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posted on 08.25.2014 posted by Mark Pietrasanta

Overcoming Hurdles to Agency Innovation

As a federal manager, one of your responsibilities is to implement programs that help meet the needs of your constituents and accomplish your agency’s mission. You strive to leverage innovative approaches for your digital communications and technology strategies, yet focusing solely on these approaches can present many hurdles.

Your agency’s ability to recognize and overcome these hurdles ultimately impacts the success or failure of these programs. Here are the six most common hurdles federal managers face when trying to innovate within their agency:

Six Hurdles to Success

1) Procurement: Procurement has become one of the greatest challenges for federal managers trying to implement new projects quickly and effectively. Too often, budget uncertainties lead managers to make procurement decisions based on short-term planning and a bullet-list of requirements. As a result, you may not get exactly the solution your agency needs for the project to be a success—and it probably won’t be apparent until you are too far along in the project to course correct.

2) Change Management: Every organization changes—from people to processes to constantly changing technology. How can you reach your project’s supporters and detractors in the most effective ways? Even though change can be for the better, people act on emotion and are generally averse to change if they do not fully understand the benefits and their involvement. This can quickly derail any project.

3) Users and Data: Many people jump straight to technology, but this is a mistake. Technology is just a tool, not the driver. Users are the core reason why you’re implementing this new program to begin with, and you need to define the “why” and “how” based on the unique needs of your target users. Oftentimes, agencies also focus too much on their internal organization making it hard to truly define their target users.

4) Security: It should come as no surprise that security is a significant hurdle to project and mission success. Yet it may be a hurdle for different reasons than you might expect. First and foremost, security is regularly and unfortunately still considered a project add-on. Second, many projects do not take into account the different types of security required for success, from data security to operational security to security compliance requirements.

5) Technology and Cloud: Even once you have overcome these other hurdles, technology can still sometimes get in the way of itself. It’s easy to get lost—or even buried—in the newest technology solution. Cloud computing is the perfect example. Cloud offers federal agencies significantly enhanced disaster recovery, cost savings and greater agility. Yet, there is still an incredible amount of confusion surrounding Cloud computing. And, it’s not just about the Cloud. There is a broad range of technologies that need to be considered with every system implementation, but narrowing down what is right for your agency can be overwhelming. So, many agencies simply do not act—they continue to use the same systems with the same technologies at the expense of a more cost effective and better solution.

6) Measurement: It sounds like such simple advice: “Measure your success.” But, this advice presents far more questions than it answers. When measuring project success, what should be measured? Measuring the wrong thing, or too many things, may inadvertently make it seem like the project is not successful. Not measuring enough can have the same effect. And, not measuring anything makes it impossible to know whether you’re successful at all.

How can you overcome these hurdles?

It may seem as if some of these hurdles are just too big for your agency to easily overcome. And, if you focus only on technology as the solution, you’re right—the hurdles may be too big. Your agency’s success really comes down to how effective you were in planning for these hurdles from the beginning.

Building a solution strategy prior to the start of your project is the first step in ensuring your agency overcomes these hurdles. Collaborate with industry and perform market research to really understand the type of solution your agency will need to best support your mission objectives. This strategy should take into account all of these hurdles, and focus on technology only as a piece of the solution. Who are the right people and processes you need in place for success? Working with an experienced IT solutions provider to build a strategic roadmap is a quick and invaluable resource.

Your solution strategy is only the first step though, and while it helps to overcome all of these hurdles, we’ve found for our customers that you need to take it a few steps further. Join me at Nextgov Prime on Monday, September 8, as I present Clearing the Hurdles to Agency Innovation: 6 Steps to Success, where I’ll dive deeper into these challenges and the six steps federal agencies should take to overcome them. I will also be joined by a top government executive who will provide insight into this six-step process and how that agency effectively overcame many of the hurdles you face when trying to achieve mission success.

Click here to register for Nextgov Prime. I look forward to seeing you there!

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