“Digitized isn’t modernized,” noted new Federal CIO Greg Barbaccia in a recent LinkedIn post. Here he advocates for an upgrade to the U.S. government’s approach to modernization. He argues that while agencies have replaced paper processes, they have largely replicated legacy processes in a new medium without re-engineering workflows. Thus, he calls for shifting from substitution to transformation.
Introducing the Product Mindset for Digital Transformation
That’s a process that goes beyond automating repetitive tasks. In the AI era, it means making data actionable, enabling collaboration and accelerating decision-making, changing behaviors alongside tools. That’s why Karsun uses a product mindset throughout the modernization process. Our teams consider not only project requirements but how users will interact with the modernized system. In fact, with 15+ years delivering software, cloud, and data solutions we have identified several key ways using this mindset enables digital transformation at a level expected by government decision makers.
The benefits of using a product mindset for digital transformation.
- Uses human-centered design (HCD) principles from the beginning. This ensures teams build using functional requirements that consider not only system structure, but user behavior and experience.
- Cloud native solutions, such as those built on microservices, enable secure, adaptable architecture empowering teams to adjust to changing requirements meeting future demands.
- Applying HCD principles, a product mindset considers the experience of the teams seeking advanced analytics and business intelligence solutions to generate insights and make data driven decisions. This brings fresh data streaming and self-service enhancements, reducing the time to insights from weeks and months to hours and days.
Moreover, each of these benefits not only improves system performance, it limits future rework by addressing potential challenges early while providing the flexibility to adapt to future needs.
AI-Accelerated Digital Transformation
The AI era demands this approach. To be prepared for the agility gains from AI, government agencies and other large enterprises may need to consider using AI to accelerate the transformation to the new systems and processes available as a result of this revolutionary technology.
We continuously enhance our ReDuX AI-powered modernization platform to accelerate this process. Unlike platforms that automate business rule extraction and transformation, ReDuX AI agents analyze system structure and behavior. After generating a comprehensive blueprint of the legacy system, we generate requirements that address user behavior. With the flexibility that comes from AI instead of automation, agile teams can reimagine their legacy system functionality, adding enhancements. Its transformation agents take inputs from human design teams and solution architects, generating modern, production ready code that satisfies these new functional requirements.
And these agents learn as they complete each functional slice of the modernized application. As the agile team engages in continuous, ongoing feedback with system stakeholders, improving both agents and human team members’ understanding of user needs improve together. Its AI-powered digital transformation that enhances rather than hinders human-centered design.
That’s not all, we found we can actually use AI for process improvement. In fact, our experts spoke on this topic at the annual CMMI conference in Phoenix, Arizona in 2024. For one customer that netted 4 times faster project delivery with double the improvement in code quality. This success is shared in a recent AWS Case Study. This data-driven approach, built on mature, intelligent AI solutions, is in part why Karsun was appraised at CMMI Level 5 (DEV) for a third time.
At Karsun we know the power of a mindful approach to digital transformation. This product mindset, now supercharged by AI, is integrated into every aspect of our modernization process.
For more on our approach, discover why our Head of Experience told the Federal Tech Podcast modernization teams need to move on from “checking the box” on customer experience to creating processes that result in true transformation. If you’re ready to start your digital transformation journey today, connect with our team.
Happy Valentine’s Day from the Enterprise Modernization Experts! Today, we’re sending our love to the designers, developers, and data engineers who deliver excellence to our government customers and the American people. Driving this performance are the dedicated teams diving into the latest technology solutions. Among those cutting edge solutions are these digital transformation trends we love here at Karsun Solutions.
Designing with a Product Mindset
The Product Mindset empowers teams as they design applications in a way that adapts to the ever-changing digital landscape. As we enter a period requiring adaptability and a forward-thinking approach, the Product Mindset asks teams to consider how the system will be used now and in the future and how they can introduce efficiency now while building to scale.
This mindset emphasizes moving from a “building” to a “dwelling” perspective. This focuses the process on continuous design as a form of continuous improvement. That includes modeling user experiences, using modern platforms, and implementing layered designs. Learn how Karsun does this with our Digital Transformation Toolkit in this white paper from the Karsun Innovation Center.
https://karsun-llc.com/resource/design-for-every-next-2/
Generative AI for Human-Centered Design
Another key digital transformation component is human-centered design (HCD.) This approach centers design using practices that identify whether the product matches the expectations of its human users. This is achieved by building in continuous feedback and using practices that assist product teams as they identify whether design supports or hinders users.
While human-centered design brings humanity back to software development, it also helps teams ensure the product is used as intended. It uses tools, like those built with machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), to process user data and generate new insights. From these behavioral insights business analysts and others can more quickly generate requirements to ensure functionality carries over to the new systems built by the product team.
As a final process improvement and efficiency-boosting feature, systems using Generative AI learn from the best practices of the development teams using these tools. When well integrated into platforms like Karsun’s ReDuX AI, the team may use AI to identify the practices that best help achieve their product goals. Based on these insights, the team can add guard rails, further engineer their model, or use agentic AI to generate code, templates, and other resources in line with those recommendations.
Zero Trust Architecture Boosted by Security-Led Practices
When using zero trust architecture (ZTA), systems continuously validate every interaction with the system. Using this approach, teams build systems that limit the ability of people and devices to access it, assuming that by default, they are not to be trusted. Zero trust best practices are essential when building secure architecture designed to adapt to changing needs and evolving threats. The ZTA approach includes well-architected practices. It also includes integrating emerging technologies.
When teams use security-led practices, such as zero trust architecture and well-architected principles, they can now use AI to enhance their capabilities. That includes using predictive AI to identify risks and generative AI (GenAI) to address those hazards. Teams using our ReDuX AI-powered digital transformation engine use GenAI to proactively recommend best practices, generate guard rails based on established policies, and build templates so they can scale their practices more effectively.
At Karsun, we design large-scale government IT solutions that enhance the capabilities of our agency partners and drive performance. Our commitment to solid digital transformation and design practices is part of our enduring commitment to technology solutions for every next. Our experts deliver these robust enterprise solutions at agencies across the federal government. At the same time, our innovators explore, prototype, and implement the latest technologies as part of delivering truly transformative solutions. If any of these trends pique your interest, we invite you to connect with our Karsun Innovation Center team and discover how you can begin your technology journey.