Government App Sharing
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| Home | Free Meeting Place for Government App Sharing |
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| Centralizing Government Data Systems The hidden expense: There's nothing new about the idea of centralizing government data systems. Who can't see that efficiencies are to be gained by not having to reinvent the wheel? Two concepts are missing, which if implemented, will make centralization successful: 1. Client satisfaction enforced by a 3rd party 2. Policy to mandate participation in shared government systems There also needs to be budget mechanisms to encourage different government agencies to share the cost of centralized apps, but this issue is not discussed here. Client satisfaction enforced by a 3rd party
What was missing was an auditing organization sitting on the outside, having the authority to force the managers of the shared application to fix their system. For state entities, the best authority would be the state CIO. Why an outside authority? Because this is a repeating pattern where the problem needs to be adjudicated by a specialized group that uses standards and methodologies more efficient than an agreement made between the clients and providers of services. It is difficult for the shared app provider to police itself. Clients and centralized app managers need a referee. How much did the above problem cost? One agency paid $500,000 to a private company to create their own system, but that system failed. Several other agencies had their own staff write their systems, but they all failed also. I used two years of taxpayer money writing it. The clients were very happy that my system gave them the functionality they were looking for but the best way to solve the problem would have been for the shared app to be fixed. How often does this happen? There is a tension between the shared application provider and clients in almost every case, however the cause of serious problems is a lack of imagination on the part of the centralized application provider, who cannot grasp the adverse effect that their bad service is having on the client. This unfortunately, is often the case. What should the outside organization do? Survey clients methodically, make recommendations, mandate solutions if appropriate, and keep clients from jumping ship and creating their own applications at tremendous cost to taxpayers. The organization's scope should be government-wide. If the system is not shared with outside government organizations, then only the CEI would need to ensure quality control. With this organizational change, there would be a responsible entity discovering there was a problem. In the example above, no responsible entity knew there was a problem and no one reported it anywhere. Policy to mandate participation in shared government systems
What is missing is our outside integration entity described above, or the organization's empowered CEI, to break the stalemate and have the authority to mandate integration. The CEI or outside authority will have the experience, knowledge, standards, methodologies and skill to determine if the changes should take place. This will bring about government integration a lot faster than depending upon the local parties to voluntarily work together. Some managers put their own ambitions ahead of the enterprise-wide mission, making voluntary integration impossible. First, government needs have the authority to make sure clients can get the quality of service they need from shared apps. Next, it needs to have the authority to require that they adopt enterprise-wide integration. This means organization change: No clout...no integration.
The above example shows that in some circumstances centralized control is the best solution. An organization must be created to systematically direct change in government where integration creates efficiency. Methodically, using standards and best practices instead of the informal way that the problem was discovered in the case study above. The eventual compliance by the state entities made a world of difference to consumers previously blocked from state government. 1. Identifying redundant systems and planning to replace them with centralized ones is a beginning, but not enough. Clients' drive to have good, functional systems is greater than their concern for saving money. They can, and will often find a way to circumvent a shared application to get their own system when the manager of the shared application does not listen to their needs. Do you like giving up control or waiting for some external entity to do time sensitive work for you when your own people can do it faster and better? An outside organization needs to have the authority to make shared application managers listen so that they will gain the trust of clients giving up their own systems. 2. Managers of non-IT departments are often slow or reluctant to assist in the big picture of enterprise-wide data flows. A CEI or outside organization needs to have the authority to integrate an entire organization and mandate the cooperation of key departments. However without quality control through a third party, this is too heavy-handed. The third party needs both the authority to make service acceptable to the client, and the authority to require the client to adopt the centralized system. Even a cursory look at state CIOs' or federal OMB's web sites points out to us that centralization is coming. The above suggestions, including the creation of an empowered CEI to implement them, will advance successful centralization. Here is a the picture of how government should eventually look like after IT reorganization.
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