Government and IT in Transition: Choosing Goals, Mobilizing Support, Taking Action

The Leadership for a Networked World Advisory Group June 2011

Report of the Leadership for a Networked World 2011 Symposium

Creative Commons

Foreword
Many governments today are under enormous financial and political pressure. Over the long term they are also pushed by aging populations, the costs of health care, and jobs lost to a rapidly evolving and global knowledge-based economy. As a result, people are scared, and appropriately so. We report here on an analysis of strategic responses, especially those made possible by IT-enabled innovations in how we organize work. Given todays problems and possibilities, what should be the key goals for governments, how can we mobilize support for those goals, and how can we turn support into successful action? Our analysis began with a seminar which assembled 16 undergraduate and graduate students in a traditional Harvard classroom and augmented their studies with online discussions engaging roughly 40 practitioners from around the globe. This work fed a 2day symposium for the students and x senior government leaders from the U.S. and Canada. The symposium generated conclusions and recommendations that focus on: Key goals. These include the next wave of online services (new broadband, wireless, and self-service opportunities), open government initiatives (fostering expanded internal and external collaboration), and new business models (to better balance commitments and resources). Sources of support. These include government leaders, especially chief elected officials, chief operating officers, budget directors, and heads of public communications. Action channels. These include the bureaucratic processes that recruit staff, support internal and external communications, and produce the budget.

In transitioning to an older society and a knowledge-based economy, we need to keep up with IT-based innovations, not just for IT services themselves (collecting, storing, communicating, and processing information) but for using IT to improve government and its impacts on the broader society. The program we recommend is feasible but not easy. Threatened as they are, some jurisdictions will continue to see their wealth, social cohesion, and accountability erode and possibly fall apart. The stakes are enormous. To succeed, we need smart choices supported by swift and sustained implementation. Jerry Mechling Chair, Leadership for a Networked World Advisory Group Adjunct Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School, and Research VP, Gartner

Contents

Foreword ............................................................................................................................... Problem: Responding to todays Political and Technological Situation ............................. Analytic Framework: Tapping Frontline Experience .......................................................... Choosing Goals ................................................................................................................... Mobilizing Support .............................................................................................................. Taking Action ...................................................................................................................... Recommendations and Conclusions .................................................................................... Appendices A. Survey Questions .................................................................................................... B. Participants: HPG, Students, Online ........................................................................ C. Selected Bibliography ............................................................................................. D. End Notes ................................................................................................................. Figures and Tables:

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Government and IT in Transition: Choosing Goals, Mobilizing Support, Taking Action

The Leadership for a Networked World Advisory Group June 2011

Many governments today are torn by economic and political pressures worse than any since the Great Depression. People are angry and demand change. While technologyenabled innovations are newly available to improve government performance, they are not getting much in the way of useful attention and resources. This paper assesses possible solutions. Which of the many IT-related innovations now emerging offer the best opportunities for improving how governments work? What should leaders do to mobilize support and take action? The analysis that follows is based on surveys augmented by face-to-face and online dialog among federal, state, local, and international researchers and practitioners.1 It first describes the problem; then analyzes critical goals, sources of support, and action channels; and finishes with recommendations for what needs to be done.

The Problem: Responding to todays Political and Technological Situation

Societies function through increasingly complex divisions of labor, with jobs coordinated through a balance of individual initiative and collective authority. Over time we have taken advantage of better transportation and communications to develop ever larger organizations and governments. These trends continue, now driven and shaped by digital data, processing, and networks. The productivity of digital technologies has exploded for the past 50 years. More importantly, we have used these new technologies to foster innovations and networked interactions that penetrate and extend beyond the boundaries of previously established organizations and governments. As a result, we have been changing the content of jobs and moving them to distant locations. This has created huge impacts both positive and negative on productivity, the distribution of incomes and wealth, and the legitimacy of governments. The stress of structural change has combined with aging populations to create yet more stress. To respond successfully, societies must find ways to provide good workers at a good price along with a cost-effective legal, transportation, and information infrastructure.
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In this context the U.S. is clearly challenged. Our productivity is rising, but not as fast as elsewhere. We face high unemployment, a growing gap between rich and poor, decaying transportation capabilities, and only a so-so information infrastructure. Our high school students, representing the next generation of our work force, score only 30th in global tests. Our health care costs are high and poised to grow even higher. We must respond. We must resolve the deficit and productivity problems. We must prepare for an aging population and a global, knowledge-based economy. Fortunately, the mid-term elections of 2010 have created credible mandates for change for many new administrations. As these administrations take shape, and as existing administrations also respond, there is an important window of opportunity for major new initiatives. In this context, what are the key options and how should they be assessed?

Analysis Framework: Tapping Frontline Experience

Our analysis has tapped heavily into recent research and the experience of government leaders to assess the value, feasibility, and overall priority of relevant options. Value and feasibility. This analysis assesses options for their expected value, implementation feasibility, and overall priority. Key elements of value were: Productivity, or the ratio of value produced for resources expended. We sought activities that would maximize government performance per dollar consumed. Equity, or fairness in the distribution of results. We wanted activities to properly protect the interests of those who cant protect themselves. Legitimacy, or trust that the government is competently serving the public interest. We want our government agents to be transparenct and accountable to the public.

The key elements of feasibility were: Involvement, or the priority currently given to the activities we assessed. In general, activities getting attention are more feasible than those that arent. Confusion, or the degree to which those needing to act may not know what to do or how to do it. Activities with knowledgable supporters are more feasibly implemented. Conflict, or the degree to which those who need to act may think that action is not in their interest. Activities are more feasibly implemented when the actors truly want to perform well.

Our analysis combined value and feasibility into an overall priority assessment by giving appropriate (usually equal) weight to each.
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Options assessed. To take advantage of todays window of opportunity, we focused on choosing goals, mobilizing supporters, and taking bureaucratic action. More specifically, we looked into three initiatives each within the following: Choosing Goals: We focused on: 1. The next wave of online government regulations and services 2. Open government and related needs for collaboration and transparency 3. New business models to balance revenues against commitments Mobilizing Supporters: We focused on: 4. Overseers, or those who authorize and control government action 5. Staff Officers, or those managing support services for government activities 6. Line Managers, or those producing government regulations and services Taking Bureaucratic Action: We focused on: 7. Recruitment, or the process for bringing new employees into government 8. Planning, or the process of making commitments for future action 9. Communications, or the process of providing information to various stakeholders 10. Performance Management, or the process of measuring feedback and taking corrective action Analysis. We proceeded via four major steps. First, we organized a course with readings, online discussions, and classroom sessions to understand the decision context and develop our understanding of objectives and alternatives. Next we constructed a survey to assess the impacts of alternatives on objectives; this produced quantitative data along with explanations and examples for further analysis. We used the survey in a two-day workshop to further shape our thinking. Finally, we worked through several drafts to create the report presented below. This process was designed primarily to augment and tap the experience of frontline leaders. We believe that the results should be of interest to those developing their own responses to similar problems.

Choosing Goals
The goals we analyzed were suggested by a tough times analysis conducted last year. That work identified three critical priorities: 1) the next wave of online services, 2) open government initiatives, and 3) new business models. This year we went deeper to identify priority elements of these initiatives that deserve attention. Below we describe the alternatives and then present our assessments of their value, feasibility, and priority. Alternatives. We assessed elements within each of our three major initiatives:

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The next wave of online government regulations and services. This work will extend the online, not in line services that have been well developed and received over the past decade or so. Elements we assessed were: 1. Broadband Take advantage of the speed and interactivity that make it possible to interact through graphics, sound, and video as well as text. An example from the California Department of Motor Vehicles is test preparation materials as videos on YouTube in addition to the traditional booklets. 2. Wireless Reach workers and citizens away from their desks with ready to hand information and interactivity. An example is the Boston Citizens Connect iPhone application that has increased citizen inputs and suggestions as well as citizen satisfaction. 3. Self-service Improve service efficiency by allowing workers and the public to take over more of the work by interacting with well-designed software. Examples include employees selecting their own HR benefits and citizens using online language courses and participating in neighborhood watch activities. Open government and related needs for collaboration and transparency. This work will expand recent efforts to take advantage of government data and social networking. Elements we assessed were: 4. Data release Release data to the public in machine-readable form unless prevented by privacy or security concerns. Examples include GPS data (which has been used by bus companies to let riders see where their buses are) and huge volumes of other operating data (e.g., crimes, payment card purchases, consultant time sheets, school test results, hospital procedure results, tax collection results, etc.). 5. Internal collaboration Release the cognitive surplus of employees through blogs, wikis, prediction markets, and social networking sites. Examples include Intellipedia, Diplopedia, and information made available to human service caseworkers or criminal investigators through newly rich sources like Facebook. 6. External collaboration Tap crowdsourcing expertise and creativity through digital communications and social networking tools. Examples include the Peer to Patent project, neighborhood watch programs, and efforts to engage the public through apps for democracy and other initiatives. New business models to balance revenues against commitments. This work will solve the deficit problem on a long-term basis. 7. Volunteers: Solve public problems using unpaid volunteers to the extend possible. Examples include family-provided observation of stay-at-home elderly, staffing government hotlines with interested citizens (mothers who have used parks and recreation services giving advice to others), and greater reliance on open source software.
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8. New Revenues: Develop revenues that reflect the global service economy, more like the Value Added Taxes of most developed economies. This will require some new taxes, some new service fees, and some elimination of tax loopholes or unaffordable priorities (such as the mortgage deduction). 9. Service Cutbacks: Reduce government commitments to match available revenues, hitting the previously untouchable categories of the military, Medicare, and social security. NOTE ZERO DRAFT STOPS HERE, NOTES BELOW SHOW STRUCTURE BUT NOT WORDS Analysis. Present and describe the table and graphic with the survey value and feasibility scores. Then explain general observations and the top ideas in detail.
GOALS Online Services Broadband Wireless Self-Service Open Govt Data Int'l Collab Ext'l Collab Bus. Models Volunteers Revenues Cutbacks Inv 3.81 3.48 3.70 3.35 3.30 3.21 3.00 3.37 3.68 Val ??? XXX Feas V+F Rank 1 3 2 6 4 5 7 8 9

4.29 2.35 2.52 4.29 2.75 2.90 4.35 2.85 2.65 4.20 3.50 3.55 4.25 3.20 2.95 4.37 3.05 3.42 4.00 3.40 2.85 4.26 3.63 3.84 4.11 3.74 4.37

3.65 3.97 3.28 3.78 3.40 3.88 2.77 3.48 3.05 3.65 2.91 3.64 2.92 3.46 2.63 3.45 2.52 3.32

Key observations: Top involvement in next wave of online services and cutbacks. No surprise, as been working for many years to extend services, and the recent budget screams for cutback decisions. Top value in online services and external collaboration. Represents commitment to continued work in all elements of online services. In contrast, external collaboration seen as potentially important new opportunity for efficiency and transparency. Newness itself is of value politically. Mild but not major shifts because of difficulty. Online services easier to implement than the other alternatives, and the new forms of collaboration have been largely self-organized and voluntarily supported so far. Services and collaboration are thus unlike cutbacks and proposals for new revenue both of which face strong opposition.

The top priorities, in more detail:

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Broadband Self-service Wireless Internal Collaboration

Final note on choosing goals. Transition to mobilizing support.

Mobilizing Support
Range of options. Need support from all, and could be stopped by almost any of these stakeholder groups if sufficiently mobilized. Looking for how to get started and to allocate limited expertise and energy in getting support. EXTERNAL SUPPORT the sources of authority and resources 1. The public: those who care about the resources that governments consume and the results that governments achieve, including issues of efficiency, equity, and legitimacy. The public rarely pays much attention to government management, but is increasingly aware of networked communications and services. 2. Legislators: those with relevant constituencies and influence over the allocation of resources and authority. Legislators need visibility that typically comes from narrowly-defined issues and events. Legislators are aware that, while the public isnt calling for IT-enabled government, IT is increasingly essential for campaign success and a catalyst for change. 3. Chief elected officials: the President, Governors, Mayors, et. al. those with maximum executive authority and responsibility for gaining support for government priorities. CEOs typically have only a handful of issues that are their own priorities, but must respond to powerful outside forces and communication with the public that may either create or destroy their progress and legacy. STAFF OFFICERS 4. Budget directors: those responsible to the jurisdiction and CEO for allocating and reporting on the use of funds. Budget directors must keep expenses at or below revenues on an annual basis while investing in longer-term change including ITenabled change as justified by expected returns. 5. HR directors: those responsible to the jurisdiction and CEO for recruiting and supporting staff for government work. HR directors run costly enterprise-wide staff services and bear much of the brunt in negotiating issues of change including IT-enabled change with frontline managers and staff. 6. Procurement officers: those responsible to the jurisdiction and CEO for acquiring external products and services to support the work of the government. Procurement officers run operations where mistakes are typically understood as
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much more visible and important than successes, with procedures designed for known commodities rather than hard-to-predict services and innovations such as those typically involved with IT acquisitions. LINE OFFICERS 7. Chief Operating Officers: those responsible to the CEO for daily operations and innovations inside the government. COOs are typically the person given the most authority by the CEO over internal operations and innovations including the development of the management scorecard for the administration. 8. Department Heads: those responsible to the CEO for leadership of the operations that deliver services to the public. Department heads are responsible for knowing and contributing to policy in their specific domains and implementing those policies through departmental procedures and operations that, in some but not all cases, are increasingly dependent on the governments information infrastructure. 9. Departmental managers and staff: those responsible to department heads for daily operations and innovations within the various service delivery organizations. Departmental staff and line managers are the majority of employees of government, and the ones in the front lines dealing with the procedures and problems of daily operations and innovations, many of which involve information technologies. * * * The survey assessments are presented below.
SUPPORT External Public Legislators CEOs Staff Officers Budget Dir. Procurement HR Officer Line Officers COO Dept Heads Mgrs + Staff Inv 2.72 2.89 3.44 3.78 3.39 3.22 3.47 3.22 3.06 Val ??? XXX Feas V+F Rank 7 8 2 3 5 6 1 4 8

3.39 3.61 3.22 3.44 3.56 3.78 4.28 3.17 3.44 3.89 2.83 3.39 3.50 2.83 3.44 3.50 3.39 3.44 4.06 2.65 3.06 3.78 3.22 3.61 3.29 3.29 3.76

2.63 3.01 2.52 2.98 2.94 3.61 3.19 3.54 3.04 3.27 2.80 3.15 3.25 3.66 2.80 3.29 2.67 2.98

Key stakeholders: COO, CEO, Budget Director. Nothing surprising. Except many CIOs dont have much access, and tend to prefer to be out of sight. Maybe OK when
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incremental adjustment and departments are allowed to keep their resources. In normal times, IT productivity makes room for trying new things within same budget. But when major cuts required, thats dangerous, especially if you believe, as we do, that IT is a properly elastic good. When unit cost drops, IT should be increasing its portion of the budget. When serious innovation is required to leap closer to the production possibility curve, we need additional investments, not less. This is difficult of course. But its impossible if a serious case is not made. In reading senior leaders, need to let each see big picture, and how it can help them with THEIR big picture. For COOs, benefits of reengineering and performance measurement. Governor Malley. Is he the good one? Talk to CompStat and Bratton in NYC and LA???? For CEOs, must show how technology links well to stated objectives of CEO if education, education; if productivity, productivity; etc. For IT agenda to have internal legitimacy, and the progress that provides, easier if staff believe CIO is on the inner team. Schwarzenegger and education web, and benefits that derived. For Budget Directors, benefits of productivity and need for a portfolio that reaches long-term, cross-program innovations. Budget director can put guidance letter together. Budget Director can be helped if real goal is several year window of improvement, and the better budget management, presentation, and results that can be shown.

Nothing very surprising here. But surprising perhaps is the relatively large number of CIOs that have been so wrapped up in their own issues that they missed the major contributions that their technology can make to the strategic concerns of other key leaders and the jursidiction overall.

Taking Action
Support must be turned to action. In a bureaucracy, this requires procedures. Our analysis examined three sub-processes within each of the above major categories. RECRUITMENT AND STAFFING Is it a political rewards and policy game, or assembling the team for institutional reform? 1. The CIO. Will the CIO be thought of as primarily responsible for technology itself or as a member of the senior leadership group that uses technology for institutional innovation and change? Those that fail to use CIOs for the large goals tend to not believe that the changes are possible, or at least not possible within the time and other constraints of their administration. 2. The COO and Department Heads. Will there be a COO explicitly responsible for internal issues and management? Will Department Heads be brought in exclusively to

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handle policy issues within their domains, of also to provide leadership for administration-wide integration and consolidation issues? 3. The Budget Director. The Budget Director must meet legal requirements for balancing the budget. But Budget Directors are also key agents for the Mayor or Governor or others who need the financial resources for implementing their initiatives. Budget Directors experienced with issues of productivity and institutional change can be extremely valuable in resolving issues that would otherwise be escalated to the CEO and bog things down. PLANNING AND BUDGETING to what extent are the most powerful processes of government helping and helped by the IT agenda? 4. Budget Planning. While its not required, the budget director can make sure that the budget preparation and management process provides serious analysis of the ways that IT can be used for long-term innovation and productivity. If those issues are not inserted into the budget in the first 18 months, the window of opportunity closes, making it much more difficult to implement serious IT-enabled changes. 5. Technology Planning. While many but not all governments produce technology plans, those that are most effective dont stop at technology infrastructure and services only, but look to align the technology with the most important other goals and initiatives of the administration. 6. Legislative Planning. While legislative agendas tend to focus on political rather than management issues (which are too broad and silent to help most legislators get reelected), the world is changing and IT-enabled innovation is increasingly recognized as the future. If legislative support can be found, progress on the IT agenda is much easier. COMMUNICATIONS 7. Digital tools. Communications can be conducted not only through digitally-enabled print, but through phone, video, and other interactive delivery available through websites, mobile, and social networking applications such as LinkedIn and Facebook. 8. Internal communications. Communications are a key tool for mobilizing and maintaining support and guidance within the government workforce, especially to encourage broader collaboration and innovations that are not well-understood because they are new. 9. External communications. Communications can also mobilize contributions from external supporters as in neighborhood watch, the federal peer-to-patent program, and other ways to reach and engage stakeholders external to the government. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT 10. Inputs. Much of the effort to guide behavior through improved feedback relative to goals is focused on inputs such as government budgets, staffing levels, and procurements;
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these processes can be better managed in many cased by taking advantage of timely and cost-effective digital feedback. 11. Outputs. Recent improvements in performance management as with CompStat programs in policing that have evolved into CitiStat and StateStat efforts more broadly have been based on better feedback, analysis, and response to analyzing progress and problems with government outputs such as arrests made, diplomas issued, and vaccinations delivered. 12. Outcomes. Measures that most closely track value to society are the outcomes of government activities such as crime levels, workforce capability, and life expectancy; while these can be used to measure government goals, they are influenced by other factors in addition to government work, so it is difficult to hold government managers directly responsible for outcomes. The survey results assess the above options as follows:
PROCESS Recruitment CIO COO/DHs Budget Director Planning Budget Technology Legislation Communications Digital Tools Internal External Perf. Mgt Inputs Outputs Outcomes Inv 4.00 3.88 3.53 3.81 4.13 3.38 3.87 4.13 3.87 3.33 3.60 3.73 Val ??? XXX Feas V+F Rank 1 3 8 6 7 12 5 2 4 9 11 10

4.44 2.62 2.62 4.50 2.80 2.67 4.07 2.92 2.75 4.25 2.87 3.27 4.21 3.14 3.36 4.06 3.64 3.93 4.40 2.85 3.36 4.53 2.93 2.79 4.53 2.85 3.21 4.07 2.93 3.21 4.07 3.64 3.43 4.21 3.62 3.67

3.59 4.01 3.47 3.99 3.29 3.68 3.22 3.74 3.21 3.71 2.60 3.33 3.22 3.81 3.47 4.00 3.27 3.90 3.06 3.57 2.84 3.46 2.81 3.51

Top ideas for value and feasibility lie in the recruitment field, but for much if not most of this work the window of opportunity is already closed. Communications also rose as a perhaps unexpected but extremely valuable and feasible option. Top ideas: recruitment often ignored as typical deal seeks friends, policy leaders, given much autonomy in their arenas. May often not be good managers. Need managers for institutional change. Those who have done it before. Those willing to work on such issues. Good example? Become member of the senior team.
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communications: an avenue for support of governor or mayor, example with Takai and Schwarzenegger on web site for identifying schools. Using those who talk with the public, not the internal jargon of the tech community. Need to communicate to those who may not understand or mistrust the value of external authorities and contests. The need to tell the story to the reporters, journalists, media. The great value of internal communications especially for innovations, and to mobilize support for the cognitive surplus that Shirky talks about.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Some key and often ignored ideas from our data: Most attractive way forward are processes that may too often be ignored: recruitment of CIOs and DHs, utilization of digital tools for internal collaboration. Next wave of online is both powerful and feasible Open government deserves the attention it is getting. With major shifts, we need to focus as much on getting support and turning that support into action as we do on the tech and goals per se. Supporters: largely the internal game of CEOs, COOs, Budget Directors Processes: largely underexplored efforts with recruitment and communications A future-oriented agenda the value over time of major innovations and catching up with the learning curve.

We can use IT to leverage the extreme current economic and political pressures to improve our transition to an older population and global knowledge-based economy.

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Appendices: A. Survey Questions??? B. Participants in the Course and Symposium

Participants in the DC Transition Year Symposium Students producing briefing papers Attending the symposium: Not attending the symposium: Participating in the Transition Year Course online: C. Bibliography D. End Notes

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For the survey questions, see Appendix A.

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