Our Process

To understand how technology can meet our vision and better serve the California public, we held more than 60 interviews and meetings with:

• State government technology executives and leaders (Agency Information Officers, Chief Information Officers, and the California Department of Technology’s leadership and enterprise architects);
• Agency, department and business executives and leaders;
• Staff representing the legislative and judicial branches;
• Local government leaders; and
• Technology companies and the civic technology community.

We received survey responses from nearly 8,000 staffers across 19 departments, supervisors and managers at the California Department of Technology, and Chief Information Officers.

We ran an open collaboration session and survey with technology companies, and also reached out to companies that have never worked with the state.

We reviewed technology reports from the Legislative Analyst’s Office and the California State Auditor, and the Employment Development Department Strike Team’s detailed assessment and recommendations.

Finally, we reviewed industry reports and researched the experiences, successes and challenges of civic technologists and governments across the United States and the world.

Through our work, we learned about how technology is used, planned for, managed and bought in our state. We listened to what people told us they need to use technology well. We found common, repeated problems and learned about how people have solved them.

The insights gleaned have helped shape and inspire this vision.

We have intentionally written this vision as simple as possible to keep it accessible. Our full research insights will be published on this website shortly.