Products for public: product thinking in the public sector

Hyperact hosted a panel discussion with digital and technology leaders from the Department for Education (DfE), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the BBC, and NHS England. The session explored the evolution of product roles in the public sector, the tension between product management and service delivery, and the unique challenges of building for citizens rather than consumers.

The discussion highlighted that while the craft of product management remains consistent between sectors, the definition of value, the weight of responsibility, and the complexity of funding models create a distinct environment for public sector product leaders.

Below are the key insights from the discussion.

The panel

• Shafiqa Dawood, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at the Department for Education (DfE)
• John Steward, Head of Product at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
• Monika Turska, Former Interim Director, Product and Design at the BBC
• Atif Ahmed, Head of Product at NHS England
• Michael Palmer, Senior Product Manager at the BBC
• Hosted by Sam Quayle, Co-founder of Hyperact

Questions

1. How is product defined in the public sector vs. the private sector?
2. What are the unique challenges of building and running products in the public sector?
3. How do service ownership and product thinking interact?
4. How do you perceive the role of central strategy, standards, and platforms related to product?
5. How do you measure impact and value in the public sector?
6. From the Q&A: Balancing cost, investment, and innovation

1. How is product defined in the public sector vs. the private sector?

In the public sector, the fundamentals of the product manager’s core toolkit are the same. Their goal is to find solutions that are valuable, feasible, and viable, but their motivation behind decisions is different.

• Public sector bodies operate a monopoly. Simply put, in the private sector, if your product is bad, you lose customers (churn). In the public sector, citizens cannot switch providers. For example, even if the tax system is hard to use, users still have to use it. This creates a monopoly mandate: a strict duty of care to make services work for everyone, not just the profitable segments.

• Universality is a necessary friction. In the private sector, teams can target specific market segments. In the public sector, the premise of ‘not leaving anyone behind’ challenges the concept of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This requires a balance between optimising for the majority and ensuring accessibility for all.

• Product is the service. In government, the distinction between a product and a service is often semantic. Real product management often begins after delivery. It requires iterating on live services, maintaining accountability, and avoiding the ‘declare victory and move on’ culture once a system goes live.

• Definition of product is broader. In complex ecosystems like the NHS, a product isn't always a digital application. It can be a framework, a standard, or a process. This broader definition requires inclusivity to ensure non-digital touchpoints are considered.

2. What are the unique challenges of building and running products in the public sector?

The way we allocate capital informs how we build software. Product teams in the public sector want to build fast, modern products, but the system is designed to fund isolated projects.

• Siloed capital expenditure (CapEx) creates fragmented architecture. Budgets are often allocated on a per-service or per-policy basis (Project Funding). This forces teams to bespoke solutions for specific funding pots rather than reusing existing platforms, leading to technical debt and duplication (e.g., building many different sign-in services).

• Systemic barriers are perennial. Historical reports on the civil service (dating back as far as 1968) highlight issues that still persist such as structural impediments to delivery, poor communication between divisions, and a lack of authority for specialists. Product managers are often the people pushing against these legacy structures, working within constraints to improve how services are delivered.

• Scrutiny dictates risk appetite. Public money is always coupled with scrutiny. This can lead to a focus on cost over value, or a fear of innovation (e.g., AI adoption) where safety risks such as clinical safety in healthcare must take precedence over speed.

• Operational risk dictates speed. In a startup, speed is the primary currency. In the NHS, safety is the currency. If a music app crashes, it is annoying. If a hospital AI gets a dose wrong, it can put lives at risk. As a result, public sector teams tend to prioritise outcomes like clinical safety over speed of deployment.

3. How do service ownership and product thinking interact?

Service ownership helps define what is non-negotiable from an ethical or societal standpoint (e.g., editorial independence or representing the whole country), while product thinking optimises the experience within those boundaries.

• Role ambiguity can cause tension. The proliferation of roles like Service Owners, Product Managers, Delivery Managers can lead to confusion over lanes and responsibilities. Organisations need to focus less on job titles and more on clear boundaries of ownership and shared outcomes.

• It bridges the digital/physical divide. Service Owner roles often emerge to codify the gap between digital products and complex, multi-channel real-world interactions. Good product management should encompass the end-to-end journey, but service ownership ensures non-digital outcomes are not ignored. Leaders must define clear domains of ownership that bridge the digital/physical divide.

• Ownership of the end-to-end journey is critical. If the app works but the physical letter is confusing, the service has failed. Explore how to map teams to value streams effectively in our guide to product topology.

4. How do you perceive the role of central strategy, standards, and platforms related to product?

Central standards are vital for avoiding duplication (e.g., preventing 20 different sign-in services), but they become problematic when they are top-down directives from those removed from delivery.

• Size helps shape the market. The public sector is a massive buyer with the leverage to force global changes. Rather than accepting off-the-shelf risks, the NHS used its weight to force major tech vendors to reclassify their AI tools as ‘medical devices’. If the public sector sets the safety bar, the market must follow.

• Innovation happens at the edge. The most effective solutions often come from frontline teams who understand the specific context, rather than from a central strategy unit. Effective standards should be informed by practitioners who have been there and done it.

• Unified architecture breaks down silos. Moving from business-unit-specific apps to a unified business layer allows data and content to flow freely. For the BBC, this meant decoupling content from specific News or Sport silos to deliver a personalised cross-platform experience.

5. How do you measure impact and value in the public sector?

Product teams must demonstrate that their presence creates value greater than the sum of their parts. This involves moving the narrative from ‘how much did we spend?’ (burn rate) to ‘what outcome did we achieve?’ (return on investment).

• Metrics must define value clearly. Without profit as a proxy, value must be defined by outcomes relevant to the charter or mission such as weekly active accounts to prove public utility for the BBC, or clinical safety improvements for the NHS.

• Aligning measurement is difficult but necessary. Different departments (e.g., Editorial vs. Product) may measure the same metric differently. Establishing a shared language and definitions is a prerequisite for success.

• Tracking digital spend remains a challenge. Traditional business case processes often fail to account for digital delivery mechanisms early enough. There is a move toward digitising governance to better track how investment translates to digital outcomes.

6. From the Q&A: Balancing cost, investment, and innovation

Innovation is a byproduct of culture, so assigning one person to be Head of Innovation can be misleading. True innovation is a team sport that occurs when cross-functional teams (product, design, engineering) solve real problems within constraints.

• Make costs visible to change behaviour. Teams should be aware of their burn rate. Visualising the cost of a sprint (e.g., ‘Is this slide deck worth £100k of public money?’) focuses the mind on value delivery.

• Reframe cost as investment. Shifting the language from cost to investment changes the mindset from minimising spend to maximising return.

• Fix incentives, not just titles. To encourage innovation, organisations must remove the bureaucratic barriers that prevent teams from fixing problems outside their immediate scope. Innovation requires permission to improve the system, not just the product.

• Diversify your vendor strategy. Innovation often dies in long contracts with massive incumbents. Departments like DEFRA have shifted their supply chain strategy to favor smaller, digital-native suppliers. These partners often move faster, cost less, and bring modern engineering practices that incumbents struggle to match.

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