--- title: "Governance Without Authority: How to Align Agencies Across a Statewide Digital Platform" url: "/articles/governance-without-authority-how-align-agencies-across-statewide-digital-platform" type: article date: 2026-04-28 updated: 2026-04-28 --- # Governance Without Authority: How to Align Agencies Across a Statewide Digital Platform Image ![Article header reading “Governance Without Authority: How to Align Agencies Across a Statewide Digital Platform” with tagline “Align agencies. Build trust. Scale what works.” on a blue background with minimal graphic accents.](/sites/default/files/styles/promo_medium/public/2026-04/Governance%20Without%20Authority.png.webp?itok=rw6G1cea) ## [Darren Petersen](/about/darren-petersen) ![Darren Petersen wearing a blue button down shirt with white polka dots in front of a gray background](/sites/default/files/styles/square_120x120/public/2023-06/darren-petersen.jpg?itok=gkpt08k6) VP of Projects Director of Projects with expertise in enterprise-level Drupal projects. When you're accountable for outcomes across a complex digital ecosystem, made up of agencies that don’t report to you, you need a strategic approach to secure the improvements constituents really need. This challenge is familiar to anyone in state digital leadership: you're accountable for improvements across a complex ecosystem of departments, each with its own commissioners, IT teams, and entrenched in institutional history. That gap between responsibility and authority doesn't appear in any job description, but it defines the role. ## Why the "digital police" approach backfires Many digital services teams fall into the trap of becoming what agencies call "brand police," issuing top-down directives and wondering why compliance is spotty at best. Agencies resist these mandates not out of stubbornness, but out of rational self-interest. This is because they serve specific constituents who can't afford service disruptions. They also remember past "transformation" initiatives that seemed promising at the time but ultimately fell flat. When a directive comes from a central office that the agency doesn't report to, they ask, "What happens if we don't comply?" The answer is often, "not much." So they delay, find workarounds, or send polite updates about "working on it." Tightening policies or creating more approval bottlenecks only makes things worse. Georgia's Digital Services team took a different approach when [developing GovHub](https://www.lullabot.com/our-work/govhub-building-georgias-digital-future). Without gubernatorial mandates or enforcement authority, they focused on demonstrating value to each agency individually. They made their case on merit, showed what the platform could accomplish, and let adoption follow naturally. It was slower than a mandate, but it was also sustainable. ## Start with agencies that are ready Every agency in your digital ecosystem sits somewhere on a spectrum of readiness. Some agencies are frustrated with current systems and actively seeking support, while others are skeptical but open to discussion. Some are deeply resistant, protective of their autonomy, or simply not ready for change. Your instinct might be to prove the value of digital improvements by tackling the hardest cases first. That's almost always a mistake. Instead, do this: - Identify your early adopters. - Look for agencies where you already have relationships, where leadership is asking for help, or where the technical situation isn't so complex that early stumbles become cautionary tales. - Focus on departments with straightforward content needs and enthusiastic teams. This requires knowing your partners before work begins, which may not be as obvious as it sounds. We've started projects only to hear "We haven't told anybody you're here yet" or "We're not sure who manages that site." These aren't details you can sort out while building a platform. They're blockers to any progress. Your pilot selection should look like a spreadsheet with columns for "existing relationships," "team enthusiasm," and "content complexity." Focus on calls most likely to go well, and make those your priorities. ## Make architecture your value proposition The most concrete thing a central digital office can offer agencies is a better way to work. Policy compliance should be a side effect of those benefits, not the main selling point. It's important to acknowledge that agencies joining a shared platform give up direct control over code and whatever they've built managing their own sites. That's a real loss, and they'll tell you about it. But emphasize what they gain in return. A two-person administrative office in a public defender's office—people who aren't professional web managers and don't want to be—get the same upgraded presentation as the Department of Transportation. Accessibility is built into components they'll never have to touch. The design system handles visual consistency automatically. The platform catches issues before they go live. The resistance to change is real at the start, but agencies often discover that the control they thought they needed was actually draining time from their actual mission. You can't tell them that up front. They have to experience it. What you can tell them is that if the platform doesn't address a specific need, there's a process for raising it. ## Create a real process for governance A strong example of what effective governance looks like is [the state of Iowa’s DX (digital experience) platform](https://www.lullabot.com/our-work/state-iowa-marketing). When agencies request new features, a cross-agency group evaluates the requests against shared criteria: - Who else needs this? - What’s the effort? - Where does it fit in the roadmap? When Iowa's Department of Natural Resources needed a fish finder, the answer from the committee wasn't "no." Instead, the solution was to build it as a separate application, meeting the need without overcomplicating the shared platform. ### **Turn skeptics into advocates** The agencies that came in resistant to the platform told a completely different story by the end. Take Iowa's Department of Transportation web director, for example. She walked into the first planning meetings deeply skeptical. She'd been through initiatives like this before, and they didn't go well. But the collaborative approach changed her mind. Working through content alongside the agency's subject matter experts and getting their sign-off at every decision point made the difference. There were no surprises, no arbitrary changes imposed from the top. By the time launch day arrived, she'd become one of the platform's strongest supporters. That's how you turn your biggest skeptic into a reference for the next round of hesitant agencies. ### **Make governance feel like partnership, not gatekeeping** How you handle governance requests makes all the difference. Agencies need a clear way to say "we need this feature" and get a real answer back. When that answer is "no," they deserve to understand why and what alternatives exist. Governance that says "no" without explanation feels like the same bureaucratic runaround agencies already know too well. To build positive relationships instead of resentment, governance should focus more on "here's what we decided and here's our reasoning." ## Let early wins do the recruiting for you Once a few agencies move to your new platform and their websites start to succeed visibly, the dynamic shifts for everyone still waiting. The conversation changes from "why should we do this?" to "why haven't we done what our counterparts have?" This shift doesn't happen by accident—it requires intentionally showing the work. Publish those first success stories. Demo new features to the full group. Run monthly update meetings where agencies can see what their peers have recently launched. ### **Make progress visible and competitive** Georgia uses [SiteImprove](https://www.siteimprove.com/) to aggregate website [accessibility and performance scores across all properties on GovHub](https://analytics.georgia.gov/), displaying them in a single public view. State agencies (and their constituents) can see how they compare to one another. There's a leaderboard quality to it, and a little public accountability goes a long way toward driving improvement. ### **Let agencies own their wins** Give agencies genuine ownership of their success stories. When your digital services office frames every launch as part of a wide initiative that agencies are "joining," you're claiming credit that should belong to them. The better approach? Let agencies announce their own launches and celebrate their teams for improved scores and cleaner constituent experiences. Your office doesn't need the credit. You need the next agency to want in. ## Secure relationships before everything else Knowing who your agencies are is only the starting point. Keeping them oriented and bought in throughout a multi-year platform rollout requires deliberate, ongoing communication. As essential as this step is for maintaining agency support, many digital services teams underinvest in it. An effective communication infrastructure looks something like this: monthly all-hands updates, a project newsletter, individual check-ins with agencies leading up to migration, and short demo videos that let people see new features on their own time. Even if agencies aren't on the platform for another two quarters, they still need to hear from you every month to know where things stand and what to expect. When digital services leaders evaluate where to spend resources, especially early on, the clear priority should be outreach to your state agencies. It's better to have strong relationships with those stakeholders than to secure a killer development team without a working connection to the teams you aim to serve. You can't govern what you can't trust. And trust, in a structure like this, is something that’s built one agency at a time. ## Get a clear picture of your ecosystem Before you tackle building consensus across your state's agencies, it's important to understand where each agency stands today. You have to assess not just their compliance status but also their readiness, existing relationships, and where quick wins are most achievable. Our Digital Ecosystem Maturity Assessment maps that picture, helping you build a strategy grounded in your actual situation rather than an idealized one. [Learn more about the assessment.](https://www.lullabot.com/digital-modernization-platform-development/digital-ecosystem-maturity-assessment) [Digital & Content Strategy](/topics/content-strategy) A guide for state digital teams to align agencies at scale using shared platforms, early adopters, and governance that builds trust.