Procurement
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Conway’s Law and the challenge of building software in government
Good news, you’ve discovered that Conway’s Law is what is causing issues with your government software development team. Bad news is the typical approach to addressing the problem doesn’t work well inside government. Continue reading
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The Hidden Costs of Robotic Process Automation in Government
Robotic process automation is increasingly popular as a way to speed up government work. But this isn’t always the answer — and at times, it may cause an agency unforeseen headaches down the road. Continue reading
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Real Results for Government with Generative AI
It can be hard to cut through all the hype and hysteria around ChatGPT and Generative AI. For government agencies, states, and cities, focusing on what matters most is the best way to ensure these sophisticated new tools bring real value to those that need it most. Continue reading
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Bend them, don’t break them
Digital service teams are in an odd spot. They need to bend the rules regularly to change the way governments work. And they also need to be the guardians of the rules, to make sure that crossing the line is never rationalized for what seems like a good reason. Continue reading
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Bad choices, good reasons
Sometimes government make poor technology decisions for good and entirely rational reasons. Understand this dynamic is important for those of us working to make government adoption of technology more successful. Continue reading
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What Lies Beneath
Procurement challenges don’t end when a government agency selects a vendor to fulfill a contract. In many ways, they are just beginning. If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the world of civic tech for the last 5–10 years then you don’t need to be told that one of the major challenges to Continue reading
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Process Eats Culture for Breakfast
Simply telling agencies what they need to do misses the influence of existing processes — all working exactly as designed — on technology project outcomes. The need to reform these fundamental processes underscores that our most important work is not about technology. Continue reading
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Why 18F’s New Approach to Procurement Reform Matters
In another recent post, I talked about how public sector technology procurement was not well suited for the digital age. But there are some efforts underway that seek to identify new methods of procuring technology solutions for government. As these ideas start to take hold, there is hope that those in the govtech community will create a Continue reading
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GovTech is Not Broken
When we talk about the challenges that face governments in acquiring and implementing new technology, the conversation eventually winds around to the procurement process. That’s when things usually get ugly. “It’s broken,” they say. “It just doesn’t work.” What most people who care about this issue fail to recognize, however, is that while the procurement Continue reading
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On Barriers to Adopting New Technologies
Interesting story in the Washington Post describing a survey of federal government technology managers. The big takeaway from this survey seems to be that the majority of IT managers are enthusiastic about new technology and can see how it helps them do their jobs more effectively, but they question the government’s ability to keep pace Continue reading
About Me
I am the former Chief Data Officer for the City of Philadelphia. I also served as Director of Government Relations at Code for America, and as Director of the State of Delaware’s Government Information Center. For about six years, I served in the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), and helped pioneer their work with state and local governments. I also led platform evangelism efforts for TTS’ cloud platform, which supports over 30 critical federal agency systems.
Civic Innovations 