Federal Computer Week recently published my op-ed piece Why best practices won’t fix Federal IT. I’d be very interested in hearing from GovLoop members what they think of it.
The idea came from the “25-Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management” released by Vivek Kundra on December 10 of last year. No. 10 on that list was: “Launch a best practices collaboration platform.”
While I’m a big proponent of collaboration my reaction was that solving IT problems related to shrinking budgets would be better served by making it easier for IT staff to share information about problems and solutions directly, rather than by focusing on after-the-fact “best practices” procedures.
I think this has relevance to a variety of process improvement areas, not just IT. Siloing in many Federal agencies still reduces the potential for information sharing. This has both schedule and cost implications. Creating anorther “best practices” system can’t, by itself, overcome unwillingness to collaborate.
What do you think?
Copyright (c) 2011 by Dennis D. McDonald. This post was originally published February 4, 2011 on GovLoop. The Federal Computer Week article was based on my earlier blog post How Should U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra Institutionalize I.T. Best Practices?
