Tag: Planungshorizont
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What frustrates you more: 15 minutes stuck in traffic, or 15 minutes on hold with the citizens’ registration office?
Most people would spontaneously say the phone queue. Yet both take exactly the same time. That’s exactly what makes the psychology of bureaucracy so interesting. Administration that doesn’t work annoys people disproportionately. And 15 real minutes feel like 15 hours. Behavioural research shows: people perceive waiting times as far more negative when they don’t understand…
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When people talk about Europe’s digital frontrunners, the name Estonia usually comes up. But there’s another frontrunner that often gets overlooked: the Netherlands.
And that’s surprising. Because the country has been part of Europe’s top group for digital government for years. Not because they build the most spectacular technology — but because they’ve achieved something much harder: simplification! Almost every Dutch person today uses DigiD, the country’s central digital identity. With a single login, you can handle tax…
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One of the most important resources for digital government: electricity!
The more states rely on artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure and digital platforms, the more their need for computing power grows. And computing power needs energy. That sounds like a tech topic at first. But it isn’t. Because suddenly, central government services depend on data centres, power grids and energy supply. The question is no longer…
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How secure are my data, really?
The more digital government becomes, the more often I’m asked this question. And it’s a fair one! In France, more than 6,000 data leaks were recently reported within a single year. The number of major incidents has risen sharply in a short time. This shows a dilemma in digitising government. We want more digital services,…
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The age of AI government begins.
And everything’s about to change? Are we witnessing the start of a new era? If so, it’s starting, of all places, in Abu Dhabi. Because there, government is being radically rethought. Instead of digitising old processes, the government is redesigning the entire administration from scratch — using AI wherever possible. Not at some vague point…
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Good spirits: when government becomes invisible.
Decades? No, for centuries Germans have known administration to work the same way: whoever wants something has to do something. Get in touch, fill out applications, enter data, wait, chase it up, wait some more… But that’s now coming to an end (okay… that end still looks pretty far off at the end of the…
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The twins are coming.
Digital twins for government. Come again? Anyone coming from industry already senses what this is about: there, it’s completely normal to create digital twins of, say, factories or building plans. That way, the effects of changes can be simulated before they actually happen. Exactly that is now starting in government too. Singapore is leading the…
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Why only now?!
Is THIS the solution to the digitisation crisis? Every country in Europe is digitising. Some faster, some at German speed. So far everyone’s been cooking their own little soup. So far! Because the EU is working on a project that could fundamentally change government digitisation. Not a new app. Not another portal. But a shared…
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Why Anna Musterson succeeds where Erika Mustermann doesn’t.
Digital identity (eID) is one of the keys to digitisation. In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, well over 90 percent of the population uses it today: for tax returns, re-registration, parental allowance, or starting a business, for example. Germany also has the technical foundation in place: the ID card with an online authentication function. But only…
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Digitise or go under.
What the OECD is now advising Germany: if you want to be competitive, you have to digitise your administration. Yesterday, ideally. Sounds obvious, right? And yet many states still struggle with it. And that’s dangerously risky! Because in its “Foundations for Growth and Competitiveness 2026” report, the OECD finds that digital government is becoming an…
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Can only small countries do digitisation?
No. Right on our doorstep, you can see how it’s done. Portugal, Estonia, Denmark, but also further away, South Korea. Wherever the champions of digitising government are, they have one thing in common: they tend to be small. So does no bigger country really manage what Germany has been struggling to do for years? It…
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Rivers, cheap energy, well-trained workers — the classic location factors are getting competition. And here it is.
Digital government is long since more than just a nice-to-have. It decides whether a location works. Companies today don’t just compare taxes, wages or infrastructure. They compare how quickly they can start a business, how reliably permits are processed, and how much time they lose to bureaucracy. Digitising government is becoming a competitive factor: How…
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Il futuro?
A little Italian! Italy has managed something that sounds like a distant dream in many administrations: it has rethought and digitised government procurement. At the centre is CONSIP, a platform acting as the central purchasing hub for public administration. Sounds unspectacular? It really isn’t! Finally, individual authorities no longer have to put every project out…
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In the land of apple trees, i.e. Hesse, something is happening right now that seemed impossible in Germany — ridiculous, even: automated government has begun!
A dream comes true. But what exactly happened? Since April 2026, around 200,000 citizens have been receiving a pre-filled tax return that they only need to check and confirm. By German standards, that feels almost absurd. We’re used to hunting for forms, gathering data together, and explaining things the state already knows perfectly well. Often…
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South Korea, Australia… Portugal!
Why the country is becoming Europe’s digital champion. Portugal is surprisingly highly placed in the OECD’s Digital Government Index, and is pulling ahead of many countries in Europe and worldwide. Reason enough to take a closer look at the westernmost country on the continent. Here’s how digital Portugal is: Portugal steers digitisation centrally through the…
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Tim goes to school in Pinneberg, studies first in Hamburg and later in Barcelona. He finds his first job…
…in Turin. Years later he moves to Budapest with his girlfriend. When the two of them have children, they move back to northern Germany, but five years later Tim’s wife lands a great job in France and the family moves again. Can anyone imagine how many different authorities would be involved in this fictional life?…
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Japan’s administration in transition:
How digitisation is going in the land of robots. Japan is special: partly hyper-technologised, partly fax machine. Administration in particular has always lagged behind the rest of the country’s development. Until now! Because something’s moving in the land of the rising sun. In 2021, the Digital Agency Japan was founded to finally centralise and digitise…
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A pattern is increasingly showing up in Germany:
Services go online — but the relief never arrives. Why is that, and how could it work better? Let’s look at the problems: Digital forms replace paper — but not the process. Many services are essentially identical to the old application. Just as a PDF or web form now. The workflow stays unchanged. Media breaks…
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AI in government?
What’s allowed — and what isn’t. While AI is slowly making its way into more and more authorities, legal uncertainty is growing. Because the new question that service providers and decision-makers have to ask themselves is: what does the EU AI Act allow. Or rather, what doesn’t it… The EU AI Act distinguishes systematically between…
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Maybe ‘one platform for everything’ was never the right answer.
Maybe we need something completely different. For years, the direction was clear: administration needs big, central platforms. One access point for everything. One solution for all services. An architecture that bundles complexity. The idea behind it makes sense. But developments have overtaken the predictions: thanks to register modernisation, individual apps will soon be able to…
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The most important part of digitisation is invisible — and that’s exactly the problem.
Everyone talks about portals, apps, wallets and services. Us too. But one aspect of digitisation keeps falling by the wayside: register modernisation. The what? The word isn’t just typically German, it’s also not exactly catchy. But what’s behind it could decide whether German digitisation succeeds or fails. The principle is simple: authorities should be able…
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Germany uses digital identity — but for what, exactly?
Germany is currently testing the EU Digital Identity Wallet. An important step. Because with the wallet, people will be able to identify themselves across Europe and use digital government services — eventually. Right now, though, the pilot project is once again a test flight flying under the radar. Or are you already using the new…
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After yesterday’s #AI breakthrough, today is about one of our favourite topics: the #DigitalStrategy.
#Strategies provide #direction, reduce complexity, and make it possible to succeed together. That’s also true for a digitisation strategy. Countries therefore sometimes invest a lot of time and budget into developing one through a shared process. But #strategies have a #planninghorizon of 3-5 years, and in fast-changing times, that reaches its limits. The #digital #transformation…
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As announced on Friday, this week I get to write about #GoodNews.
Today I can report that we’ve achieved our AI-development #breakthrough. What happened? A piece of staff-scheduling software hadn’t been actively developed for quite a while. Based on experience, developing a needed, up-to-date replacement would typically cost around 50,000 euros. In this case, it was possible to outsource that development work to #AI and deliver the…
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I’m glad to be able to make an announcement for next week, just before the weekend:
Over the past few weeks, a lot has been happening behind the scenes for us, working to solve various Gordian knots of digitising government in a targeted, swift, reliable and affordable way. Starting next week, we’ll be talking here about these needs and possible solutions. Until then, I wish everyone a lovely weekend already! Best…
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Digital citizen participation is becoming part of the infrastructure.
What this means for administration. Citizen participation used to be just a nice extra. Something you start when there’s time and budget for it. Often tedious, drawn-out, and piecemeal. That understanding is now changing fundamentally. Digital participation is no longer seen as an add-on, but as part of the administrative infrastructure. That’s a crucial difference.…
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Why efficiency isn’t enough anymore — and what administration needs instead.
For years the goal was clear: administration has to become more efficient. Faster processes. Lower costs. More output. That was right — and still partly is. But it falls short. Because reality has changed. Today, administration operates in an environment that’s constantly changing. And that’s exactly where the problem lies: systems optimised for maximum efficiency…
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Many digital strategies still follow the same pattern: a project gets planned, implemented, and ‘closed’. But that’s not enough anymore!
The problem: the world changes faster than any digital strategy. That’s why the OECD notes in its new study: a future-proof administration isn’t the one that delivers correctly once, but the one that continuously learns and adapts. Solutions are no longer thought of as final, but improved iteratively. Feedback from practice flows systematically back into…