Thom Rubel, public-sector business line leader at Pegasystems ... Is it a mobile app? Does it ..... to accept any channe
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T H E F UT URE O F D IG ITA L PU B L I C SERVICES PREPARING YOUR ORGANIZATION FOR THE TRANSFORMATIVE EFFECTS OF TODAY’S TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
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Ju s t look at the o utco m e, go b ac kwar d s an d e xam i n e e v e r y step alon g the wa y. Onc e y ou m ake i t ab out th e c usto m e r or the o utco m e, you c h an g e th e d i sc ussi on .” Thom Rubel, public-sector business line leader at Pegasystems
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EXECUTIVE SUMM ARY
CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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THE POWER OF DIGITAL GOVERNMENT
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1. The Power to Engage. Public-sector organizations at all levels are rapidly moving into the era of digital government. From the White House Digital Government Strategy to digital curriculum in public school classrooms, there seems to be a near-universal consensus that we can achieve more with fewer resources through better use of technology. But what does digital innovation look like? Is it a mobile app? Does it involve moving operations to the cloud? The world of digital innovation is immense. It can be as simple as opening a Twitter account or as complicated as reorganizing information technology (IT) across an agency. The hard reality is that there isn’t one right answer to digital innovation in the public sector. But there are plenty of wrong ones. The seductive quality of today’s newest technology gadgets can lead organizations astray, leaving them with newer, faster tools with which to work through the same broken processes. As a result, digital innovation can seem overwhelming. GovLoop and Pegasystems have produced this guide to help public-sector organizations understand what smart, achievable digital innovation looks like. In these pages, you will see that innovation starts with people and process and then uses those changes as the springboard for outcome-driven technology adoption – the ultimate end goal for digital government. If you take one thing away from this document – although we hope that you will take many things – it is that public sector organizations are on the verge of being able to take advantage of the enormous, transformative opportunities new technologies present. These technologies will allow you to: •
Engage with your customers more effectively.
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Simplify your processes to be more efficient.
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Change and adapt to shifts in budget level, regulation or technology.
It just takes a bit of strategic restructuring. The future is very bright for those willing to step out of the antiquated models of IT, customer service and business processes. Throughout this guide, we’ve highlighted cases of organizations that have made changes that appear small on the surface, but which have had a monumental impact on customer service and efficiency. To us, these organizations look almost Jetsons-like in their ability to operate in such a forward-thinking, futuristic manner. We hope this guide will help your agency take the first steps toward making the ideas of tomorrow the solutions of today.
2. The Power to Simplify. 3. The Power to Change.
TURNING CHALLENGES INTO OPPORTUNITIES
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1. A Customer- or Outcome-Centric Approach 2. An Enterprisewide Vision: Breaking Down Silos, Barriers 3. Channel-Agnostic Engagement: Technologies are Channels, not Strategies
THE NATIONAL RESOURCE CONSERVATION SERVICE
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1. Business Process Reengineering 2. IT Modernization
WHAT IS INTELLIGENT BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT? 10 BPM Applications Intelligent Business Process Management (iBPM)
THE STATE OF MAINE
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An Example of Maine’s Approach: Unemployment Insurance Claim Improvements BPM Automation: A New Department Takes Root in the Pine Tree State The Bigger Picture: Finding Organizational Similarities and Reusing Solutions Next Steps: A Cohesive Government Customer Experience
A CASE-CENTRIC APPROACH TO GOVERNMENT
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Why Does this Matter? Understanding the Case-Centric Approach The Solution: A Layer Cake
THE TEXAS COUNTY & DISTRICT RETIREMENT SYSTEM (TCDRS) 16 WHAT IS AGILE?
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The Old Way: Waterfall and Unhappy Customers Agile: Talking Projects One Sprint at a Time Fitting Agile into the Organizational Puzzle
3 TIPS FOR THE ROAD
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1. Make HR as Adaptable as the Enterprise 2. Trailblazers Bring the Ideas, Guides See them Through 3. Quietly Experiment to Allow for Missteps
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THE POWER OF DIGITAL GOVERNMENT Digital Innovation: Unlocking the 3 Powers of Digital Public Service
According to the White House’s fiscal year 2015 budget document, the federal government’s IT spending will be cut by $2.4 billion. State and local level cuts reflect an even sharper decrease in IT and support service budgets. Contrast that to IT spending in the private sector, which is predicted to increase by nearly 4 percent – to $3.8 trillion – as companies strive to keep up with new, evolving technologies, such as sensor devices on everyday items from toasters to automobiles. And yet these two sectors do not operate in different worlds. The same customer who can manage her 401(k) or buy a bedroom set online is looking for the same level of service delivery – and continuity – from government agencies, whether she’s applying for a home improvement permit or filing taxes. So where does that leave the public sector? Shrinking budgets and increased expectations are pushing public-sector agencies in one direction: toward digital innovation. But this definition of digital innovation goes far beyond bolting a new solution on to the existing enterprise. To truly capture the benefits of digital innovation, public-sector organizations need to be what Pegasystems Chief Executive Officer Alan Trefler refers to as digital by design. This means thinking through exactly what you want to achieve as you go digital, so that everything you do, whether it is using mobile technologies or moving things to the cloud, revolves around the type of abilities you’ll need to succeed. The details are different for every organization, but there are three fundamental abilities – or powers – that will separate those that are successfully harnessing the power of digital from those who are not:
1. TH E P O WER TO ENG AG E. For any agency that serves a constituency or customer – even if it’s internal customers such as field agents or mission-facing offices – the ability to engage is crucial. This means interacting with customers and actively participating in the discussion while serving their needs.
2. TH E P O WER TO SIM P LIFY. This one is tough for public-sector agencies, many of which are pulled in countless directions by changing organizational structures, complex regulations and even the specter of politics, complicating even the simplest of tasks. Still, these difficulties only highlight the need to be able to go end to end and look at how the organization is set up from the first point of interaction with the customer – internal or external – to completion, and figure out which processes are crucial to delivering the intended outcome and which impede progress. When building processes, every step should begin and end with the objective. That will allow agencies to work backward, stripping away everything that doesn’t contribute.
3. TH E P O WER TO CH A NG E. Despite popular misconceptions about the public sector, operations are rarely static in public agencies. Regulations change, budgets change, even customers change. The ability to nimbly adjust and adapt to these shifts, including positive opportunities that arise, will differentiate those agencies that flourish in any circumstance from those that struggle with even the slightest change. The task of harnessing these powers comes in three interconnected steps. To better understand them, GovLoop turned to Thom Rubel, public-sector business line leader at Pegasystems. Rubel has decades of public-sector experience at federal agencies such as the departments of Transportation and Agriculture and at associations such as the National Governors Association. 5
TURNING CHALLENGES INTO OPPORTUNITIES 3 Steps to Unlocking the Power of Digital Government
1. A C U S TO ME R - O R O UT COME-CEN TRIC APPROACH First, public-sector officials must realize that the most successful organizations are those that put customers at the center of everything they do. This means making a committed effort to not only understand what they look like to you, but also what you look like to them. How are you delivering to your customers? Are there multiple program points across your organization that they touch? The standard answer, “This is how we do things,” will need to be replaced with a new question: “How will what we do impact the customers we serve or outcomes we want to achieve?” This then opens the process to unlocking the power of simplification, change and customer engagement. “Just look at the outcome, go backwards and examine every step along the way,” Rubel said. “You may discover little sub-processes that nobody knew were there and that don’t have anything to do with the customer but have everything to do with the way you’ve structured yourself. But once you make it about the customer or the outcome, you change the discussion.”
2 . AN E N T E R PR I S E W I DE VISION : BREAK IN G DOWN SILOS, BA R R IER S The ability to work across barriers to simplify processes and share information can’t take place without an enterprisewide vision of how the organization does business. The first step in taking an enterprisewide approach is for organizational leaders to take inventory of agency data, systems and processes and see how they align with different outcomes. Afterward, it becomes apparent that, just as in the example in “One Citizen, One Government” (Page 7), there are common sets of information that feed into various programs.
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“There are commonalities across programs, and once you get to that enterprise view, you see where the information is flowing,” Rubel said. Specifically, you will be able to see which group is pulling the data, why they need it and, ultimately, how they are using it. But that isn’t possible without looking beyond the discrete business unit. Taking an enterprise view unlocks a host of opportunities for simplification in both business processes and technology use. On the business process side, it is possible to figure out where similarities lie across the organization and begin to reuse processes that were implemented somewhere else, which can save time and money. And on the technology side, we begin to see the value in sharing data and information enterprisewide. This breathes new life into legacy systems, which can now be integrated and fed into a business process management (BPM) system based on the need of the specific case or customer.
3. CH A NNEL-AG NO STIC ENG AG EM ENT: TECH NO LO G IES A R E C HA N NELS, NOT STR ATEG IES The final step has to do with the way we view technology. This issue was raised during PegaWorld 2014, a three-day annual conference hosted by Pegasystems in June in Washington, D.C. This year the theme was digitization innovation, and during the conference’s government day, a speaker asked the audience: With regards to customer engagement, is mobile a channel or a strategy? After some deliberation, the general consensus was that mobile was indeed a channel and not a strategy. But what’s the difference?
INSIDER TIP The enterprisewide approach isn’t only for agency leaders. Using technology, individual business groups can share and collaborate with one another, sharing ideas and even technological solutions – while still carrying out their specific missions. (See the state of Maine case study on Page 12 for more details on this approach.) It is possible to catalyze collaboration with your peer groups even if you don’t have the enterprisewide vision or leadership at the top.
In government, the idea of a mobile-first strategy comes up often. It’s correct in its approach – to respond to the proliferation of mobile devices – but also dangerous when taken as an end to itself. If an organization reorients itself – its processes, its systems and its people – to work around mobile technologies, it risks creating yet another information silo, this time around mobile applications.
Figure out the best processes and systems to process information coming in through paper, a tablet device or the next wave of tools that we’ve yet to see. Throughout this guide, you will see cases from public-sector agencies that have taken these three steps toward digital innovation, which can unlock the three powers of digital public service: engage, simplify and change.
Instead, the most effective digital strategy is to think of mobile as simply another channel by which the organization can engage with the customer. The goal of the strategy should be that the organization can interact with customers through any channel they choose.
ONE CITIZEN, ONE GOVERNMENT
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Let’s look at a case at the state and local level. Often, when someone visits a government website or walks into a government office to apply for, say, a boating license, he must go through a completely different process than when he applied for a real estate agent license.
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You’re thinking, “Of course. Those are two completely different things.” But are they? The information required is the same: address, birth date and Social Security number. And although there are some procedural differences between the two licenses, the odds are that the processes of getting the two applications through the system are very similar.
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That opens up the potential for simplifying the processes, breaking down organizational barriers and allowing this particular citizen to engage the government as one entity. Perhaps more importantly, the customer-centric view allows the agency to view the citizen as one customer, since this is the treatment he’s come to expect from his business with the private sector.
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THE NATIONAL RESOURCE CONSERVATION SERVICE Using Digital Innovation to Get Back to Its Original Mission STEP 1 A farmer wants to survey the soil quality of a patch of land.
As with many public-sector agencies, the Agriculture Department’s National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is looking for a way to provide more services with fewer resources. It turned to technology to find the solution, but the agency’s transformation began long before IT got involved. NRCS is the second largest agency within USDA. Its mission is to lead a partnership effort to help people conserve, maintain and improve the country’s natural resources. “Helping people help the land,” its mission states. This distinguishes NRCS from the U.S. Forest Service, which is charged with conserving and maintaining public-owned lands. NRCS works with private landowners to help them with their conservations needs, taking them through nine steps of conservation planning, which include identifying a problem or opportunity to implementing a formulated plan. Examples of issue areas are soil loss from erosion, water quality, water conservation and air quality. However, because of changes in the U.S. Farm Bill and other regulatory mandates a few years ago, the agency went from a $100 million to a $4 billion budget. The problem is that NRCS currently has 500,000 to 750,000 engagements with its customers per year, the majority of which are via phone calls or visits to USDA offices. Before the expansion, the agency’s field staff – called field conservationists – spent 75 percent to 85 percent of the time in the field with farmers, helping them put a plan together to achieve their land objectives. However, the agency has found itself entrenched in administrative mandates that have limited the amount of field time available for conservationists, forcing them to remain in the office and have stakeholders come to them. This focus on administrative tasks has limited the effectiveness of NRCS. To better understand the changes under way at NRCS, GovLoop spoke to NRCS Chief Technology Officer Christine Calvosa. Because of the increased administrative workload NRCS staff face, the agency was not taking advantage of the workflow automation or multichannel citizen engagement options and technologies that are available. “What we want to do is access our landowners in different ways,” Calvosa said. “We’re trying to provide field conservationists with digital solutions that allow them to complete a majority percentage of steps out in the field, with the farmers and stakeholders, and then maybe just a couple of small things administratively in the office.”
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THE APPROACH: BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING AND IT MODERNIZATION The process of transforming the agency’s mission-facing operations had two interconnected components: business process reengineering and IT modernization.
1. B U SINESS P RO CESS R EENG INEER ING Roughly five years ago, the business owners at NRCS reexamined all of their citizen-facing processes to figure out where they could make improvements. “They reached out to field staff and other folks to understand how they currently conduct business,” Calvosa said. “The goal was to better streamline processes from a business perspective. They looked at process, workflows and policies that were currently in place.” But the business units didn’t stop at simplification. They recognized that the Farm Bill and other regulatory mandates wouldn’t remain static, so they built in mechanisms by which their new business processes could nimbly respond to changes. It was only after this reengineering process was complete that the business groups could turn to IT workers and ask for technology solutions that would complement their new approach. “I’m a complete advocate of making sure you have understood the business process and the workflow before providing the IT solution,” Calvosa said. “An IT solution won’t always solve your problem if you can’t streamline a business process.” The solution eventually crafted by the Office of the Chief Information Officer was called the Conservation Delivery Streamlining Initiative (CDSI), and it contained three components:
T H E C O N S E R VAT I O N D E L I V E RY S T R E A M L I N I N G I N I T I AT I V E ( C D S I ) STEP 2
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She logs into the Client Gateway and makes a request for a visit, highlighting on a web-based map the area she wants examined.
This area is pinned to geospatial coordinates and the data goes to a workflow in the Conservation Desktop.
A field operator at NRCS takes a tablet with him on the surveying visit, using the Mobile Planning Tool to enter information. He can even walk along the area the farmer highlighted, using the mobile device to trace the plot of land.
The field operator and the farmer work together, in person, and information is updated in real-time from the field. The majority of the administrative work has been automated, leaving the field operator time and freedom to visit the next customer in the queue.
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The Client Gateway. This Client Gateway allows farmers to access NRCS and learn about available programs, request assistance with their conservation problems and communicate and collaborate with NRCS during the planning and financial assistance processes, which precludes the necessity of having to call or visit an office. Conservation Desktop. This will provide field conservationists and other internal staff a framework for all conservation planning and programmatic-related financial functions that include two primary components: Technical Assistance and Financial Assistance. Workflows can be triggered from telephone calls, in-person visits and requests made through the Client Gateway. Although NRCS officials would prefer that farmers take advantage of the gateway, the desktop allows the workflow process to accept any channels through which the public contacts the agency. Mobile Planning Tool. The final piece of the puzzle was to enable field conservationists to complete their work – namely via the Conservation Desktop –while in the field with the customer, as opposed to taking notes and completing administrative tasks at the office.
2 . I T M O DE R N I Z AT I O N The second part of the plan involved modernizing the agency’s IT systems. The key here is that the agency did not simply buy new products and services. The risk would have been to import the problems of the past into the solutions of the present. “As the agency started to build out its services and grow as an organization, from Technical to Financial Assistance, NRCS built a lot of siloed systems,” Calvosa said. “None of the systems really interfaced with each other.”
Therefore, to truly take advantage of the streamlined and agile business processes, the underlying data supporting those processes needed to be just as integrated. “What we’re trying to do is remove the siloed system and move to an enterprise type of platform,” Calvosa said. “In this way, no matter how you interface with the gateway of CDSI or the mobile planner, everybody is accessing the same type of information and data.” This approach reduces any data duplication that may exist across the enterprise. It also allows real-time updates since the agency is dealing with one system of record, and it turns out better information because there are fewer silos.
THE RESULT? A MORE STREAMLINED, AGILE AND CITIZEN-CENTRIC NRCS. As of this writing, CDSI will be implemented in phases. Client Gateway is scheduled to be released this summer or fall. Early tests reveal a system that feels almost futuristic in execution. Although internal staff would need some training, the idea is to make the Client Gateway user-friendly enough for private citizens to log in and understand what they need to do. “I’m comparing the experience to the Amazon-dot-coms of the world,” Calvosa said. “They don’t technically train anybody – it is supposed to be intuitive enough on its own.” This is digital innovation in its truest form. It began with a reengineering of business operations so that the agency placed the customer first. The organization simplified its approach to facilitate information sharing and the elimination of duplicate processes. And it ensured that it designed a process that wasagile enough to weather any change in regulation or technological approach. CDSI provided the technological tools to transform the way NRCS delivered services to the public, but the true innovation took place at the organizational level. 9
LEARNING CORNER:
WHAT IS INTELLIGENT BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT? BPM is designed to align all aspects of the organization with the wants and needs of the customer. This can include external customers, such as citizens and outside stakeholders, and internal customers, such as field staff and employees of other business units. The approach is designed to view the organization holistically, which opens up the possibility of technology integration, flexibility and innovation across the enterprise. The advantage here is that you can view the organization as a single unit that works seamlessly together to achieve a goal, as opposed to discrete units working in silos. The reality is that the work of one business unit affects others, however indirectly, which means there is always potential for greater collaboration – all in the interests of serving the customer or achieving the final outcome.
B P M APPL I C AT I O N S In recent decades, the primary focus of BPM has been on automating business processes using IT. But more recently, the definition and application of BPM has been expanded to also include people-driven processes, in which human interaction takes place in a series or in parallel with the use of technology.
How exactly does iBPM achieve the goal of adaptive enterprise? Traditionally, when we think about the drivers of organizational processes, they are often housed in policy and procedure manuals, legacy code, data, process models – even inside the heads of longtime employees. These sources often make internal and customer-facing processes complicated, difficult to understand and even more difficult to change. The goal of iBPM is to automate processes in a way that is the opposite: replicable, easy to change and accessible in plain English. But iBPM is not only about capturing the rules and procedures traditionally housed in manuals, legacy systems and other sources of process. It is also designed to automate these rules and put them into a platform that allows full transparency, monitoring and configuration. Perhaps the most promising development of iBPM is it allows business groups to own their own processes, even as they move into the IT development phase. It enables them to: •
Envision a business goal or outcome.
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Model a process that fits the vision.
In this way, BPM is as much a business science as it is a technology use category.
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Execute the process.
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Monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of the process.
I N T E LLIG E N T BUS I NE S S PROCESS MAN AGEMEN T (IBPM)
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Continuously improve the operations of the business.
Another recent development is that BPM technologies and methodologies have given way to BPM suites, which serve as the technology platform enabling organizations to realize the promise of what Gartner calls “the adaptive enterprise.”
Viewing iBPM in this way, it is easy to see how these abilities match the aforementioned powers of digital government: engage, simplify and change. It serves as the foundation on which digital innovation can take place, providing an ecosystem that merges business needs with technology solutions.
This is what we mean when we say “the power to change.” An adaptive enterprise can flexibly adjust its policies and procedures to meet the changing demands of various customer segments – which is vital for public-sector organizations that serve a wide swath of the population – enhancing relevance and customer support for your operations. This is also where we get the ‘I’ in iBPM. It is the intelligent use of technology to transform the way organizations do business. 10
INTELLIGENT BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT AT WORK: THE TRANSPORT MANAGEMENT CENTRE OF NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA The Transport Management Centre (TMC) is responsible for controlling all traffic operations in New South Wales, the most populous state in Australia and home to the city of Sydney. TMC manages the movement of private motor vehicles, railcars, ferries and buses across more than 11,000 miles of roads and more than 3,100 miles of bridges and tunnels. The core of TMC operations is to monitor and manage the road network and provide timely and accurate information to transport users. The problem was that TMC has 20,000 sensor devices along roadways, including variable message signs, variable speed limit signs, signals and monitoring devices. Each of those devices – there are 50 types floating around the network – has roughly 40 potential codes and display signs, which vastly increases the road network’s complexity. “Each of these sensors can sense if there is a particular fault, such as an accident, weather incident or heavy traffic and report that fault back to the center,” said Chris Ruwoldt, principal manager of transport operations systems at TMC. “There are so many different fault codes from so many different devices, we needed a way to automate that process.” TMC used iBPM to facilitate the management of the process flow to technicians so they can now respond and work as expeditiously as possible. The two systems developed through iBPM – the Incident Management System and Fault Manage Service – not only automated the rules governing the 20,000 Internet-connected sensors on the road, they also automatically triggered a workflow from the appropriate responding sub-agency. “There are so many sub-agencies throughout Sydney,” Ruwoldt said. “We needed a rules engine to sort out where all the particular fault triggers should go.”
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THE STATE OF MAINE Reusing Solutions to Push Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction
The state of Maine is not the largest or most populous state in the union. And unlike California, Washington or North Carolina, it isn’t home to the tech giants that dominate today’s digital industries. But it has an interesting distinction: It has the highest median age – 43.5 – of any state in the United States. So how did it become home to one of the most innovative and forward-thinking state governments in the country? Doug Averill, director of BPM at the state’s government offices, discussed some of the recent changes taking place in Maine and what they mean for the future of digital public service. “Our recent changes were a strategic initiative of the chief information officer here, Jim Smith,” Averill said. “He saw what business process management was able to do in the private sector. When he got to Maine, he saw a lot of paper moving around these offices, a lot of inconsistencies, a lot of siloed systems – and a host of business units that were similar but thought they were very unique.” Smith sought to use BPM to make Maine’s government offices more agile and efficient. “In reality, government takes in information, does processing of some kind and spits out some result – more data, money or some service,” Averill said. “We don’t really manufacture anything. We’re basically all about business processes. So that’s the case for BPM in the state of Maine – or anywhere in the public sector.” Before explaining the larger vision of BPM transformation in Maine, it may be helpful to provide an example of the way the state offices have used BPM to improve services.
This was a problem for Maine’s Labor Department, which was taking an average of 42 days to unblock stuck claims. The solution was to digitize the blocked claim intake form and integrate it with all of the associated feeder systems to automatically pull together relevant information. Then, the workflow was automated so field auditors and examiners to begin the validation process. With this new streamlined, automated and transparent process, Maine’s Labor was able to cut the time from 42 days to less than a week. This is contrasted with the old process, in which scanned documents and e-mail-based workflows were used, with the audit trail tracked through handwritten notes that were scanned back into the system so teams would have multiple versions of it. Averill was quick to note the ingenuity of the old model. “Their solution was very creative,” he said. “They had their swim lanes; they just didn’t have a piece of technology that could do what they wanted to do.”
B P M AU TO M ATIO N: A NEW D EPA R TM ENT TA KES RO OT I N T HE PI N E TR EE STATE This is where Averill comes in. He is the first director of BPM in Maine, and is facilitating the kinds of changes that are poised to transform business processes like Labor’s unemployment claim reconciliation operation.
AN E X AMPL E O F MA I NE ’S APPROACH: UN EMPLOYMEN T IN SU R A NCE C LAI M I MPROV E ME N T S
“A lot of what we’re doing all day long is not talking about BPM, and not even talking out processes, but talking about agile [software development],” Averill said. “What we struggle with in government is understanding enough of the end-toend operations, as well as the regulatory structure we’re trying to follow.”
In Maine, and in the rest of the country, to collect an unemployment insurance claim, an applicant’s reported work history must match his or her employer’s reported wages. If those figures don’t match, the claim becomes blocked. The federal government gives states 21 days to unblock this type of claim.
The real challenge, he said, is not in developing business processes or technological solutions to get them running, but just getting the right people in the room to sit down and define what the application or business process is going to accomplish.
“We know in the state of Maine that most of those claimants are actually eligible for benefits,” Averill said. “It was usually the employer that didn’t file the wages.”
“It’s difficult, but we take it one step at a time – one project at a time,” Averill said.
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But before Averill could begin working to help departments figure out their needs, he needed to find out how his office would fit in the organization. “That was a question that came up early on,” he said. The BPM office ended up in the CIO’s office, but it really falls outside the traditional definition of IT. “It’s really a business focus, and it is all about delivery,” he said. “What’s working well is that, from the business side, departments like what is being delivered,” Averill said. “It’s business saying, ‘I like what they have over there. I want some of that, too.’ So for them it doesn’t matter where I sit.”
T H E B I GGE R PI C T UR E : F IN DIN G ORGAN IZATION AL SIMILAR ITIES A ND R E U S I N G S O L UT I O NS One the biggest advantages of Averill’s position is that he can see across the enterprise. “Everyone thinks that what they’re doing is separate and unique,” said Averill, of the myriad units and subdivisions working across the state offices. “Honestly, that’s not something that’s worth refuting, because there are some outcomes and customers that really are unique to that office.” Instead, Averill and his team work to understand the road each unit takes to achieve its goals. He believes that the key to fulfilling the promise of faster, nimbler programs – and the applications that support them – is a lot of upfront work and planning. “If what you build is always a one-off solution, you’re not ever going to be more efficient,” Averill said. “So our task is to figure out how to build an application in such a way that everyone could use it.” This is a challenge, Averill explained, because business units are concerned about their unique needs and processes.
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To remedy this problem, the BPM office is seeking a budget that allows them to have partial architect oversight management. Thus, by having a budget stake in the project, the BPM team will be able to dedicate a portion of its resources to re-use. In other words, they’ll be able to break a particular application down into discrete rules that the organization can put in its “electronic bookcase,” pull off the shelf and reuse for something similar in the future. “Everyone uses the same document imaging system, for example, so I’m not going to rewrite that for everyone,” Averill said. “I’m going to pull it off the shelf and reuse it.” The beauty of BPM is that every time the state designs a solution, it is now designing it for maximum reusability. “So when the next person comes along and says, ‘I’m completely unique,’ we take the rules off the shelf and reuse them for that person,” he said. “Essentially that’s where my job is headed: to be the curator of those different applications and rules that have been created for different business systems.”
NEXT STEP S: A CO H ESIVE G OVER NM ENT CU STO M ER E X PER I EN C E Another area where Averill’s team has been active is licensing. “Almost all licensing is the same to some degree,” he said. “What’s really nice about what we’re doing in terms of reusing solutions and sharing applications is that the customer, over time, will start getting a more cohesive feel, so that if they’ve gone from one particular license, and they go get a completely different one with a different agency, they experience the relief of being able to use the same set of credentials.” In fact, Averill is planning greater integration among systems, so that if someone is conducting business in one area of the government, she might get a notification that another pending application is due the next month. “That’s the vision – to allow these applications to have their distinct qualities, but architect them in a way so that there’s better cohesion and a better experience for the citizen,” he said. 13
LEARNING CORNER:
A CASE-CENTRIC APPROACH TO GOVERNMENT
These days, public-sector organizations are seeing the need to converge several business areas that used to be considered siloed business operations. The concepts explored – customer relationship management (CRM) and BPM – require a more holistic approach to solving business problems. This is the value of taking a case-centric approach to government.
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Public Engagement. Consolidate and analyze information to offer and deliver relevant services to citizens. Agencies should aim to personalize user experience via social media and other online portals to engage citizens proactively with the services and information they want.
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Customer Service. Manage customer relationships across multiple channels under one case. It is critical to deliver the right answers to citizen requests as fast as possible. Integrative service channels – such as online self-service options – should reduce wait time and uncertainty.
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Agency Collaboration. Integrate common business processes on a single platform. Agencies should streamline workflows across agencies while still protecting privacy and security. Moreover, agencies at the federal, state and local levels should integrate vertically to serve common customers.
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Employee collaboration. Coordinate tasks in order to respond to service requests. This involves streamlining internal tasks and processes. Enable employees with cloudbased collaborative customer service tools.
W HY D O E S T H I S MAT T E R? There are two drivers behind this approach. The first is the ability to deliver high-quality services and improve outcomes for customers, who could be citizens, internal staff, stakeholders or even Congress, if it’s a federal agency. This includes easing access to services through digital channels and making customers more aware of the services you deliver. Secondly, a case-centric approach can improve outcomes for the organization. It facilitates the process of delivering higher-quality services in a budget-constrained environment. It can provide a means for adopting tools and products that help the organization deliver more efficiently while also maintaining a high level of service.
U N D E R S TA NDI N G T H E C A SE- CEN TRIC APPROACH To better understand the case-centric approach to public service, GovLoop sought out the expertise of Accenture Federal Services, a leader in helping agencies deliver on the promise of digital government. A case-centric approach is when multiple agencies or organizations rally around one common mission – such as disease research, filling a service request or responding to disasters – and collaborate to best meet the objective. There are four pillars to the approach: 14
A case-centric approach combined with digital government has the power to cut through agency silos, achieve maximum efficiency and provide high-quality customer service. “It’s like being a point guard who can pass the ball to everyone on the team,” said Scott Quehl, senior principal at Accenture Federal Services. “It’s taking what we already have and using it more efficiently.”
THE CASE-CENTRIC APPROACH IN ACTION: THE SWEDISH FEDERATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FUNDS The Swedish Federation of Unemployment Funds (SO) is responsible for managing unemployment claims for about 30 unemployment insurance funds. In Sweden, many such funds are tied to specific wage earner and self-employment trade associations, each with its own specific needs. This leaves SO with the difficult task of providing a cost-effective and consistent customer service experience for a wide variety of customers. In total, the federation serves roughly 3.4 million members. Because existing methods were not producing consistent results internally and externally, the agency opted for a new, comprehensive approach.
T HE S O L UT I O N: A L AY E R CAK E Given the federated nature of the organization, SO needed to figure out a way to capture the commonalities across its different customer bases, while accounting for the unique needs of different groups. The agency decided on a case-based layer cake approach that allowed officials to create a configurable “claims-process-core” designed to be reused across the enterprise. From there, they could take this core and build out different systems for different funds. This approach had three distinct benefits: •
A customer-centric approach. The process of automating the core base of operations meant a unified customer service experience.
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Eased customization. Rules and processes were more easily incorporated into the common platform, since officials didn’t have to start from scratch or rework the entire system each time a change was needed.
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Process simplification. All processes not required for the core or specific needs were eliminated. This means faster claims handling cycle times and better customer service by caseworkers.
SO is delivering this solution on a very user-friendly mobile application that mirrors this layered approach – providing a consistent user experience that also accommodates unique needs. Although the mobile app is the citizen-facing innovation, once again the true innovation took place well behind the scenes.
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THE TEXAS COUNTY & DISTRICT RETIREMENT SYSTEM (TCDRS) Using Technology to Deliver Higher Quality Experiences for its Customers
The ability to deliver a positive customer service experience is a minimum expectation today. The real prize is setting up your organization so that you are not only providing good customer service, but also better, higher quality interactions every time you engage the people you serve. This is the transformation currently taking place at the Texas County & District Retirement System (TCDRS). The organization serves 252 Texas counties and 404 diverse districts, like water districts, hospital districts, appraisal districts, emergency services districts and more – throughout the Lone Star State. TCDRS helps employers compete with the private sector to hire and retain talented staff by providing competitive retirement benefits at affordable rates. Each employer maintains a customized plan of retirement benefits with the flexibility to select benefits and pay for those benefits based on their needs and budgets. TCDRS is a model for providing reliable retirement benefits. Benefits are responsibly funded, which means costs are not pushed to future generations. In fact, TCDRS is one of the best funded retirement systems in the nation. TCDRS provides retirement, disability and survivor benefits for more than 247,000 county and district employees in Texas. According to Kris Valenta, Director of Strategic Projects, nearly 8 years ago TCDRS began to implement a strategic plan to provide services to their membership that equaled or exceeded the highest standards and best levels of service offered by other public pension plans and private-sector financial service providers.
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However, the organization didn’t have the business processes and technology tools to facilitate best-in-class customer service. “When a member would call, we would often need to say, ‘Let us get back to you,’ so we could go back to the file room, pull the files, and possibly go talk to other people,” said Valenta. “It was a manual, drawn out process sometimes to get even simple things done.” Like many organizations, the organization turned to digital platforms to reorganize and restructure their service strategy. TCDRS took a slightly different approach than others, however. Valenta observed that many similar organizations begin with updating or consolidating their own internal systems. “Often you can spend three or four years working on that,” said Valenta, “and the customers on the outside may not see much benefit from it.” Instead, TCDRS took an outside-in approach and focused on improving the services that their members and employers use frequently. They converted their paper files and implemented enterprise content management (ECM) to improve information availability for phone calls and processing as well as implementing customer relationship management (CRM) functionality to their call center providing a 360-degree customer view. TCDRS also re-designed their website with a focus on self-service and access to real time information, providing improved planning tools to users allowing them to make informed decisions, delivering information in a consistent, easy to navigate format with TCDRS branding and having a system that was scalable and could grow with TCDRS.
J a n e De c a f
“We constantly look for ways to improve the customer experience and the information and services offered, and work towards that,” Valenta said. One positive example of their customer-first model was the addition of an online personal estimator tool. With the tool, members can enter their salary, estimated date of retirement and select their benefit option to estimate their potential monthly retirement benefits. Prior to the release of this tool, members had to wait for their annual statement or contact TCDRS. After providing information to TCDRS staff, the member would receive a manually calculated estimate in the mail a few days later. Internally, Valenta noted that some employees worried that automating this and other services would result in fewer calls or the need for their job function – that the online portal would eliminate the need for or devalue the service they provided.
In this way, TCDRS not only empowered the member to find and analyze information on their own through the website, it also empowered internal staff to provide better customer service, since they were no longer as focused on certain manual or time consuming tasks that have since been automated. The case is just a small example of the customer-first mentality that TCDRS uses when employing new technologies and evolving business workflows. “Organizationally, whether it’s business, technical, or collectively, we’re constantly working to do more for our customers, make things more efficient. And so far, their feedback has been great and they have asked for more,” said Valenta. “That’s a good problem to have.”
In fact, the opposite happened. The volume of member calls actually increased. The difference being that, instead of calling to request calculations, members often call with more nuanced questions about their options after using the tool on their own. “As new features come online members still call, but when they do, they tend to have more detailed questions and are asking for higher value information,” Valenta said. “They are better calls.”
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LEARNING CORNER:
WHAT IS AGILE?
Throughout this guide, we’ve focused on the importance of being able to nimbly change with the needs of customers, regulations and budgets. We discussed how iBPM can create a platform for more dynamic and adaptable business processes. We also explained the value of taking a case-based approach to service delivery and how it complements the notion of a digital government that can change as swiftly as the surrounding environment. The last of our three learning corners focuses on the methodology by which you can achieve these goals – agile software development. You may have heard of agile in the context of project management, IT or both. But the missing explanatory piece is its relevance to the organization as a whole. But first, the basics.
delivered the solution, the original requirements are outdated or have changed. Government work isn’t static, and in today’s technology-driven world, situations can radically change overnight. Ultimately, this leaves business group and IT workers in the unhappy position of having spent precious time and money developing a software solution that doesn’t meet the organization’s needs. Moreover, the organization has built a system that is hard to change without having the two groups go through the same waterfall process all over again. The solution, then, is to figure out a software delivery method that complements the dynamism we’ve already explored in iBPM and case-centricity. Agile has the potential to be that solution.
T HE O LD W AY : W AT E R FA LL AN D UN HAPPY CUSTOMERS
AG ILE: TA LKING P RO JECTS O NE SP R INT AT A TIM E
The idea behind agile development is to avoid the traditional problems associated with software development in large organizations. In the old model, business groups define a technological need – maybe a fishing licensing system or a new citizen-facing crime-reporting tool. They then identify their requirements and ship them over to the IT department, which builds and delivers a technology solution based on the specifications. The industry term for this method is “waterfall,” since each step is done to completion before it moves on to the next phase.
The essence of agile is that business and IT groups work more closely together, delivering solutions in smaller bites, to ensure they are working on the right path. The smaller bites, called sprints, are designed to show results and deliver value early through pilots or a proof of concept.
This system works very well in theory. In practice, however, business groups do not always know all of their requirements beforehand. Or some of the requirements are lost in translation when they get to IT. Most commonly, by the time IT has 18
Agile also focuses less on a predetermined plan and is instead more responsive and open to change, since the focus is on collaboratively creating a working solution, rather than shipping something from one department to the other and hoping that nothing changes. Of course, one of the common fears related to agile is that without a rigid set of requirements and a similarly rigid plan, a project could go on forever.
INSIDER TIP
e l i g A o t s e f i M an
The opposite is true, however. Because agile is iterative and collaborative, it works out the kinks earlier in the development cycle, leading to a solution that can be used once it is completed (often in only two to four weeks, which is the average time spent on the first sprint). It also allows project requirements to adjust and realign with the given time frame and budget. Therefore, if one key element proves to be more time-consuming or costly during development than anticipated, you have the option of focusing primarily on that solution if it’s essential or leaving it out if it isn’t. Without having flexibility baked into the process, you may find yourself going beyond your budget and deadlines and worst of all, delivering a solution that doesn’t accomplish your goals.
FI T T I N G AGI L E I N TO T H E ORGAN IZATION AL PUZZ LE Agile development is the perfect complement to the concept of digital innovation explored in this guide. By starting with an outcomes-oriented approach and using software that unites customer engagement with simplified business processes and an ability to respond rapidly to ongoing change, you’ve unlocked the final piece to needed to achieve true organizational transformation.
For more information, a great place to start is the Agile Manifesto.
AGILE IN ACTION AT NRCS The Agriculture Department’s National Resource Conservation Service transformed its approach through reengineered business processes and IT modernization. This required a much more collaborative environment among the customer-facing business groups and the IT department that supports them. To help deliver smart, usable technology, the organization used agile software development. “We used to get requirements from the business side – they used to throw it over the fence, and then, nine to twelve months later, they’d get an IT solution,” said NRCS Chief Technology Officer Christine Calvosa. “Most of the time, that process didn’t deliver what they wanted.” Instead, Calvosa’s team approached the business groups early on so that they could understand their needs and processes and open the door to further collaboration. “You need to get commitment from both business and IT to work together toward a solution,” Calvosa said. From NRCS’ early successes (see page 9) they look to be on the right path.
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3 TIPS FOR THE ROAD Some Proven Best Practices from Digital Government’s Early Innovators
As many have already discovered, innovating in the public sector is not a simple proposition. And throughout this guide, we’ve tried to illustrate cases in which some of the most important innovations have taken place at the level of people and process, with technology entering the picture only after the organizational groundwork has been laid for success. The benefits of this approach are numerous. At the same time, the nature of this approach is disruptive – disruptive of old processes, procedures and roles – which can cause fear and opposition. So to conclude this guide, we’ve presented three road-tested best practices from innovators working to advance the practice of digital government.
1. M AKE H R A S A DA P TA B LE AS T HE EN T ERPRISE
2. TR A ILB LA ZER S B R ING TH E ID EA S, G U ID ES SEE TH E M T HRO UGH
Yet another innovation to come out of Maine originated from within a particularly enterprising business unit. This office needed a product owner to oversee the teams that were building a BPM application. However, by making one of its employees a product owner, the office would have been using her for work outside her assigned class. A provision in her collective bargaining unit allowed a temporary bump in pay for a temporary job assignment. This enabled the employee to serve in a limited term position, so that she could both work outside her assigned classification and also receive adequate compensation for the new duties. After she finished, she could easily return to her previous position.
When talking about innovation, a visionary is often the one to introduce transformative changes in an organization. This individual stands up and says, “We need to be more efficient. We need to change our approach.” But just as frequently, this person leaves people behind as she advocates for changes, losing her base of support as she forges ahead.
Takeaway: There are ways to make seemingly constrictive rules and restrictions work to your advantage. In fact, some of the supposedly constrictive rules have clauses that actually facilitate more flexibility than you might imagine. You just need a bit of creativity, a bit of research, and you can innovate well within the parameters set by the organization.
“That’s why I firmly believe that you need both a ‘trailblazer’ and a ‘guide,’” said Greg Johnston, vice president of technology at Architech Solutions. Johnston has worked for years with public-sector clients on implementing digital innovation strategies and has seen the value of slowing down and looking at innovation from a pragmatist’s perspective. “You need someone in the organization who can play the role of change management guide,” he said. “There are no shortages of trailblazers. It’s the guide role, the adoption management piece, that’s being overlooked right now.” Takeaway: To usher through organizational changes, visionaries should partner with individuals who believe in the cause and who can take a hard look at the capabilities of the organization. This guide can bring the proper scale, scope and pace of the change so that it can take place in a way that works best for the organization.
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P R E S I D E N T
3 . QU I E T LY E X PE R I ME N T TO ALLOW FOR MISST EPS The challenge for innovation, especially digital innovation, is that the organization is often working through a new process or technology for the first time. This can lead to missteps, business units being out of sync, and other hiccups as you move forward. As Valenta explained, this was the experience at TCDRS. As it merged different groups, processes and systems, officials realized there was overlap in some areas and gaps in others. “We had to figure out where the boundaries were, the rules, and how to work together as a team,” Valenta said. “Most importantly, we had to remind our users that they are responsible for a piece that has a larger impact on the organization. They couldn’t just work in their own little silos.” Fortunately, Valenta and his team anticipated this adjustment process and built in time and space for everyone to work out the difficulties before they became visible to external customers. “Each project that we’ve done since then has been much improved because team dynamics are much better,” Valenta said. “Everyone knows each other now.” Takeaway: As you make changes in your organization, try to focus on a project that is significant enough to serve as a proof of concept, but not so visible that you don’t have the freedom to experiment and work through the learning process.
TO USHER THROUGH O R G A N I Z AT I O N A L CHANGES, VISIONARIES S H O U L D PA R T N E R W I T H INDIVIDUALS WHO BELIEVE IN THE CAUSE AND WHO C A N TA K E A H A R D L O O K AT T H E C A PA B I L I T I E S O F T H E O R G A N I Z AT I O N . 21
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