Fairfax, Va. — Management structures that inhibit effective decision-making, hiring practices that make it difficult to land top IT talent and an overall “antagonism to innovation” are all roadblocks preventing the government from keeping pace with private industry in technology, according to a new report from the Fairfax-based American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC). The report outlines recommendations on how the next administration can improve government through IT. “These papers provide a roadmap of actions for the next administration to begin to address the huge gap in effectiveness between public and private sector use of technology to transform business processes,” said Mark Forman and Roger Baker, co-chairs of the ACT-IAC transition effort. “Despite spending over $80 billion annually on information technology, most federal agencies have seen little change in how they perform their work or interact and transact with citizens, businesses and other governments,” the report states. “Where change has happened, it has typically been the automation of current processes or providing information through websites. The lack of change is caused by federal laws, processes, and culture that inhibit or even penalize risk taking, change and innovation.” The full report is at the link below.
https://www.actiac.org/system/files/Presidential%20Transition%20Report%2010172016.pdf (PDF of full report)