How to optimise resources, reduce waste, and improve delivery Without compromising service quality

The hidden cost of “more”

In public sector digital delivery, we’re often under pressure to do more with less. Budgets tighten, expectations grow, and yet the mandate to deliver user-centred, high-quality services never goes away. The natural reaction is often to add: more meetings, more artefacts, more controls. But in my experience, more doesn’t always mean better. In fact, it’s often the opposite.

I’ve worked on several large-scale programmes where good intentions led to bloated governance, duplicated effort, and exhausted teams. Yet, when things did work—when delivery felt efficient, focused, and aligned—it wasn’t because we had more resource or time. It was because we were intentional. We understood where to focus our effort, where to step back, and how to deliver value without waste.

This article is about what I’ve learned from those moments. It’s about how to optimise—not by cutting corners, but by being smarter about where energy goes. It’s for leaders trying to build sustainable teams and for practitioners like me who want to do impactful work without burning out.

Start with purpose, not process

One of the most common traps I see in digital projects is a focus on process over purpose. Teams become absorbed in templates, rituals, and frameworks — forgetting why they’re doing the work in the first place.

I once joined a project mid-flight that had weekly playback sessions, daily stand-ups, retros every sprint, and a range of parallel boards and trackers. On the surface, it looked agile. But the team were exhausted. Their focus had shifted from solving user problems to servicing the process.

The first thing we did was stop. We asked: “What decisions are we trying to make, and what’s the simplest way to support those?” We pared back the ceremonies. We aligned around goals. Suddenly, people had time to think. They used their judgement again, not just the playbook.

Optimising delivery isn’t about stripping things back for the sake of it. It’s about reconnecting every activity to a clear purpose. Ask, “What decision does this artefact enable?” “Who benefits from this ceremony?” “What’s the smallest version of this that still adds value?”

Focus on the right problems

Another form of waste I see is the pursuit of elegant solutions to the wrong problems. Teams dive into delivery without a shared understanding of the problem space. Research is rushed, or worse, replaced by assumptions from stakeholders. Time is spent building features that nobody needs.

As a business analyst, I see my role as protecting the clarity of the problem. That means slowing things down—just enough—to ask the uncomfortable questions: “Why are we solving this?” “What’s the underlying need?” “Is there already a better way?”

On one project, we were asked to digitise a manual form process. Instead of jumping straight into user stories, we spent time observing how users interacted with the existing process. What we discovered was that the form wasn’t the problem — it was the need for the form. A simple policy change made half the requests unnecessary. The solution wasn’t a new service. It was less service.

Sometimes the best optimisation is subtraction.

Build shared understanding, not just artefacts

In pressured environments, documentation is often used as a proxy for alignment. But documents don’t deliver services — people do. Optimising delivery means investing in shared understanding, not just shared folders.

I’ve seen teams spend weeks crafting detailed service blueprints or solution architecture diagrams, only to discover that delivery teams interpret them in wildly different ways. The problem isn’t the artefact — it’s the absence of dialogue.

In one programme, we shifted our focus from documents to conversations. Instead of handing off static outputs, we ran short working sessions that brought teams together around problems. We sketched rough flows together. We annotated research findings in the open. We built a culture of showing work early, inviting challenge, and building alignment through interaction, not presentation.

The time we “lost” in those sessions saved us far more downstream. Fewer reworks. Clearer scope. Stronger trust.

Be honest about capacity and trade-offs

Optimisation isn’t always about efficiency. Sometimes it’s about knowing your limits — and being honest about what’s realistic. I’ve been on projects where unrealistic ambition led to spiralling rework, as teams tried to retrofit quality into rushed outputs. It never ends well.

Part of my role now is to help teams make smarter trade-offs. That might mean identifying which features can launch in beta and which genuinely need to be there from day one. It might mean proposing a leaner discovery to validate a direction before mobilising a large team. Or it might mean advising a sponsor that the best thing we can do right now is pause.

One senior stakeholder I worked with valued speed above all else — until we showed them how much delivery time was being spent correcting avoidable upstream decisions. Once they saw the data, they changed course. We were able to reframe “slow” as “investing to go faster later.”

You don’t optimise delivery by working harder. You do it by making better decisions about what matters most, right now.

Respect quality — but redefine it

There’s a fear in some teams that optimisation means reducing quality. But quality isn’t about polish — it’s about purpose. Does this meet a real need? Can users succeed without help? Is it resilient under real-world conditions?

In one discovery, we spent too much time designing the perfect prototype. It looked great in demos. But when we tested with users, they struggled. The design had become about aesthetics, not function. We had to go back and simplify.

Now I push for earlier testing of rough ideas. I encourage teams to define quality based on user outcomes, not stakeholder preferences. And I remind them that quality is cumulative — it’s what you build over time, not just what you show in a sprint review.

When you shift from a mindset of “getting it right” to “getting it working,” you unlock faster feedback, smarter learning, and ultimately better outcomes.

Final thoughts: working smarter isn’t just a slogan

Optimising delivery doesn’t mean sacrificing quality, slowing down unnecessarily, or asking teams to do more with less. It means being more intentional. It means aligning your ways of working with your actual goals. And it means building a culture where clarity, focus, and collaboration are valued as much as output.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that waste creeps in quietly — through unchecked assumptions, unchallenged processes, or unquestioned habits. But so does optimisation — through reflection, curiosity, and a willingness to ask, “Is there a better way?”

So I’ll leave you with this:

Where in your current programme is energy being spent without impact? And what small change could shift that?