For federal leaders looking to reform their agencies, term-by-term shifts in priority and budget are major stumbling blocks. To make meaningful progress in uncertain times, focus reform efforts on the following mission-critical areas, which benefit from steady support that cuts across party lines.
Four foundations for near-term progress on lasting reform
1
Modernization Of Legacy IT:
With clear need and broad support, it’s time to get serious about replacing legacy IT, moving to the cloud, and digitizing paper processes.
Close to 80% of agency IT budgets go to supporting and maintaining outdated systems.
Billions go to storing and processing paper records.
For meaningful change that sticks, CIOs and program leaders must work together to make service and mission the raison d’être of new IT.
2
Analytics for Evidence-based Decisions:
Mechanisms for data gathering and analytics must be prioritized to support evidence-based program evaluation.
Agencies collect data - Data.gov hosts over 200K data sets — but they lack the analytics tools to leverage it.
Intensifying pressure to do more with less makes modern analytics tools essential for demonstrating ROI.
Analytics capabilities will be key to evaluating efforts to improve government service customer experiences.
3
Customer Experience (CX):
With customer satisfaction scores significantly lagging for most federal services, improved CX is a priority that is going to stick around.
Converging demand for IT modernization and strengthened evaluation creates an unprecedented opportunity to transform digital CX.
Mission-focused IT modernization must redesign government web portals based on customer needs rather than agency structures.
To meet demand for one-stop customer service portals, customer experiences must be mapped across programs and departments.
4
Cybersecurity:
To protect mission, IT modernization must bake in security from day one to go beyond compliance and mitigate the cyber talent shortage.
The global cybersecurity workforce shortage could reach 1.8 million by 2022, intensifying competition for cyber talent.
Federal Government cybersecurity incidents increased by 1,121% between 2006 and 2014.
Agencies that invest more in IT modernization see fewer breaches than those that spend more on maintaining legacy systems.
