Public institutions rarely lack ambition for modernisation. What they lack is room to manoeuvre: multi-year framework contracts, formal approval cycles and the obligation to keep every public service running while anything changes.
Treating those constraints as obstacles leads to plans that stall at the first governance board. Treating them as design inputs leads to plans that get approved and delivered.
Sequence around contract boundaries
Map every system to the contract that covers it and the date that contract can change. The migration sequence should follow those dates, not fight them.
Make each step independently valuable
Approval cycles are long, and priorities shift between them. Each release window should leave the institution better off even if the next one is delayed.
Build capability alongside the change
The institution has to run what is delivered, often for a decade. Embedding its own staff in delivery teams from the start is cheaper than a handover, and far more reliable.