Lessons from Government CIOs: Career, Innovation, IT Modernization
Introduction Traditionally, agency chief information officers have been the ones responsible for the hardware and software at government agencies, including ensuring that phones are working and laptops are purchased.
Since then, we’ve interviewed more than a dozen chief information officers at the federal, state and local levels. Throughout 2018 we’ll feature conversational interviews twice a month on GovLoop.com.
These are all important and necessary, but “[CIOs] weren’t the first people you thought of around delivery of mission,” Federal CIO Suzette Kent said at May 3 event in Washington, D.C. Today, CIOs are the leaders who put mission critical tools in the hands of the workforce, they are commanded to plan ahead for many years and they are the drivers of innovation across agencies.
You’ll learn about the perks and challenges of the job, how they are empowering everyday public servants to do their jobs using technology, tips for navigating professional relationships and more.
To get to know the people behind the title, GovLoop launched a new series called “CIO Conversations.”
In this report, we highlight five interviews from the series, where we discuss career and leadership tips, current IT projects and how CIOs are balancing budgets, innovation and expectations from the public and internal employees.
CIO Interview Highlights •
CIOs at all levels realize that IT doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and many of the changes they make will affect how people work. That’s why they’re making an effort educate both the IT and non-IT workforce about the changes, what they mean for employees and the customers they serve.
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Forward-thinking CIOs understand the power of enabling employees, rather than stifling innovation. To that end, they are piloting emerging technologies, such as robotic process automation, some blockchain and artificial intelligence to supplement the workforce.
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Security has been and will continue to be a major issue for CIOs at all levels. Particularly at the state and local levels, CIOs are sensitive to recent news about ransomware. In an interview with the Colorado CIO, she said the state has 8.4 million security events per day.
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Cloud continues to be a hot topic. But today cloud is being discussed as a means to an end (achieving mission goals, serving citizens, etc.) rather than the end goal. However, there is concern about rushing to the cloud and having too many of them. At the federal level in particular, agencies don’t want cloud to become the new data center, meaning there will be so many of them that they have to start consolidating clouds.
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There is a big push at the federal level to modernizing aging IT systems, and some state governments are also taking similar steps. Overall, modernization is not only about technology but also about ensuring that agencies have the right skills across the workforce.
Tech Stats “Organizations need to prepare for the redefinition of work as the balance of technological and human contributions to mission accomplishment continues to evolve. Automation and robotics will increase in various industries, as technology is made more useful, sophisticated, and economical.” — Office of Personnel Management
What is your approach to delivering digital government services? 17% Ad hoc / Not defined 20% Plan to create digital
Of the 24 major agencies, 15 CIOs report to the head of their agency (or the deputy). CIOs that do not report to the head of the agency weakens their ability to effectively manage IT. Given the history of federal IT failures, this is a concern.
services organization
23% Responsibility of
agencies / departments
40% Already have a digital service organization
Source: NASCIO
66% of cities have invested in some type of smart city technology Source: National League of Cities
5% 66% 45% 60%
Based on technology available in 2016, it was estimated that fewer than 5% of occupations could be automated entirely.
Rather, 45% of work activities could immediately be done by machines.
For 60% of occupations, this includes more than 30% of their activities. Source: OPM
Agency
CIO Status
CIO reports to agency head
USDA
Permanent
No
DOC
Permanent
Yes
DOD
Permanent
Yes
Ed.
Permanent
Yes
Energy
Permanent
Yes
HHS
Permanent
No
DHS
Permanent
No
HUD
Acting
Yes
DOI
Permanent
Yes
DOJ
Permanent
No
DOL
Permanent
No
State
Acting
No
DOT
Permanent
Yes
Treas.
Permanent
No
VA
Acting
Yes
EPA
Acting
Yes
GSA
Permanent
Yes
NASA
Permanent
Yes
NSF
Permanent
Yes
NRC
Permanent
No
OPM
Permanent
Yes
SBA
Permanent
Yes
SSA
Permanent
Yes
USAID
Permanent
No
Source: OGR Biannual Scorecard
The Impact of IT Modernization: An Interview with USDA CIO Gary Washington Down the hall from CIO Gary Washington’s D.C. office is a team of government and industry professionals collaborating to transform the way USDA adopts cloud solutions, optimizes its IT infrastructure, serves customers, manages contact centers and delivers analytics capabilities. The department has already seen quick wins, including the Feb. 1 unveiling of farmers.gov, a new interactive website for producers with self-service applications, engagement opportunities and more. “At the end of the calendar year, people should be able to pay for farm loans in an automated fashion,” said Washington, who is responsible for the department’s roughly $3 billion IT budget. This is huge for USDA and, really, the government at large. Many processes are still paper-based. Washington credits this success to the vision and leadership from the top, as well as buy-in and execution at all levels of the department. Washington gave insights into how key IT initiatives and laws are being implemented at USDA, how he is using his CIO authorities to partner with his colleagues and what the future state of operations at USDA will look like.
GOVLOOP: How are the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), Technology Business Management (TBM) and IT modernization working simultaneously at your agency?
the five centers of excellence [areas]. They’re going to [define] a “to be [state],” where they propose what we could look like, and a transition plan, and other information.
WASHINGTON: IT modernization is helping us meet our FITARA goals. It’s helping us fix our cybersecurity challenges and helping us with our data center optimization. It’s going to force us to have our IT workforce change.
GOVLOOP: I know that getting down to two data centers is one of your goals. Are there any others?
The skillsets are going to change because the environment that we’re in today is not going to be totally [the same] environment that we’re in a couple of years from now. Through TBM and other activities, our IT portfolio is going to change. In terms of FITARA and IT modernization, one is going to help the other. In terms of TBM, that’s definitely going to help us identify what we’re spending our money on and who we’re giving it to. GOVLOOP: I could not talk to you without talking about the Centers of Excellence. Can you talk about some of the heavy lifting that’s taking place? WASHINGTON: We are essentially, in my view, changing the way people engage with us and changing the way USDA does business from a technology perspective. I know our IT workforce is going to have to change because the goal is to get to a more digital, automated, self-service environment, which doesn’t exist totally today. So that’s going to require upgraded or new skillsets. I think IT people and non-IT people are going to have to think differently about how we deliver services in an automated fashion. We will have to manage differently because through consolidation and through modernization, we won’t have as much of what we used to have — meaning contracts, data centers, networks and those kinds of things. Processes will have to change. Our secretary engaged the White House on IT Modernization activities. So we’re partnering with the Office of American Innovation and GSA [General Services Administration] is here supporting us. We have two phases to this. In phase one we’re doing an assessment of where we are and what we look like in
WASHINGTON: We’re consolidating data centers. We’re teaming with GSA to do customer experience work in terms of putting us in a situation where we can provide those self-service portals. We’re doing digital service and analytics where we’re providing digital dashboards on administrative areas like HR, finance, procurement, IT, so everybody has the same information. We’re putting it on people’s desk, so that they can look at all these dashboards and get strategic information and make informed decisions. This really is a strategic partnership, and it’s working very well. GOVLOOP: How do you translate the benefits of all these IT-related changes to non-IT professionals? WASHINGTON: One of the things that we have had to work with IT folks on is not talking about IT; we’re talking about business value. What value are we delivering to the business of USDA? What value are we delivering to our customers, like that farmer, or the rancher, or the forester, or the scientist? We need talk to them more plainly and clearly about how this is actually benefitting them. We’re putting a lot of emphasis around that. GOVLOOP: What types of investments are you making to improve cybersecurity? WASHINGTON: We’re partnering with DHS [the Homeland Security Department] on CDM [Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation]. We’re reducing our IG findings, our vulnerabilities. We’ve increased our systems that’ll have authorities to operate. We have put things in place to make a stronger attempt to prevent people from looking at things they shouldn’t be looking at. Read the full interview here
The People Side of IT: An Interview with Hawaii CIO Todd Nacapuy Chief information officers aren’t created equally, and the job requirements vary based on the organization, reporting structure and how empowered CIOs are to make decisions. So when we asked Hawaii CIO Todd Nacapuy to describe his daily responsibilities, we were both intrigued and impressed with his five-word answer: modernize the state of Hawaii. “When I say modernizing, we’re talking a lot about our backend processes, the way that we communicate, and the way that we address our constituents,” Nacapuy said. “So many times when we try to say things like modernize state government, we get into this whole digital environment. In order to really modernize state government, we need to give our people and our state employees the tools to do that.” Nacapuy also shared his strategy for improving digital literacy among the state’s 800-employee IT workforce.
GOVLOOP: What issues are top of mind for you? NACAPUY: The biggest thing that we have in our state government is what I call digital literacy. We have what we call four generations of workers in our workforce. And we don’t classify a generation of workers by age; we classify them by what technology was in place when they first started here in the state. When you think about the different generations of workers that we have, and what technology was in place when they started, you’re able to communicate to those workers. The four generations are mainframe, PC, laptop and mobile. If you were here in the state when mainframes were around, you think about the processes used at that time. Everything was written out. You were given a book, you were given all of this information that you had to follow step by step in order to process or do your job. When PCs came into play, you had a different way to communicate. Then we moved on to laptops, and then on to mobile. So if you think about the different generations, how we communicate to the four generations is very important. GOVLOOP: Has your prior experience helped you navigate your role as a CIO? NACAPUY: Yes. I’m a firm believer that CIOs need to be technical. And that a majority of failed projects and failed implementations is because a lot of our modernday CIOs are not technical. That has become the biggest issue in our industry. If your CIO is not technical, how are they able to make technical decisions? Some CIOs get that information from consultants, some of them get it from their staff. But at the same time, that level of technical ability needs to be there to understand whether you should choose, you know, Platform-as-a-Service, or build in-house. How are you going to make those decisions if you’re not extremely technical? Because there’s a million other decisions that need to lead up to that final decision. And so that’s really the issue with our industry today is that we have a lot a people that are
better managers, have the better soft skills, but lack some of that technical expertise. And if you don’t have that technical expertise, how are you getting that information? GOVLOOP: What else would be a good insight for readers who are trying to better understand the CIO community? NACAPUY: I like to hire IT [professionals] that do jujitsu. GOVLOOP: Is that something you ask during the interview? NACAPUY: No, we can’t ask that during the interview, but I do jujitsu — that’s why. And I think that jujitsu teaches a different mindset that carries well into the IT world. One of the first things that we do is bow before stepping on the mat. And you bow to leave your ego at the door. And a lot of times in the IT world, we have guys that have egos that think they know the most about a specific technology. But having that background and that mindset, teaches you to check your ego at the door. Another thing that jujitsu teaches you is when to ask for help. And we do that by tapping. So if someone has you in a specific hold, your only way out is to tap, to say, ‘Hey, you got me. I give up, I tap. I need your help. Teach me how you got there.’ Same thing in our IT world is that a lot of times we’ll spend hours and hours and hours trying to solve a problem instead of picking up the phone and calling someone. And the third thing that jujitsu teaches us — one of the cardinal rules of jujitsu — is to never hurt your sparring partner. Once you hurt your sparring partner, no one’s going to want to spar with you. In the IT world, it’s the same thing. We’ve got to learn to work as teams, we’ve got to learn not to hurt each other, and we have to be collaborative. Read the full interview here
Enabling Innovation: An Interview with NSF CIO Dorothy Aronson Pioneering innovative ideas in government can be tough — to say the least. It requires risk-taking, embracing the unknown and some serious marketing and communication skills to win over skeptics. It also helps to have a champion or a sponsor who can shepherd your good ideas along and even create a space for those ideas to take root, get nourishment and hopefully bloom. For a growing number of innovators at the National Science Foundation, Chief Information Officer Dorothy Aronson is that person. As the principal adviser to the agency’s director and other senior management on all matters involving IT, Aronson sees herself as an enabler who is charting a path for employees to introduce innovative ideas that improve how they work. She’s collaborating with forward-thinking staff to introduce microprojects that allow the agency to test new technologies and processes and determine how those efforts can and should be expanded.
GOVLOOP: As technology evolves, what type of skill sets are you looking for in potential job candidates? ARONSON: If you’re dealing with a career employee, I think what we’re looking for is communication skills, teamwork, confidence in being able to discern and ask people questions. A lot of IT people are naturally introverted, and so they don’t tend to want to have conversations. But that’s hard in this industry [because you have] to manage contracts, deliver products, get to the root of problems, and be able to communicate to nontechnical people. You don’t get funding from other IT people. You get it from business people who have a different vocabulary. GOVLOOP: How does your art background influence the work you do? Can you show me an example? ARONSON: I’m an artist all the time, in everything I do. This is the CIO handbook — the coloring book edition. I could walk you through this and show you the org chart of the agency, show you what’s important to the agency. And then I drill down to show you how I see IT. And in the back, there’s a color appendix that matches it. This is a very important chart because it talks about all the important things about IT — starting with people. There’s people, devices, services, data, infrastructure, network, IT management and security. If you look at the President’s Management Agenda, for example, you’ll see IT modernization is one of the three big objectives this year. So, you, IT people are important. You’re driving change in the federal government. And this [section] talks about how we get money [and] our budgeting cycle. GOVLOOP: What workforce projects do you have underway? ARONSON: One of the things that I’m most interested in is when artificial intelligence comes into the workforce and how the workforce is going to change — let’s say over the next five years. If we knew the skills people had today, and if we knew the jobs that were going be here in 2023, we could say to the people, ‘You know, I don’t think you’re going to be able to [continue] doing
the thing you’re doing. So let’s start preparing you now.’ The path can be training, it could be going back to school, it could be taking a detail somewhere so that you get experience. The reason this impassions me is because it helps motivate the people who are here now to be excited about the future. What I’m doing on a teeny tiny scale, which is what I call a microproject, [is] working with a local group of IT people and saying, ‘Can we do [X] just for a year?’ They’re developing their own survey of what they think is important about their jobs, and we’re about to issue it to their peers. And then we’ll start. It’s important not only [for] the IT workforce, but the NSF workforce and the federal workforce. GOVLOOP: As a CIO who doesn’t have IT personnel reporting directly to you, how do you gain visibility into the work they do? ARONSON: I meet with people at different levels. Sometimes people talk about something called shadow IT. I don’t really believe in shadow IT. I believe that over time more and more people should be developing their own solutions. The central IT shop should be providing tools that allow that because we can’t possibly please everybody. I don’t see it as something that’s negative, I see it as something that should be that way. We should, in the central IT shop, provide the things that the local people, innovators cannot be providing. We shouldn’t be struggling. We should work with them. I seek them out. When [I] hear [that] somebody has a cool idea about something, then I go visit them and I say, ‘Do you want to share that idea?’ They’re always interested in sharing, but they’re not usually good marketers. They’re solving their own problems. And so it takes another kind of person to bring those innovations into the center and to share them. Read the full interview here
Climbing the Ranks of Government IT: An Interview with Colorado CIO Suma Nallapati Suma Nallapati, Colorado’s Secretary of Technology & Chief Information Officer, oversees 17 executive branch agencies, 1,200 innovation projects and Google G Suite products for more than 30,000 state employees. It’s no small task, but one that Nallapati is uniquely qualified for. Her skills and education range from programming to electronics to nuclear physics, and her time working through the ranks in the private sector have aided her in developing a more holistic view of Colorado’s technology systems. GovLoop spoke with Nallapati, discussing her core passions, the path her life took to bring her to Colorado, and what it was like to climb the ranks of the tech world as a woman of color.
GOVLOOP: You’ve spent decades working in technology. Could you talk a little about your journey?
GOVLOOP: In your mind, what IT trends are going to dominate this upcoming year?
NALLAPATI: Absolutely. I actually have a master’s degree in nuclear physics. I moved from India as soon as I received that degree, and I wanted to continue my Ph.D. in the United States. But I moved to Colorado and there were not a whole lot of universities offering radiation physics and isotope technology — that was my field of expertise. And they didn’t have a lot of that here in nuclear medicine. So I was like, ‘What do I do?’ I didn’t want to just sit around and wait for the right program to happen.
NALLAPATI: Truly I think machine learning and artificial intelligence. I feel artificial intelligence and machine learning will help us augment some of those skills, as will having the right strategies in place for deep machine learning, which is going to be valuable in how we serve our citizens. The other big thing is again that there’s a lot of buzz around bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I’m just waiting to see how that influences public sector. There’s a lot of talk about it in the private sector in the world of financial transactions, but I think there’s a big use case that we need to explore in the public sector space as well.
I have a bachelor’s in electronics and computer science, so I said, ‘Maybe I’ll switch to IT while I still continue my passion in nuclear physics.’ That’s when I switched to IT and started programming, and became very, very good at programming. And it was very cool for me to be a programmer because you’re building things. Growing up in that process, I got more and more excited about technology and all the capabilities. But for me it was not pure technology. I can never be just a programmer. I’m interested in how technology helps solve business needs. And that was very helpful for me, to be in the middle of problem solving and complex challenges. So, I slowly became a technical lead and the business liaison that would speak in terms of business and not just IT. That proved very valuable in my career. I grew up slowly within the organization, but always in the private sector. So when the CIO job came open in Colorado, I was asked to apply, and I did. I get to serve this beautiful state in ways that I never thought would be possible. GOVLOOP: What about the job weighs on you most heavily? What do you worry the most about? NALLAPATI: In the state of Colorado, we have 8.4 million security events per day. That’s a lot of data that we have to look at, so the more we invest in security, the better off we are. That’s something that keeps me up at night, not knowing where the next breach is coming from, in that sense.
The other thing that I’m truly passionate about is women in technology, and having the next generation of students be active in STEM. STEM has opened up avenues for me, just because of my science and mathematical background. I didn’t have any connections at the state at all. I didn’t know even who the governor was when I first joined the state, right, because you’re so IT-focused you don’t even think about public service. So I truly feel I owe it to my STEM career that I’m able to be in this position of influence and able to give back to the community in ways that I never imagined would be possible. GOVLOOP: Do you feel like, when you were coming up through the ranks in the IT world, that it was more difficult for you as a woman than if you were a man? NALLAPATI: I would say yes. It was difficult. Especially me being a woman of color, it’s a double whammy in that sense. But I did not let that be what drove me. I did not let that hinder me in any way. It was my hard work, my work ethic, my integrity, and what I bring to the table that has defined it. So, if I was not being promoted I spent double and triple the time studying and making sure that I was prepared for that next role. Read the full interview here
Balancing Budget and Innovation: An Interview with Evanston, IL CIO Luke Stowe Luke Stowe knows personally the value of creating the space and opportunity for employees to innovative, collaborate across departments and share good ideas. “I had several managers along the way who really gave me significant freedom to experiment and innovate, which was kind of unusual for the public sector, especially in the past,� said Stowe, who became the first chief information officer of Evanston, Illinois in October 2016. Stowe is paying it forward by empowering his department to experiment with new technologies and use data to drive better outcomes across the city. Stowe recently spoke with GovLoop to talk about tech priorities for the city, how he balances budget realities and customer expectations and what innovation looks like in Evanston.
GOVLOOP: Tell me about your first government job and what drew you to the public sector. STOWE: It dates back to the fall of 2000 when I signed up to be an election judge for that big BushGore election. I started out as a volunteer and then was asked to come on as an intern, then an election specialist, and then eventually a technology specialist. Mostly, I was really interested in improving the county clerk website, and then other technology initiatives in the office. That’s when I fell in love with the intersection of government, technology and its ability to increase government efficiency and citizen engagement. GOVLOOP: How did you move up the ranks to become a CIO? STOWE: I worked at Champaign County for four years and then worked for Lake County government for six years in different election and technology roles. I started at the city of Evanston in the summer of 2012. That was in digital services roles as part of the community engagement team — separate from the IT team. In August of 2016 I became the interim IT Division Manager and then later was appointed Evanston’s first CIO in October 2016. GOVLOOP: What’s on your plate these days? What’s keeping you busy? STOWE: It goes without saying that cybersecurity issues are probably our number one focus right now. But we’re also digging deep on things like data governance, analytics and performance measures. We’re also working to help our partners in our city departments do more in an era of tighter budgets. We’re also trying to align with other best practices and standards like the new GMIS TAPP Accreditation and then also Technology Business Management, which is also known as TBM. GOVLOOP: Can you tell me more about the performance measures the city is working on? STOWE: I think we definitely needed to do a better job internally using data and evidence when it comes to budgeting. We’re also trying to share more and more of these performance measures, particularly related to police data, with the public. We also created a data
governance team about a year ago, and it’s a crosssection of folks from all over the city who are datasavvy and interested in sharing more with the public but also doing a better job with internal data. GOVLOOP: What is the workforce situation like? STOWE: The city of Evanston has about 1,000 employees. Our IT team has about 13 [full-time equivalents]. Plus, we have some really outstanding interns. I always say one of our secret weapons has been our talented Northwestern University and also our Evanston Township High School students. GOVLOOP: What types of projects do they work on? STOWE: All types of things. We’ve had them work on traditional service desk stuff, but we’ve also had them work on data projects and hardware and software installs. We try to rotate them around so they get exposure to different types of things within IT. GOVLOOP: They’re definitely not bringing people coffee. STOWE: No. Not me, that’s for sure. If you count the interns and the students, we’ve got everything from baby boomers, all the way down to Generation Z, the next generation after the millennials. It’s an interesting mix. You’ve got roughly a 40-year span or more for employees. Everyone coexists really well, and it makes for a fun environment. We have really great staff members in other city departments that are also techsavvy, or tech inclined. GOVLOOP: How does your agency balance tight budgets, innovation and citizen demands? STOWE: Our IT budget is about $2.7 million, with some additional oversight over other technology spend in other city departments. One of our focuses has been on renegotiating newer, less expensive agreements with existing vendors and then also looking to newer gov tech startups, who typically cost less and also have a newer technology stack. And then we’ve taken those savings and then funneled that into the new cybersecurity initiatives that we’ve been working on. Read the full interview here
Conclusion The role of the CIO has evolved from simply being an IT service provider to more of a strategic partner. They must have strong negotiating, management and communication skills. In many cases, CIOs rank these skills above their technical capabilities. CIOs must be able to talk about technology in business terms. For example, how will a particular IT investment help employees do their jobs better, advance mission priorities and, in some cases, save the agency both time and money? As citizens demand more modern and innovative digital solutions from their government, CIOs will be expected to collaborate with the public and employees at all levels to lead this charge.
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