“You want the best players to like you for all the reasons. It won't work. It'll bite you in the bum after awhile. You need to have the same standards for everyone. You can treat people differently because each one is different, but they all have to march to the same drummer, to the same standards." – Greg Popovich
Across Government, agencies are responding to new mandates, challenges, and priorities – and rarely do these shifts come with budget increases to match. 2017 will bring increased uncertainty. Depending on the outcome of the presidential election, strategic directions may shift a little, or a lot.
November’s presidential election may produce a range of outcomes so varied in its implications for DHS that it poses a challenge for agencies that are in the throes of planning for the transition.
Expectations from mission stakeholders and citizens are rising rapidly. The public and senior Government leaders expect modern, innovative solutions to long-standing problems. Traditional problem solving methods have not generated solutions that meet dynamic mission needs.
As the Government increasingly uses design thinking to drive innovation, agencies should incorporate the development of “Archetypes” or “Personas” into their essential strategies to more closely identify with customers.
Innovation is the driving force for competition throughout many different organizations. Without it, service, strategy, and technology become stale, and customers get bored.
“What do you do for a living?” In the Washington, D.C. area, this is a commonly asked question. And, “consulting” and “Government” are frequent responses. Consulting continues to be a sought-after job for industry veterans, those entering the workforce, and some looking for a career change.
Developing a strategic plan is vital to an organization’s success. An organization must be able to efficiently execute that strategy to achieve its performance improvement goals. The organization’s culture is often the most important determiner in successful execution.
In a world with an ever-increasing number of technological advancements, greater opportunities for modernization, and more complex challenges and risks, the Government understands the importance of new and transformational ideas to solve its biggest problems.
The Government relies heavily on SharePoint to share information within its agencies. Sometimes SharePoint is just a documentation or vital records repository. Often, it is a hub of knowledge sharing for mission professionals.
The days of ‘because this is the way we have always done it’ are over. Agencies face demands to be more mission-focused and customer-centric.
While ‘innovation’ is the word of the day, leaders are forgetting the power of documenting, measuring, and improving processes across Government – and the link to supporting the mission. It is time to go back to the basics of process improvement since it is common that funding is not available to improve the information technology systems that can help make more dramatic improvements.
The Federal Information Technology Reform Act (FITARA), which aims to improve the management and acquisition of Federal information technology (IT) assets, is quickly approaching its two-year anniversary this December. The November 2015 FITARA Implementation Scorecard demonstrates that FITARA should continue to generate new opportunities for change within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) moving forward.
On June 23, the United Kingdom (UK) voted in a historic national referendum to leave the European Union (EU). Although the decision has already placed stress on the economies and policies of the UK, Europe, and other parts of the world, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not likely will not to see major effects on U.S. immigration, travel, or collaboration with the EU.
