I’ve created this special compendium of posts that are relevant to planning and managing data related programs and projects. There are four groups:
All in Performance
Is Your Organization Ready for the Third Age of Open Data?
Because of this my advice to anyone contemplating an open data program is to start not with what data are available but with what programs are trying to accomplish, then work on how open data can contribute to the success of those programs.
Still, knowing that data exist – which is what the inventories will tell us — is not the same as accessing and interpreting the data. Even assuming the public eventually gains access to the inventoried data, we’ll still need contextual information about the programs described by the data and measurement of the impacts these programs have.
Compendium: My Guest Posts for the BaleFire Global Open Data Blog
The full .pdf of this compendium can be downloaded here: /compendium1.pdf
Who Needs Reports to Congress? We Do. Here’s Why.
What we don’t know from the Post article is why anyone would defend useless reports. Are they really useless? Does someone still find them useful? Have they turned into consultants’ and staff employment programs? Or would the programs being reported on feel “slighted” if a congressionally mandated report were no longer required?
You do need to avoid adopting standards and processes developed by other organizations without first understanding how and why they were developed. That requires research, communication with the other organization, and thoughtful planning.
Government Performance Measurement and DATA Act Implementation Need to be Coordinated
Hopefully a coordinated data management strategy is something that Treasury, OMB, GAO, and the White House are already working on.
Now we’re seeing more attention being paid in the public sector to data management strategy as data assets become a more visible — and public — components of government action. That’s a good thing.
Meetings and the Limits of Government Transparency
The title of this article is “Meetings and the Limits of Government Transparency.” No, I’m not writing about NSA, Snowden, or national security. I’m writing about some government staff meetings and how open they should be to the public.
How Our Increasing Digital Connectedness Improves Government Program Evaluation
There will always be a need to conduct formal evaluations of how well government programs perform. Such evaluations must take into account the complexity of programs and the need to distinguish among short term and long term impacts and the intervening conditions that also impact program effectiveness.
Just Measuring Government Performance Is Not Enough
The Washington Post article this past week “Why not measure how well government works?” asks the reasonable question, “Why aren’t more government programs evaluated?” Also asked, is “Why aren’t government programs that are evaluated and found wanting just canceled?”
Developing Digital Strategies for Web-based Public Access to Government Performance Data
On January 29, 2013 I was privileged to attend a meeting of the Government Performance Coalition at George Washington University in Washington DC. During that meeting Shelley Metzenbaum, OMB Associate Director for Performance and Personnel, discussed the “performance improvement” pages of the Performance.gov website.
A Framework for Transparency Program Planning and Assessment
I support the practice of transparency for government programs. People need to know and understand how their tax dollars are spent. At the same time, transparency is not an end in itself.
In How the Trends of 2000-2009 Will Shape Performance Improvement in This New Decade, Debashis Sarkar, a writer for Six Sigma & Process Excellence, lists as number 1 the following trend: