Why "Best Practices" Won't Fix Federal IT

Comment

Comment by Dennis McDonald on February 10, 2011 at 6:57am

There are a variety of systems that simplify messaging by making presence information available, thus reducing reliance on email and phone. Combining presence notification with some type of expertise information that announces to a group both availability and expertise might also be helpful, though how to combine expertise granularity with reputation without having to build and maintain some sort of background mechanism that overcomes problems with voting based reputation systems seems a challenge. I'm back to thinking that reducing barriers to establishing real relationships with experts located in other organizations might by itself be a cost effective solution.

Comment by Richard Schrader on February 9, 2011 at 9:49am

Best Practices CAN fix Federal IT (with a caveat).
Millions of dollars are earnestly spent on worthwhile reviews of costly processes in every agency. Lean Six Sigma, TQM and all the various names for process review mean well. They tend to deliver honest results and, in some cases, parts of the recommendations actually get implemented.
The problem is that rarely is a process improvement automated to enforce the improvement. And there are reasons for that. But first, if you do not automate the process improvement, then people have a tendency to slowly drift away from the intended improvement. Push back, short cuts, do more with less; all cause the improvement to be skewed in short order.
So why not automate the process improvement? There are many reasons, some good, some not so good. The biggest problem is not funding. Why? Traditionally people look at an automation project from the rip and replace view. You ask IT and IT says yes I can do that with 10 million lines of codes in 18 months. Of course that is expensive. Until IT understands and embraces newer technologies such as BPM, that will continue.
Those federal agencies that have embraced BPM no longer look at producing monstrous systems. They understand that you can take part of a process, automate it, and then evolve it. You cannot do that with traditional approaches to IT solutions.
BPM is far less expensive and can deliver results in half the time, sometimes sooner. BPM is extremely flexible. It can be configured in a cloud and then picked up and put into production behind a firewall. BPM is mobile. Leading BPM vendors have the functionality available today to monitor, collaborate and take action all from mobile devices.
Many will say that a best practice at one agency “is different than they way we do it”. OK. That is another reason for BPM. BPM is flexible and changes can be made quickly to adapt to changing or different situations. Very little coding is needed, if any.

Comment by GovLoop on February 9, 2011 at 8:14am

@Bill - love Nancy's work

 

How about having a volunteer (or paid) core of folks whose whole job was to be a resource (a call a friend) for project managers?  Think about all the great project managers starting to retire.  Thinking of my father - a retired project manager from federal government - I'm sure he'd sign up to help out for a block (half a day on Thursdays or something like that)

Comment by Dennis McDonald on February 9, 2011 at 7:52am

Betchacookie most people will use the documentation to locate the expert to contact. I say, cut out that step and go directly to a system that helps people locate and communicate with the people who have the expertise.

Comment by Bill Brantley on February 8, 2011 at 10:01pm

@GovLoop - Referring to your question about Kundra's #10 goal:

It is still a good idea but I would focus more on the collaboration aspect over the searchable best practices database. I am assuming that the best practices submissions will follow a template to make the codification easier. What would be a valuable addition is an archive of video briefings where trained debriefers would interview the project managers on the lessons learned from their projects. A good model to follow is the Army's Lessons Learned process.

Comment by GovLoop on February 8, 2011 at 9:21pm

David - was talking to a fed the other day whose division oversee about 50+ projects and he said his biggest issue was all the reporting requirements.   I kind of agree and deals with your comment below

 

Serving 5 masters, dealing with scope creep, lack of cross communication or agreements, trying to hit a moving expectations target, changing objectives, lack of standards, layer upon layer of bureaucratic oversight

Comment by GovLoop on February 8, 2011 at 9:19pm

I actually use Chatter - it's pretty cool.

Comment by GovLoop on February 8, 2011 at 9:19pm

What do you think would be ideal version of Kundra's #10 goal in his top 25 initiative

 

10. Launch a best practices collaboration platformWithin six months, the Federal CIO Council will develop a collaboration portal to exchange best practices, case studies, and allow for real-time problem solving . To institutionalize this best practice sharing, agency PMs will submit post-implementation reviews of their major program deliveries to the portal .These reviews will populate a searchable database of synthesized and codified program management best practices that all PMs can access

Comment by David Dejewski on February 7, 2011 at 9:36pm

Bill - I feel like we hijacked Dennis discussion a bit here, but I promised to follow up.
They are using a combination of private time lines, DM's, hash tags to organize, and protocols (group business rules) to control workflow and security. I'm happy to share more specific details with you off line or in another forum of your choosing if you like.

I agree with you. I think the half time show audio system could have used a boost.

Comment by Bill Brantley on February 7, 2011 at 6:37am

@David - Searched LifeHacker and this is what it had: GroupTweet

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