RE: Future of eGov member section

Good thought Peter

I certainly see a number of shortcomings in technology governance in government, starting with the word itself. Governments seem to have grasped onto governance, in the faddish way they grasp lots of things..and operate the process (because the know process!) without deeply understanding what they are trying to achieve/get out of the process. Governance becomes the process..and with it..well almost certain failure of the role of governance.

I would support a topic area along these lines.

Cheers

Colin

From: Peter F Brown [mailto:peter@peterfbrown.com]
Sent: Saturday, 10 September 2011 1:37 p.m.
To: egov-ms@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [egov-ms] Future of eGov member section

Hi,

I won’t be able to join the call on Monday as I’ll be on a plane – so a few comments regarding the member section – as an “ordinary member”, I hasten to add, not as a member of the OASIS Board!

A problem that we have constantly faced is that the theme of “eGovernment” is so all-embracing. Many of the specific issues that we have faced as eGovernment practitioners – whether on eID, procurement, role of standards, cloud computing, etc. – are often the principal focus of other communities, whether within OASIS (other member sections or technical committees) or beyond. Where we seem to have struggled is identifying the set of areas in which this member section can lay claim to be a primary focus of attention.

So, in order to move the discussion forward, here is an idea for Monday’s discussion and, hopefully at the F2F in the UK in October.

I believe that a central concern that we all share – and which is a current focus of the “Transformational Government Framework” TC – is that of “Technology Governance”. It is not an exclusively public sector concern – many studies dismantle the myth that the private sector is immune to poorly managed IT projects – but I believe that the policy drivers are different. An example:

In the private sector, it’s OK to fail and lose money on prototyping new ideas, writing costs off on R&D, because the main driver remains the bottom line and there is an acceptance of a degree of risk in achieving those goals. In the public sector, much more risk averse and (rightly) conscious about how public money is spent, the priority is delivering cost-effective services.

Coupled with the all-too-often seen problem of civil servants having to rely on out-sourced expertise to manage large-scale projects, there is – I believe – a much wider technology governance gap in public sector agencies than we see in the private sector (although, I stress again, the private sector has its fair share of problems too).

I think that our member section could play an important role in promoting the debate around these issues and how policy makers can make intelligent and informed decisions in an increasingly complex ecosystem of competing & collaborating technologies, in-house, outsourced, hosted and cloud-based solutions, etc.

The Transformational Government TC has started to raise some of the core issues and propose a way forward but I’m wondering if our Member Section ought to be re-scoped to explicitly focus on the issues of technology governance.

As I’ve said, I’ll miss the call Monday but am more than happy to follow up if there is interest in taking this discussion further.

Have a great weekend,

Peter

Peter F Brown

Independent Consultant

Transforming our Relationships with Information Technologies

www.peterfbrown.com

P.O. Box 49719, Los Angeles, CA 90049, USA

Tel: +1.310.694.2278

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