Management, Change and Culture

1. Management, Change and Culture George O. Strawn NSF CIO

2. Outline • Questions raised by the organizers (and some proffered answers) • James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It • Daniel Boorstin, Hidden History: Exploring Our Secret Past • Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near • Some observations

3. Management • How can we promote process improvement:With executives? • In “simple” cases: document the RoI (ie, cost savings) • In complex cases: market the perceived benefits (in spite of cost increase), and/or let nature take its course • Must talk biz, not tech • Must excite management • Even better, be excited *by* management • With business partners?With organizational managers?

4. Who is responsible? • For process improvement and enterprise architecture? • At NSF, for example, the CIO is "responsible" • Each business owner (if any!) is really in charge of their own processes, improving or not • imho, Clinger-Cohen does not empower CIO's to take charge of EA • Is it beyond the CIO? • Yep, at least as the CIO is currently envisioned • How can we motivate the Government to change? • See below for some ruminations

5. James Q Wilson • We (USG) have special authority (to tax and spend, make war, etc) • We must be accountable (today that means "transparent") for the tax payers' money • We must be equitable (here equal comes before free) • We must also be efficient (like the private sector is efficient)

6. Daniel Boorstin • On leadership in DC (although it would seem to apply anywhere): • A leader must overcome the professional fallacy: that the profession exists for itself • A leader must overcome the bureaucratic fallacy: never do anything for the first time

7. The OMB • We are responsible to OMB for compliance and to agency management for performance (eg, for process improvement) • Compliance often precedes performance (at least in IT matters) • Compliance can lead to performance (improvements), but does not guarantee it

8. CIO Office Relationships Execs | Vendors – CIO -- Customers | Employees

9. CIO Office Relationships Execs | Vendors – CIO -- Customers | Employees Strategic Value Outsourcing

10. Exponential Speedup in Change 5,000,000,000 yBP Solar system forms 500,000,000 Multi-cell life emerges 50,000,000 Mammals dominate 5,000,000 Human line separates 500,000 Big brains, fine tools, fire 50,000 Fully modern, language 5,000 Civ: writing, math, cities 500 Western Civ: printing 50 Electronic computing

11. Human/technology Changes 5,000,000 yBP Human line separates 500,000 Big brains, fine tools, fire 50,000 Fully modern, out of Africa, language 10,000 Agriculture adopted 5,000 Civ: writing, math, cities 500 Western Civ: printing 200 Steam engine 150 Telegraph 50 Computer 10 Internet

12. Change and Culture • Technology changes in years to decades • During the last two hundred years • Culture changes in decades to centuries • How can we accelerate culture changes to be at the rate of technology changes? • Or slow down technology changes to be more like culture changes?

13. Conclusions • The USG cannot be as efficient as the private sector because of its authority, accountability, and equity requirements • If you don’t like the heat that democratic government entails, get out of the kitchen • If you do like heat, learn to: manage contracts better, improve IT security and privacy, and expect accelerating change!