11–20 of 103 posts
As an outsider, I hold the USDS in great regard. Probably too much because of Marianne Belotti's writings from her time there, but also from what I would like to think are more nuanced perspectives. My country does not have anything like it, but what countries do?
While this is all well and good it feels like a slick "thought leadership" campaign that provides little in the way of actual solutions to the issues USG orgs face when building/providing digital services. The challenge is not the "approach", but rather a system that constrains the ability to even begin that approach. I find #7 especially hollow: > We need talented people working in government who have experience cre…
I think there's some confusion here on what and how the USDS works.
They embed into government organizations to improve services and systems, bringing expertise that doesn't normally exist in government, while not working directly for the organization they're embedded in.
USDS doesn't follow normal hiring practices either. They recruit directly for limited employment terms, max of 4 years. This helps offset the entrenched beaurocratic mindset that exists in a lot of USG organisations, and allows them to recruit current experts in a particular field.
From the Special Operations analogy this would be equivalent of the Military giving them direct hiring/recruitment ability from both the Armed Services and direct from civilian
#7 "Bring in experienced teams" isn't hollow, it's their core mission.
I wonder how much the government paid consultants to write this.
As an outsider, I hold the USDS in great regard. Probably too much because of Marianne Belotti's writings from her time there, but also from what I would like to think are more nuanced perspectives. My country does not have anything like it, but what countries do?
While this is all well and good it feels like a slick "thought leadership" campaign that provides little in the way of actual solutions to the issues USG orgs face when building/providing digital services. The challenge is not the "approach", but rather a system that constrains the ability to even begin that approach. I find #7 especially hollow: > We need talented people working in government who have experience cre…
> I find #7 especially hollow I think there's some confusion here on what and how the USDS works. They embed into government organizations to improve services and systems, bringing expertise that doesn't normally exist in government, while not working directly for the organization they're embedded in. USDS doesn't follow normal hiring practices either. They recruit directly for limited employment terms, max of 4 year…
Going back to our US Special Forces team, the US Army actually did (attempt)to solve for this by simplifying the pipeline with the 18X "X-Ray" Program.
Excel macros working one day, then prohibited the next by new IT policies.
Directors demanding that service line bosses meet with me to discuss "data-driven decision-making", followed by a solid week of said chiefs telling me that my job is a joke.
Actual honest-to-God employees trying to make a difference in financial openness having their coworkers walk by their desks and loudly shout they "ain't doing that shit" and walking away.
Two years hunting for a database to store 2 GB of data, and only finding one when a new contractor onboarded and knew a guy in the next office over who would let them have a partition of SQL Server.
I wish I was making any of this up. The federal government has massive, massive employee culture issues. This list is... a nice dream.
I have a lot of heartburn reading something like this. I spent a decade in government consulting trying to implement anything resembling "data science" or "DevOps" and got repeatedly shut down by higher ups or by random bureaucrats that saw any modern practices, including any technology, as a threat. Excel macros working one day, then prohibited the next by new IT policies. Directors demanding that service line bosse…
Government technology workforces are thus composed largely of either people who are below average in competence or above average and willing to take a pay cut because they care about the cause, but we shouldn't expect people to do that, and there aren't very many of them. We should give government a fighting chance.
As an outsider, I hold the USDS in great regard. Probably too much because of Marianne Belotti's writings from her time there, but also from what I would like to think are more nuanced perspectives. My country does not have anything like it, but what countries do?