Sunday, April 13, 2014

Always the Disconnect Between Vision and Execution

Murphy's Law is pervasive in government, and Digital Government is not immune.  (BTW - Murphy's Law is "if anything can go wrong, it will")

Most politicians have their head in the clouds (vision), and their feet NOT on the ground, where execution occurs.

When the politicians get voted in, and can then push their vision forward, commanding the civil servants to carry out this vision, they apparently fail to back that up with sufficient funds to execute the vision.  This, according to the study administered by FedScoop, funded by Xerox.

The Digital Government vision seems to be falling prey to the "do what I say...on the cheap" mindset, which leads to the "you get what you pay for" result.

According to the study, 94% of the more than 230 respondents agreed on creating a digital government (what is up with the other 6%), but 75% of these same people say they lacked the resources to get there.  Again, according to the study, 60% indicated the "digital government strategy isn’t defined and
communicated in a way employees can easily adopt."  So, it seems, it is not only about the money, but also about clearly communicating where we want to go, and how to get their -- in actionable terms.

Our government is well-known for saying big, fluffy words that sound good, but are not ACTIONABLE.  This is key.  Without a clear vision and appropriately linked  and actionable execution plan, we will continue to pour good money after bad at this effort.

The study and the article were very interesting and on target.  I highly recommend the read.

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