All in Accountability
No More Surveys!
I believe that polling numbers released to the public without serious methodological detail will be worthless and not to be trusted.
Managing Data-Intensive Programs and Projects: Selected Articles
I’ve created this special compendium of posts that are relevant to planning and managing data related programs and projects. There are four groups:
On Measuring Open Data Benefits in International Development Projects
This demarcation between access and actual usage of information has significant measurement and cost implications. No matter how good we are at designing and managing systems for delivering data to users, we’re still going to be challenged in linking system-delivered data to the value of its usage.
Don’t Let Tools Drive Enterprise Data Strategy
Isaac Sacolick’s Friend or Foe? How Microsoft Excel 2013 Creates New Data Governance Challenges is a refreshing look at the challenges organizations face as the capabilities of data management tools outstrip the policies and processes for governing how such tools are used.
Getting Real About "Open Data”
If the “geeks” on your team understand all this that’s great. If not, you need to seek out and involve other areas of expertise, starting with people who understand what enhanced data services can do for your target users and the problems you are trying to solve.
Perspectives on the NSA and PRISM: What Dyson Missed
In NSA: The Decision Problem George Dyson lays out a credible historical view on why he thinks what Snowden revealed about the NSA and PRISM was inevitable. While it’s certainly a pleasure to read a discussion of these issues that is so thoughtful, I think he misses one major theme that helps us understand our current predicament over what to do about Snowden.
Facing Reality and the Need to Recalibrate Sequester-Impacted IT Projects
In some ways this looks like a standard IT strategy alignment project where a small team helps gather and present data to enable a client to see a path forward whereby technology resources are defined and managed to improve support for accomplishment of a set of defined objectives. But…
Transparency Is Not An End In Itself
While data generated by a government program should be readily available and shareable among its target constituencies and members of the public, I also believe that resources devoted to improving the transparency of a government program should also promote the accomplishment of that program’s goals.
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?”
Better Org Charts Will Improve Government Agency Transparency and Accountability
Making sure that a meaningful org chart is available, precisely because it is a public statement about responsibility, might just be one of the simplest and most direct methods we have for promoting government program transparency and accountability.
Audit of the VA's Project Management Accountability System (PMAS) Implementation
Here’s some light reading: the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General’s “Audit of the Project Management Accountability System Implementation.” Known as “PMAS,” the system was put in place in 2009 to provide better oversight of the VA’s troubled IT development projects. This was done in light of a history of cost overruns and failed IT projects at the VA.
Challenges Facing Recovery.gov and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board
There’s a strong possibility that how the public sees and experiences the programs reported through Recovery.gov will have just as much potential for driving economic improvement as the programs themselves.