector technology improves when product, design, policy, and engineering sit close to the service being delivered.

The FDE pattern

The lesson: embedded delivery reduces policy-to-software translation loss.

The common thread is proximity: engineers learn from deployment reality, not just stakeholder interpretation. That creates faster delivery and better product judgment.

What New Zealand teams can copy

• Put engineers next to the workflow before locking scope.
• Measure whether the deployed change actually reduces operational drag.
• Promote repeating field fixes into reusable product capability.