January 20, 2026
8 min read
Executive President, Comsys
The conversation around public sector digital transformation often begins, and too often ends, with the announcement about the general availability of a digital service. We celebrate the launch, a press release follows, and the “go-live” is treated as the finish line.
For Information Officers and IT Directors who are responsible for these services, go-live is not the end. It is the beginning of the most demanding phase of the service lifecycle: reliability, security, compliance, and responsiveness. Implementing necessary changes requires continuous effort.
The real challenges start right after launching. When legislation is amended, Internal operational processes change. When data protection obligations such as the General Data Protection Regulation, and cybersecurity obligations under frameworks such as the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) require large-scale code refactoring. When a new registry is introduced and must exchange data with existing registries, repositories, platforms, and legacy systems, which are often built on different multi-vendor technologies, at different times, by various teams.
Digital public services are not static assets; they are living systems. And in a sector where accountability and long-term continuity matter, the real question is not “When will it be implemented?” but “How will it remain reliable, secure, and adaptable for the next, possibly, ten years?”
The “digital project” trap
There is a fundamental misunderstanding in how organizations evaluate progress in government information technology. We measure success by the number of projects delivered. Yet the pressure on public administration rarely comes from a single mega-project.
It comes from the accumulation of hundreds of small-to-medium changes required continuously:
● Adjustments to the operational, regulatory, and institutional framework
● New requirements from citizens and the government
● The daily reality of heterogeneous systems with a high degree of “embedded legacy” that must cooperate without problems
When every change is treated as a new standalone “project,” an organization eventually hits a wall. The queue of change requests grows faster than the capacity to implement. Even capable teams struggle to keep pace with the increasing demand for development of new applications, not because they lack talent or commitment, but because their application-layer software infrastructure is not designed to support continuous improvement and change.
The outcome is predictable. Maintenance consumes time that should be dedicated to improvement. Change becomes difficult, expensive, and risky. Teams become conservative, not by choice but by necessity. The organisation stops evolving, while demands are increasing.
From one-off delivery to continuous digital capability
Breaking this cycle requires a shift in mindset: from delivering digital projects to building a modern digital capability as the central application delivery to support application development and lifecycle management horizontally.
Digital capability is not a slogan. It is a practical operating model: the ability to deliver, update, and improve applications consistently with control.
This is where the low-code application development methodology plays a meaningful role when approached correctly. Low-code should not be viewed merely as a shortcut to “speed,” even though faster delivery is a substantial benefit. For the public sector, low-code becomes valuable when it is treated as a standardised framework for application development and lifecycle management, reducing variation in the underlying technology fabric, improving maintainability, bridging incompatibilities across technologies, design approaches, and software development practices, and supporting disciplined change management.
AI-powered capabilities further strengthen the low-code approach: AI accelerates application design, development, maintenance, and updates, supports consistent documentation, and enables assisted quality assurance processes that reduce errors. Especially when change is frequent, and the margin for risk is small.
Three principles for sustainable public sector application lifecycle management
When low-code is adopted as a governed approach, rather than a tactical tool, it can unlock repeatable advantages across an entire portfolio of public services. The focus is not on one application. It is the mechanism that produces many applications over time.
A. Speed with control: governance as an enabler
In the public sector, speed cannot come at the expense of accuracy, legality, and security. These are not negotiable.
When processes and their supporting logic change frequently, standardization becomes the safety net. A well-governed, low-code environment enables change management by reducing the “variation factor”. The objective is not to move quickly by cutting corners, but to move confidently through discipline: standardized components, built-in guardrails, and precise role-based controls for safe and repeatable change management.
Low-code platforms reduce change implementation time and the likelihood of introducing errors that are difficult to detect and costly to correct later.
B. Reducing technical debt through standardization and AI-powered capabilities
Technical debt is the silent constraint on public-sector digital transformation projects. It accumulates every time a solution is implemented without adequate design, documentation, code development, and testing, often under legitimate pressure to meet deadlines.
Over time, organizations become dependent on individuals who “remember how it works.” When knowledge is not embedded in the system, continuity becomes fragile, especially over the years, internal personnel transitions, and vendor changes.
A mature low-code approach helps reduce the structural causes of technical debt through industry-standard mechanisms. It supports consistent patterns for workflows and data structures, automates documentation, and reduces fragmentation introduced by ad hoc technology choices. The result is simpler maintenance and safer evolution over time.
AI-powered capabilities reinforce this discipline by accelerating routine engineering work, such as producing initial drafts of models, workflows, user interfaces, and documentation, and by automating code and system testing. consistency. The engineering discipline remains essential, and low-code makes it easier to apply consistently, so the ‘right way’ becomes the default.
C. Interoperability as a permanent condition. Interoperability is too often treated as a one-time bridge built for a specific river. But in a modern state, systems must exchange data constantly with tax authorities, social security systems, banks, and other European software platforms. The challenge is that many of these systems were built using different technologies and architectural assumptions, which makes coordination and change harder over time.
Interoperability is not a project milestone. It is a permanent operational condition.
A governed low-code platform supports this by enabling reusable integration interfaces. Instead of creating a new integration from scratch each time, organizations can use secure, reusable integration components developed centrally.
The shift is significant: from one-off integrations to repeatable integration capability.
Built for high-accountability environments
Public sector teams operate in an environment where resources are finite.. The people responsible for application management are accountable for processes, legality, continuity, and trust. They do not need more complexity. They need tools and frameworks that amplify effectiveness while preserving control.
A realistic approach to modernization does not begin with rewriting everything. It starts by selecting high-impact applications where the benefits of standardization are visible quickly, and where organizations learn how to operate the new model.
Examples include:
● High-change services: applications where rules and workflows change frequently (for example, benefits, licensing, and eligibility processes).
● Integration-heavy applications: cases where multiple systems must exchange data, and manual reconciliation slows down decision-making and service delivery.
● Operational efficiency hindering points: internal tools that reduce back-office workload and streamline frontline administrative processes, freeing public servants to focus on service quality.
The mechanism matters more than the milestone
The public sector has shown it can achieve rapid results when there is a clear goal and collective focus. The next step is more demanding but far more valuable: establishing a mechanism for continuous application production and evolution of public services.
Quality is not an attribute that must be present in the first version of a digital service. It is essential to see how quickly, reliably, and securely the service can improve in the future. Without losing control, without multiplying complexity, and without creating unwanted risks.
This is the lens through which we approach low-code at Jaggle.eu: not as a promise to “deliver applications faster,” but as a platform to impose discipline to build quality software and sustain digital capability in high-accountability environments. With AI-powered capabilities embedded in the platform, the goal becomes even more practical: accelerating changes and updates, improving quality through automated assisted testing and consistency checks, and reducing the friction that slows public services after go-live.
About the Author
Vassilis Galakos is an experienced information technology executive with more than 35 years of leadership and hands-on involvement in enterprise ICT initiatives across telecom, banking, utilities, and the public sector.
Vassilis holds a graduate degree in Applied Biomechanics from Indiana University and has strong background in the design, delivery, and evolution of complex technology projects with responsibilities spanning strategic planning, technology direction, and executive oversight.
He is the Founder and Executive President of Comsys.
Executive President, Comsys
The conversation around public sector digital transformation often begins, and too often ends, with the announcement about the general availability of a digital service. We celebrate the launch, a press release follows, and the “go-live” is treated as the finish line.
For Information Officers and IT Directors who are responsible for these services, go-live is not the end. It is the beginning of the most demanding phase of the service lifecycle: reliability, security, compliance, and responsiveness. Implementing necessary changes requires continuous effort.
The real challenges start right after launching. When legislation is amended, Internal operational processes change. When data protection obligations such as the General Data Protection Regulation, and cybersecurity obligations under frameworks such as the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) require large-scale code refactoring. When a new registry is introduced and must exchange data with existing registries, repositories, platforms, and legacy systems, which are often built on different multi-vendor technologies, at different times, by various teams.
Digital public services are not static assets; they are living systems. And in a sector where accountability and long-term continuity matter, the real question is not “When will it be implemented?” but “How will it remain reliable, secure, and adaptable for the next, possibly, ten years?”
The “digital project” trap
There is a fundamental misunderstanding in how organizations evaluate progress in government information technology. We measure success by the number of projects delivered. Yet the pressure on public administration rarely comes from a single mega-project.
It comes from the accumulation of hundreds of small-to-medium changes required continuously:
● Adjustments to the operational, regulatory, and institutional framework
● New requirements from citizens and the government
● The daily reality of heterogeneous systems with a high degree of “embedded legacy” that must cooperate without problems
When every change is treated as a new standalone “project,” an organization eventually hits a wall. The queue of change requests grows faster than the capacity to implement. Even capable teams struggle to keep pace with the increasing demand for development of new applications, not because they lack talent or commitment, but because their application-layer software infrastructure is not designed to support continuous improvement and change.
The outcome is predictable. Maintenance consumes time that should be dedicated to improvement. Change becomes difficult, expensive, and risky. Teams become conservative, not by choice but by necessity. The organisation stops evolving, while demands are increasing.
From one-off delivery to continuous digital capability
Breaking this cycle requires a shift in mindset: from delivering digital projects to building a modern digital capability as the central application delivery to support application development and lifecycle management horizontally.
Digital capability is not a slogan. It is a practical operating model: the ability to deliver, update, and improve applications consistently with control.
This is where the low-code application development methodology plays a meaningful role when approached correctly. Low-code should not be viewed merely as a shortcut to “speed,” even though faster delivery is a substantial benefit. For the public sector, low-code becomes valuable when it is treated as a standardised framework for application development and lifecycle management, reducing variation in the underlying technology fabric, improving maintainability, bridging incompatibilities across technologies, design approaches, and software development practices, and supporting disciplined change management.
AI-powered capabilities further strengthen the low-code approach: AI accelerates application design, development, maintenance, and updates, supports consistent documentation, and enables assisted quality assurance processes that reduce errors. Especially when change is frequent, and the margin for risk is small.
Three principles for sustainable public sector application lifecycle management
When low-code is adopted as a governed approach, rather than a tactical tool, it can unlock repeatable advantages across an entire portfolio of public services. The focus is not on one application. It is the mechanism that produces many applications over time.
A. Speed with control: governance as an enabler
In the public sector, speed cannot come at the expense of accuracy, legality, and security. These are not negotiable.
When processes and their supporting logic change frequently, standardization becomes the safety net. A well-governed, low-code environment enables change management by reducing the “variation factor”. The objective is not to move quickly by cutting corners, but to move confidently through discipline: standardized components, built-in guardrails, and precise role-based controls for safe and repeatable change management.
Low-code platforms reduce change implementation time and the likelihood of introducing errors that are difficult to detect and costly to correct later.
B. Reducing technical debt through standardization and AI-powered capabilities
Technical debt is the silent constraint on public-sector digital transformation projects. It accumulates every time a solution is implemented without adequate design, documentation, code development, and testing, often under legitimate pressure to meet deadlines.
Over time, organizations become dependent on individuals who “remember how it works.” When knowledge is not embedded in the system, continuity becomes fragile, especially over the years, internal personnel transitions, and vendor changes.
A mature low-code approach helps reduce the structural causes of technical debt through industry-standard mechanisms. It supports consistent patterns for workflows and data structures, automates documentation, and reduces fragmentation introduced by ad hoc technology choices. The result is simpler maintenance and safer evolution over time.
AI-powered capabilities reinforce this discipline by accelerating routine engineering work, such as producing initial drafts of models, workflows, user interfaces, and documentation, and by automating code and system testing. consistency. The engineering discipline remains essential, and low-code makes it easier to apply consistently, so the ‘right way’ becomes the default.
C. Interoperability as a permanent condition. Interoperability is too often treated as a one-time bridge built for a specific river. But in a modern state, systems must exchange data constantly with tax authorities, social security systems, banks, and other European software platforms. The challenge is that many of these systems were built using different technologies and architectural assumptions, which makes coordination and change harder over time.
Interoperability is not a project milestone. It is a permanent operational condition.
A governed low-code platform supports this by enabling reusable integration interfaces. Instead of creating a new integration from scratch each time, organizations can use secure, reusable integration components developed centrally.
The shift is significant: from one-off integrations to repeatable integration capability.
Built for high-accountability environments
Public sector teams operate in an environment where resources are finite.. The people responsible for application management are accountable for processes, legality, continuity, and trust. They do not need more complexity. They need tools and frameworks that amplify effectiveness while preserving control.
A realistic approach to modernization does not begin with rewriting everything. It starts by selecting high-impact applications where the benefits of standardization are visible quickly, and where organizations learn how to operate the new model.
Examples include:
● High-change services: applications where rules and workflows change frequently (for example, benefits, licensing, and eligibility processes).
● Integration-heavy applications: cases where multiple systems must exchange data, and manual reconciliation slows down decision-making and service delivery.
● Operational efficiency hindering points: internal tools that reduce back-office workload and streamline frontline administrative processes, freeing public servants to focus on service quality.
The mechanism matters more than the milestone
The public sector has shown it can achieve rapid results when there is a clear goal and collective focus. The next step is more demanding but far more valuable: establishing a mechanism for continuous application production and evolution of public services.
Quality is not an attribute that must be present in the first version of a digital service. It is essential to see how quickly, reliably, and securely the service can improve in the future. Without losing control, without multiplying complexity, and without creating unwanted risks.
This is the lens through which we approach low-code at Jaggle.eu: not as a promise to “deliver applications faster,” but as a platform to impose discipline to build quality software and sustain digital capability in high-accountability environments. With AI-powered capabilities embedded in the platform, the goal becomes even more practical: accelerating changes and updates, improving quality through automated assisted testing and consistency checks, and reducing the friction that slows public services after go-live.
About the Author
Vassilis Galakos is an experienced information technology executive with more than 35 years of leadership and hands-on involvement in enterprise ICT initiatives across telecom, banking, utilities, and the public sector.
Vassilis holds a graduate degree in Applied Biomechanics from Indiana University and has strong background in the design, delivery, and evolution of complex technology projects with responsibilities spanning strategic planning, technology direction, and executive oversight.
He is the Founder and Executive President of Comsys.
