In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, IT modernization has become an imperative for government agencies that need to provide services to their constituents while also keeping pace with evolving technology as well as emerging cybersecurity threats. Adopting advanced technologies and effectively harnessing data can revolutionize the way agencies operate, enabling informed decision-making and enhancing citizen services. However, government agencies are challenged to keep up with the constantly evolving, increasingly accelerating speed of IT modernization. Are government agencies able to effectively keep up?
At the June 2023 GovFuture Forum event at George Mason University (GMU) in the Washington, DC region, government leaders Andrea Brandon (Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for Budget, Finance, Grants and Acquisition within the Department of Interior), Mitch Winans (Senior Advisor, Enterprise Digitalization at Internal Revenue Service), Stuart Wagner (Chief Digital Transformation Officer for the Department of the Air Force) and Taka Ariga (Chief Data Scientist and the Director of Innovation Lab at Government Accountability Office) shared their perspectives on IT modernization efforts and their respective agency’s approach to this topic, as well as the critical role data plays in decision making, cultural principles that are driving certain groups, and how integration and data exchange are becoming focal points.
Key takeaways from the event and this panel discussion are detailed below.
Taka Ariga (Government Accountability Office):
“Within GAO, we have this three pronged strategy. Using data is nothing new, but in the age of AI, we want to make sure that we do so at a greater speed, greater effectiveness, greater accuracy. Within GAO, the three prong strategy involves data science, data governance and data literacy. Spoiler alert, data science is the easiest part. When you have good data, everything is essentially possible. So yes, we’re working on the technical aspects of enhancing data science capacity, but part of what we’re really trying to address are the foundational issues around data governance. Otherwise ‘garbage and garbage out’.
How do we make data assets visible? How do we make sure that we have policies surrounding access of that information? How do we make metadata exposed in a way that users can trust the information? We’re even even exploring an idea, giving a Yelp (style) review for certain data assets so that people can understand the difference between let’s say a one star data asset versus a four or five star, depending on the usage of that information.
The other part I’ll emphasize is the notion of data literacy. Up till very recently, we’ve been operating in this sort of deterministic world, like self-sufficiency, everything is zero or one, yes or no. And in the age of machine learning we’re talking about 62% likelihood that somebody committed fraud. 62%: is that a yes, is that a no? So does your employee know how to interpret that information to drive whatever that is you’re doing, policy making, auto decision evaluation, et cetera. So I think digital literacy is an important part of not just using the data, but how you interpret the information coming out of that narrative.”
Andrea Brandon (US Department of the Interior [DOI]):
Andrea talked about how important it is to have a top down leadership approach when it comes to embracing and using new technologies so folks feel empowered and encouraged, as opposed to threatened, to embrace change. “One of the things I gave, one of the business statements I gave to DOI when I got there, and to my business integration office, which will be soon the business integration and innovation office, the BI squared office, that’s the office that has all of our technological support, they do all of our financial systems, our procurement systems, grant systems, that any integration, etc. I gave them the vision, or I gave it to the director, and then she gave it to her crew. I gave her the vision that I am Starfleet, and she’s a starship, a female Captain Kirk and that she can boldly go where no person has gone before. And we have two offices that she’s in charge of, one is in Colorado, and then one is in Reston, Virginia. And so initially, we were planning to turn our Colorado office into the DOI Innovation Lab. But that’s kind of a ways away from headquarters, a lot of our employees and staff and functions are in the Washington, DC/Virginia metropolitan area. So instead, we’re planning to turn the Reston, VA office into the Innovation Lab. So I, and they, are marching forward. Let me tell you, we’ve got some really good stuff happening, not just RPA,and they’re very excited.”
Andrea also talked about some of the advanced technologies DOI is looking at. “Augmented reality with regard to our National Park Service, which is under the DOI. So we’re working on something with Augmented Reality that pretty cool. But we want to turn the Reston office into an innovation lab, where it’s not just about AI or RPA or distributed ledger technology, but it’s also like you walk in here as an open environment, right? When you walk in, we want smart boards. When you walk in, we want, I want, to be able to say, “hey, Alexa, what’s the temperature?” And then Alexa actually talks back, it’s hooked into the system, you know. I don’t want to hold a microphone.”
Mitch Winans (Internal Revenue Service [IRS]):
Mitch talked about the core cultural principles that his team follows as they work on their digitalization and IT modernization journeys. “We have some core cultural principles that again, got to give kudos to Harrison Smith, our leader for thinking of them. The first one is to be pro digitalization, not anti status quo. So really try to acknowledge some of those challenges that are out there, but be positive about it, be approachable about it. Another thing is to be transparent and acknowledge those challenges. A third principle is to find balance. The work is really hard, but it’s worth it. We got to stick with it together. The fourth one is to build partnerships. We’re not authorized to do our jobs on her own. We need to partner with private sector, with academia, with other partners to be able to do our job and get it done. Also internally make sure we’re finding the right program offices and the key people that can help us build that culture and put that diverse team together to make it happen. And then the last cultural principle to highlight is to be kind. A lot of the work can be very frustrating and a lot of people have some very important perspectives and backgrounds for where they’re coming from. So just approach everything with empathy and respect. And I think that’s a key, those are some key ingredients for us to be successful with that.”
Stuart Wagner (US Dept. of Air Force):
Stuart talks about approaching risk, especially from a technological perspective with the adoption of new technology. He says, “Sometimes you need to say, we need to actually make a change. So the second way I think about the perspective of basically balancing between security and innovation is risk. And I think that we’ve mis-assessed the risk. So one way to think about risk is opportunity costs. So for every action you take, you’ve determined not to take an alternative action or an alternative course. And opportunity cost is basically the cost of not taking that action. And so inaction is an action, actually.
It’s the determination not to change. The way I see security in the DOD, we assess, if you look at risk breaks down, all these controls for the risk of an action, the risk of taking an action, what it doesn’t assess is the risk of not taking that action, the risk of remaining in a steady state. Sometimes the risk of what you’re currently doing is larger than the risk actually of a potential action. For example, we assess risk, you know, basically the risk of deploying software or the risk of deploying a LLM. That’s a big conversation right now, we can talk about LLMs. Sure, there are many risks with deploying a LLM to the enterprise, maybe which we can’t even assess.
There’s also a lot of uncertainty, different from risk, often associated with risk, but there’s also a lot of uncertainty around it. We don’t understand how it will exist within the DOD. But there are risks of not deploying it too. The risks of not deploying it are that our adversaries could deploy their own LLM. They could automate their own systems faster than we can. LLMs are able to produce code, they could produce extensive amounts of code that automate their enterprise and allow them to make decisions faster than us. The risks to that are unassessed in the risk management framework today. In determining whether or not to deploy software or to deploy hardware or to make change versus not, I think we have not yet assessed risk and that effectively poses a challenge to innovation. Those are the ways I think about it. I don’t have a solution, other than to try to encourage decision makers to consider the risks of inaction and to take a perspective that encourages different thinking and change.”
Stuart goes on to share, “I think we confuse uncertainty with risk. And a lot of times, uncertainty is based on the inability to assess data rapidly, to understand the health of our organization, the health of our systems. If we had a better understanding of the state of where we were, the decisions might make more sense, or at least the assessment of the decision might make more sense in that context and why there’s a potential, at least a request to potentially change. And so one of the things we think about at the Department of Defense, I could put a lot of something called the night after scenario.
I alluded to it earlier. The idea is basically at the start of a war, say on day one of a war with an adversary, what I would suspect many commanders would seek to do at the end of that day would be to understand all of the machine and human experience that took place in that day. Everything new we saw, all the tactics that were utilized by an adversary. What are the things that worked? What are the things that didn’t work? We would probably want to know that as soon as possible, like that day. And if you could assess and actually rapidly understand that information, that could inform, number one, where you devote your resources for additional capability development, rapid capability development, rapid innovation. And number two, what are the changes you would make to your tactics, techniques and procedures?
How would you change your strategy? And so if we’re able to make sense of our data more quickly, we can reduce uncertainty and make better decisions and perhaps be more open to small changes. And that’s agility.
What I just described is actually data-driven agility. And so anyways, that I think actually reduces our risk by actually allowing for many changes. And those changes must be based on ultimately the data underlying our organization and the way in which we operate. So that’s how I think about changing the DOD based on data to reduce uncertainty.”
Effectively modernizing IT systems is essential for federal agencies to drive informed decision-making and improve citizen services in a constantly evolving technology landscape. By harnessing the power of data and effectively leveraging emerging technologies like AI and automation, federal agencies can enhance operational efficiency, optimize resource allocation, and deliver more personalized and effective services to the citizens they serve. You can view the June 2023 GovFuture Forum event online as well as listen to the GovFuture Podcast recap episode.
Disclosure: Kathleen Walch is an Executive Director at GovFuture
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