Over the past decade, the language of "human-centered design" in government digital services has become table stakes. Large consulting firms list it boldly. Boutique agencies boast of strong, mission-driven design teams. Almost every IT modernization RFP now mentions human-centered design in some way. The credential doesn't differentiate anymore.
What differentiates is whether your design org is actually changing delivery outcomes. It's service designers collaborating with policy experts to understand program constraints. It's researchers surfacing user needs across the entire agency spectrum, from beneficiaries to agency staff. It's content strategy in a legacy modernization effort that builds a "content as code"framework to make faster, more effective platform decisions.
Over my 6 years leading design at Nava, I've seen repeatedly that human-centered design done well isn't a practice before or adjacent to delivery, it just IS delivery. For government services, delivering what people actually need matters more than anywhere else in the design industry, because the cost of getting those services wrong falls on people who are impacted the most.
The design teams that thrive over the next years will be the ones that can demonstrate impact using truly human-centered delivery approaches. I don't know if this is a comfortable frame for a lot of design leaders, since owning outcomes is harder than delivering artifacts. But a team that's accountable for delivery outcomes will have a fundamentally different trajectory than a team that hands off work.
What's your design org accountable for that isn't an artifact?