Government Technology - March 2008 - (Page 16)

PHOTO BY BRUCE KLUCKHOHN Questions Four IN 2005, MINNESOTA GOV. TIM PAWLENTY LAUNCHED THE DRIVE TO EXCELLENCE, AN INITIATIVE TO AUTOMATE PROCESSES AND MAKE STATE GOVERNMENT FUNCTION AS AN ENTERPRISE. THAT SAME YEAR, GOPAL KHANNA WAS NAMED MINNESOTA’S CIO. for Gopal Khanna CIO, MINNESOTA 1 2 3 MAR_08 j 16 The Drive to Excellence involves comprehensive changes to state government. How do you build buy-in among your public work force? The public sector [is] driven by the desire to serve the citizens by doing good work. We’ve built on that motivation by creating teams where people are empowered to take action. We need to compress our time to action: Can we do in 90 days what took two years in the past? We have to move faster in government. The work force is happy to see this change because they want to and know how to do things better if given the chance. What results have you seen? When I assumed this position, I challenged my colleagues to set up desktop and laptop standards [in] 90 days. We set up teams — it was cross-boundary collaboration — and they sat down together and said, “Let’s focus on the 80 percent of our requirements that can be standardized. There will always be ‘exception processing.’” We now have standards for laptops, desktops, servers and storage. About $100 million over ﬁve years is the estimated savings. How important are procurement savings in building support for further organizational changes? Those savings occur at the agency level, enabling more investment in missioncritical services. In general, when we talk about IT reform, I believe we focus too much on savings. You need to make an investment ﬁrst. What I talk about in Minnesota is how much investment we’re willing to make in our infrastructure to move away from 20th-century government operations and toward the 21stcentury computing environment. Savings and ROI will happen if the right programs are put in place to make government more transparent, accountable and results-oriented. So the savings come from making government work better. But saving money isn’t the only reason to do this? Exactly. The goal is more effective, transparent government that serves citizens on their terms, not our terms. The citizens are saying, “We want 24/7 government on demand. We want government that is totally transparent.” Our governor constantly reminds us that we need to be results- and outcomesoriented. To do that, we need to make a serious investment in our infrastructure of government operations. BY STEVE TOWNS, EDITOR The goal is more effective, transparent government that serves citizens on their terms, not our terms. 4 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - March 2008

Government Technology - March 2008 Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile On the Scene Four Questions for... Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers Let's [Not] Get Physical No Data Left Behind Conservation King Community Drug Test Reinventing the System Better Late Than Never Closing the Deal Spectrum Products Personal Computing signal:noise Digital Communities The Expanding Focus of Digital Communities The Digital Imperative Hot Fusion Redefining Municipal Wireless Made in the USA Bridge Detectives The 2008 Agenda

Government Technology - March 2008

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