Alan suggests the mottos of e-government pioneers should be these two Machiavelli quotes:
“Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime and only luke warm support is forthcoming from all those would prosper under the new”
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things”
+1 (shorthand for agreement)
Alan Mather has a great idea. Put a bunch of bloggers in a “room” to work through the e-government issues. Let’s do it!
I’m off to Pori in Finland for the International Northern eDimension Forum, where my agency’s Director General Jørgen Abild Andersen will speak. My former boss, Knut Rexed, Director General of Statskontoret, will also speak there, but I’ll miss his talk since I have to go back to Copenhagen on Monday.
In yesterday’s e-Governmentat large, Alan presents an interesting thought: “The e-government targetis announced – everyone rushes to build websites and, because they are hard, few transactions get added. Websites grow exponentially, transactions arithmetically at best”. But only in the beginning: He has made a nice slide to illustrate what he means:
“The trick, obviously, is to recognise early that this is going on and take steps to reduce the website count – that’s the bit where good central infrastructure, consistent look and feel, well-researched customer feedback, focused contentaudits/rationalistion, content tagging (metadata and taxonomy)and RSS-feeds come in”. Good points!
I think Denmark is getting near the turning point, but mainly because we have already all built websites all over the place, lots of websites, and struggle to maintain them, and coordinate between them. We are today seeing a number of “mergers and acquisitions” on this front, but not (yet) at any large scale.
So, today Register reported, UK Govt slammed for duff Web sites, about a report – commissioned by Web design outfitInteractive Bureau, London and conducted byPorter Research – which asks:”What is the point of the Prime Minister…having a site, which announces the opportunity for foreign journalists to ask him questions, yet gives no opportunity for members of the British Public to do so?” The report foundthat three quarters of all the UK government websites are in need of an overhaul, with the most widespread and aggravating fault being the presentation of information.
CW360° E-business column: Real World: Web services – the future, where Atos KPMG Consulting’s Andy Tinlin offers 10 predictions for the future of web services:
Interesting predictions. Most are correct, I think.
Now, what does CompTIA say to this, I wonder? This Reuters story made its rounds various places (Infoworld: E-government plan aims to cut software clutter, ZDNet: Government plans big software shakeup.
The report Creating a Performance-Based Electronic Government: Fiscal Year 2002 Progress, subtitled The State-of-the-Practice on How e-Government Initiatives in Federal Agencies are Progressing Toward Achieving Cost Efficiencies and Improved Program Performance and published by a consortium of US organisations, led by the private think tank the Performance Institute finds that:
The general inability of most agencies to effectively measure their e-government performance may ultimately thwart the initial gains made in the e-government arena. Of the $48 billion spent on information technology in FY 2002, this survey indicates that most of those expenditures were not justified by mission-aligned performance measures. This practice represents a “high risk” business practice that could result in failed IT projects and losses to the taxpayer.
The survey found a number of common themes and pinpoints ten key issues:
1. The administration and the Office of Management and Budget are cited for their strong leadership of e-Government initiatives, though some improvements are needed
2. Agencies generally fail to use mission-aligned IT performance measures to justify, manage and evaluate the success of e-Government
3. Agencies need to become more creative and willing to “blow up” old program structures with technology
4. Non-governmental intermediaries are providing greater opportunities to borrow rather than build an e-Government solution
5. E-Government is increasingly focusing on the citizen again, but not all e-Government initiatives are “Citizen-Centered”
6. CIO’s are assuming an appropriate role of “enabler” of agency business processes and are more integrated with the rest of the agency’s leadership
7. More program managers are playing leadership roles in e-Government, but more needs to be done to engage all program managers in e-Government leadership roles
8. Excellent cross-agency coordination is seen in the priority e-Government initiatives, but stove-piped systems and processes remain an obstacle to an integrated e-Government
9. The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) is recognized as the necessary, but missing scaffolding for all agency e-Government initiatives
10. Establishing clear priorities is paying off in generating attention to and sufficient funding for key e-Government initiatives
The Project Recommendations are:
· Supplement the PMA e-Government Scorecard
· Continue to Set Guidelines While Encouraging Flexibility
· Integrate IT Performance Measures with Other Agency Performance Measures as Part of a Single Strategic Management Approach
· Integrate Selection of Performance Measures with the Agency’s Capital Plan and Information Technology Investment Management (ITIM)Model
· Focus on the Vital Few Measures of e-Government Performance
· Imperfect Performance Information is Better than No Performance Information
· Don’t Let Lack of Baseline Information Deter Measurement Approaches
· Agencies Should Align e-Government Measurement Initiatives with Efforts to Improve Financial Management
· Expanded Emphasis by OMB on IT Performance Measures in Budget Justifications
· Harness the Power of Competition by Tasking Multiple Teams with a Common Challenge
· OMB Should Continue its Measurement of Common Programs and Expand its Common Measurement Approach to Include Common Business Processes
· Agencies and OMB Provide Room for Innovation by Encouraging Small, Scaleable and Inter-Operable Pilot Applications of e-Government Ideas
Alan Mather has a good comment on the report: “But what are people doing about it in government? The silo-based initiatives have been there forever and continue to proliferate. Only if we put strong controls in to prevent decisions being made on IT projects by silo can we hope to address the issue … and couple that with an architecture that allows modules to be developed throughout government by whoever has the expertise and need, but that can be plugged in and made available to all.”
Alan is right. As I see it, scorecards and everything are good, but what’s important is their usages. If someone gets yellow or red, it must have consequences. That is however not the same as enforcing an practice where the heads are rolling. But a bit of good old governance and strong, but fair, control is needed to prevent that silos and ivory towers continue to proliferate.
More coverage:
FCW: Report sets e-gov measuring stick
GovExec: Report praises federal e-gov efforts, but urges agencies to measure results
The CompTIA-led Initiative for Software Choice in a press announcement Urges Danish Government To Avoid Mandatory Software Preferences. The press announcement was disseminated in Danish to the Danish press on Wedensday, I learned today (I don’t think anyone picked it up). Hugo Lueders, European Director for the Initiative for Software Choice, says:
“The ISC respectfully asks that, as Denmark moves forward, it not reduce software choice under the guise of increasing it.”
Computerworld Online writes about our open source conference under the headline “Ideologisk strid om open source”, Ideological battle about open source.
There were some 320 people signed up, almost all of whom showed up. For a national conference in a small country like Denmark, even 100 participants would be considered many, so a foregone conclusion is that this is an important issue.
The debates at the conference proved this. There are a number of conclusions to draw, but I found one particularly interesting: open source and open standards must and will go hand in hand. And, yes, there is a democratic perspective at stake here.
Washington Post has a good story today.
The post reports that US Congress Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., has used tricky methods to create official correspondence saying the free software philosophy is “problematic and threaten(s) to undermine innovation and security”.
Mr Smith is from Microsoft’s home state and is known as a strong supporter of them (they pay his campaigns).
The not-so-hidden hand of Mr Smith in opening yet another attack on GPL and free software is hilarious in itself, but in fact deeply tragic.
I hate FUDs. I hate lobbying, at least when it’s done it such unethical ways, but also as a principle. I guess that’s why I’ve become a civil servant; then I don’t have to lobby. In government, we call it serving-up the minister 😉
On lobbying, Tony Stanco was quoted in the Post for saying: The weight of people who are really in the know go against this kind of stance. Well put, Tony!
Tony will come to Copenhagen on Wednesday morning. Bruce Perens will arrive here on Tuesday. They will both talk at our national conference on open source. We have sold out tickets to the conference, BTW. I hadn’t thought we’d get 300 people, but we have. (if you really want to join us, drop me a note, and I’ll see what I can do).