I like the point of “Move the technical management layer from vendors to the government.” To me it seems like there’s this thing that happens in government where some function gets outsourced, it sucks, and then nobody in the government takes any responsibility for it sucking, and it doesn’t even seem like they understand what’s going on or why. Contracting out can be great but you need enough technical ability on staff to be able to take responsibility for the performance of the contractor.
Yup, exactly. In FAFSA, we brought in enough people to provide overall technical leadership and oversight, and kept the vendors in place for hands (now agents...) on keyboards. The vendor contracts got restructured to focus on providing capacity that we direct, instead of overall system ownership.
Sounds good to me. The dangerous point with contractors/vendors is if you ever get to the point of "we can never fire them, even if they start screwing everything up, because we don't actually understand the system enough to replace them".
Great thoughts here, Aaron, especially, "It’s to ask which rules protect an outcome, which merely protect a process..." I would extend this a bit to ask, "Which merely protect a job?"
I've seen many deployments of AI/ML over the last 13 years. What's become evident with the latest GenAI cycle, at least in my experience, is actually something you also said: "Things government has long explained as difficult, expensive, or slow are going to look increasingly like choices." Yes! Same goes for private companies, where many times a long-standing middle management layer has not really done much in a decade. Not much to innovate, move things along, or improve-- just attend meetings, set a policy, etc.
AI can expose where inefficiencies not only existed, but that the inefficiency was intentional. As you said, you take something from months to weeks or days, and everyone upstream freaks out because, now, THEY need to move faster and do more. Well the first step to treating a wound is exposing it to oxygen, then clean, then repair and bandage. We're at the expose stage, which is much needed.
In New York State, the responsiveness and efficiency of DMV and the court system is immeasurably better than it was a decade ago thanks to digitization and good coding. As mentioned in the article, pretty sure that's the case in many other states as well. Seems like maybe it's a federal government problem.
I like the point of “Move the technical management layer from vendors to the government.” To me it seems like there’s this thing that happens in government where some function gets outsourced, it sucks, and then nobody in the government takes any responsibility for it sucking, and it doesn’t even seem like they understand what’s going on or why. Contracting out can be great but you need enough technical ability on staff to be able to take responsibility for the performance of the contractor.
Yup, exactly. In FAFSA, we brought in enough people to provide overall technical leadership and oversight, and kept the vendors in place for hands (now agents...) on keyboards. The vendor contracts got restructured to focus on providing capacity that we direct, instead of overall system ownership.
Sounds good to me. The dangerous point with contractors/vendors is if you ever get to the point of "we can never fire them, even if they start screwing everything up, because we don't actually understand the system enough to replace them".
Of course, a lot of times there are rules preventing you from paying enough to get the good people in
Is that better or worse for contractors, compared to regular government employees?
I think contractors are generally free from those rules on maximum pay.
Great thoughts here, Aaron, especially, "It’s to ask which rules protect an outcome, which merely protect a process..." I would extend this a bit to ask, "Which merely protect a job?"
I've seen many deployments of AI/ML over the last 13 years. What's become evident with the latest GenAI cycle, at least in my experience, is actually something you also said: "Things government has long explained as difficult, expensive, or slow are going to look increasingly like choices." Yes! Same goes for private companies, where many times a long-standing middle management layer has not really done much in a decade. Not much to innovate, move things along, or improve-- just attend meetings, set a policy, etc.
AI can expose where inefficiencies not only existed, but that the inefficiency was intentional. As you said, you take something from months to weeks or days, and everyone upstream freaks out because, now, THEY need to move faster and do more. Well the first step to treating a wound is exposing it to oxygen, then clean, then repair and bandage. We're at the expose stage, which is much needed.
In New York State, the responsiveness and efficiency of DMV and the court system is immeasurably better than it was a decade ago thanks to digitization and good coding. As mentioned in the article, pretty sure that's the case in many other states as well. Seems like maybe it's a federal government problem.