Guidance

Integrate and adapt technology

Your technology should adapt to future demands and work with existing technologies, processes and infrastructure in your organisation.

From:
Central Digital and Data Office
Published
6 November 2017
Last updated
24 July 2023 — See all updates

To meet point 9 of the Technology Code of Practice (TCoP) your plans must show you’ve considered how your technology project or programme integrates into your organisation.

If you’re going through the spend control process you must explain how you’re trying to meet point 9.

How integration helps your programme

Good integration means making sure your new technology works with legacy solutions without limiting your ability to adapt to future demands or upgrade systems.

Your programme will benefit from:

  • less risk to your infrastructure as integration planning will discover compatibility gaps in the new technology
  • less downtime on your regular processes when you upgrade or amend them
  • systems which enforce built-in redundancy of services, minimising single points of failure
  • lower long-term support costs

Fitting new technology into your organisation

Each organisation’s technology and infrastructure will have unique services and issues. But there are some common elements to consider when fitting new technology into your current or legacy system, including:

  • the coordination between your organisation’s IT operating model, the different business areas and their processes, governance, service support and service delivery
  • how the new technology will work with your service management
  • what skills and capabilities your organisation needs to deliver, support and continuously improve the new technology you’ll purchase
  • automated decision making while adhering to the Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework for Automated Decision-Making

Read how the Department for Transport’s Chief Architect has created a Digital Design Authority to help integrate new technology with their current technology.

To optimise systems integration consider:

  • adopting a continuous integration model so you can solve smaller issues iteratively
  • designing your system using independently developed components that can easily work together
  • building a system architecture early in the program to describe your current or future system and mapping hardware and software components
  • defining a configuration management process
  • doing component-level testing to make sure integration is possible
  • doing regular integration and stress testing in your development environment to track progress and make sure the system remains robust

If you have chosen to use a systems integrator you should make sure they meet all of your requirements.

Meeting user needs with emerging technologies

A number of government organisations are using or investigating emerging technologies. If you’re thinking about introducing emerging technology to your infrastructure, you should make sure it meets user needs. You’ll need to investigate alternative mature technology solutions thoroughly to check if this is the case.

Your emerging technology programme will also benefit from checking:

  • with a Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) senior DDaT adviser about the cost implications and whether a mature technology better suits your needs
  • whether other organisations across government are using or investigating the same emerging technology
  • whether your organisation has the skills and resources to manage the technology
  • what would happen if the emerging technology fails or is discontinued
  • any privacy implications
  • any security implications

You can find guidance on choosing technology for services, including how to adopt new technology.

Examples of emerging technologies around government

‘Emerging technologies’ is a broad term for a range of tools and techniques that are at different stages of development. Examples of emerging technology include:

  • artificial intelligence and machine learning
  • distributed ledger technologies (DLT) or blockchain
  • quantum computing

But although emerging technologies are sometimes categorised together, some are more mature than others.

Several government organisations are already using artificial intelligence or machine learning in different ways. For example, GDS is using machine learning to process large amounts of data to aid human decision-making. And Oxford City Council is leading a group of local authorities in a joint discovery on how chatbots and AI might help to solve service design problems.

If you are considering using artificial intelligence, read the guidance on using artificial intelligence in the public sector.

Some government organisations are also funding research into quantum computing. This technology is in the theoretical phase and the government is unlikely to use this technology in the short term.

Join communities of interest

You can share your experiences and find out more about what other government organisations are doing in these areas on cross-government Slack. You will need to login with your government email to join the conversations.

You can also share knowledge about AI technologies with colleagues in other parts of the Civil Service using the government data science Slack workspace.

You can contact your CDDO senior DDaT advisor at cddoassurance@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk to discuss whether an emerging technology solution is right for your organisation.

Next: Technology Code of Practice point 10 - Make better use of data

Updates to this page

Published 6 November 2017
Last updated 24 July 2023 + show all updates

  1. Updates to CDDO email

  2. Addition of a temporary research survey to get user feedback on the Technology Code of Practice.

  3. Addition of a section on emerging technology

  4. First published.

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