Some practical suggestions for those looking to make government more efficient

Terry Gerton Lots of government reformers want to make government run more like a business, but there are important reasons for the differences and important considerations when tackling the government efficiency conundrum. When we hear people coming in to reform government, they often start from a premise that the federal government should operate more like a business. And yet in recent writings that you all have put forth, you say, that’s not really possible. That’s the wrong starting point. Help us understand what government reformers should be thinking about and how government is not like private industry.

Lynn Jenkins Number one, I think one of the outstanding differences is that a business typically has a uniform strategy, implementation plans. The federal government, when we say federal, there are departments with different operation divisions, different agencies, and even within those agencies, there are different types of strategic plans and ways that businesses operate. That’s number one. Number two, the government is highly regulated. So if we look at the Federal Acquisition Regulations, the FAR, and other types of regulatory requirements, it’s not so easy to come into an agency and make the broad kind of changes that you could do potentially in a business. I think it’s more about uniformity in business. And then the other thing is over the years, of course, all of these agencies have their own strategic plans, leadership, ways that they perform business that are dissimilar in a business. So in enterprise, you might find more uniformity, more enterprise-wide policies and procedures. Where in federal, there are guiding regulations, but some agencies have different procurement policies, different contracting vehicles, different preferences. I’d say another key point: There are a lot of reliances on government contractors. So some of the agencies have their preferences of suppliers they want to work with in this particular agency that may not be relevant for all of government. So different processes and procedures and professional offerings.

Terry Gerton So a lot more complexity, a lot more regulation, a lot more differentiation, maybe than a single corporation. And so Tyler, then following along from Lynn’s observations, the other very common focus is that we want to focus on efficiency. We want to be more efficient, but there’s not a lot of talk about effectiveness. How should government reformers think about balancing efficiency and effectiveness when they’re seeking to make changes at the federal level?

Tyler Higgins It’s actually a pretty important distinction. I think when people think efficiency, they think doing things quickly, fewer resources, frankly, costing less and then effectiveness is more about outcomes. And I think you can actually learn from private industry on how other industries, other places deal with effectiveness and efficiency, right? They always put their customer first, their member first, whatever their revenue generator is first. In the federal government, that’s obviously the taxpayer. And so for the kind of fragmented nature that Lynn talked about of the government, to do things efficient would be great, but you also still need to focus on what the effective outcome really needs to be. And that’s your people or the service that you’re providing as an ultimate organization. So even if you’re focused on streamlining processes, automating tasks, reducing costs, it doesn’t necessarily improve the public’s experience if you just make cuts. It really needs to be an effective decision and you need to find the right balance. And I think the best reforms kind of find that sweet spot. They reduce waste, they reduce redundancy while still delivering high-quality services that the government’s customer, the citizen, can trust. For us, our firm, efficiency without effectiveness is really a definition for failure. You kind of need to have them both. You need to be a smart government and be able to kind of find the effectiveness to drive efficiency and effectiveness together.

Terry Gerton It’s really helpful. I’m speaking with Lynn Jenkins. She is a senior director at AArete Federal and Tyler Higgins is a managing director, also at AArete. All right, Lynn, let me come back to you because one of the places that the Trump administration has certainly begun in its drive for efficiency is workforce. You make a point that the federal government’s budget is less than 5% salaries and benefits. In a typical corporation, it’s 50% to 60% of the budget. So you’re starting from a very different framework. How should or how can federal agencies manage workforce reductions and layoffs in a way that minimizes negative impacts and maximizes positive outcome?

Lynn Jenkins  I think industry has a lot of experience with RIFs and layoffs over the decades, from decades ago. And we find that federal agencies can minimize those impacts if they follow some of the lessons learned from industry. And I’ll go through some of them, of course not all. Things that come to front of mind: It’s the proactive planning, having a strategy, execution, compassionate support for effective employees and the remaining people that are in the workforce. And a couple of ways they can do that is actually helping to align staffing with long-term mission and needs. So it’s not necessarily going in and making those large-scale cuts, but targeting reductions that are data-driven decision-making reductions and initiatives. So using that data and then also making sure that the communication strategy and plan is consistent, open and it’s two-way. So employees understand exactly ramifications of what’s happening, what’s upcoming; help them also engage with other types of career opportunities. So just from the empathy and compassion, ensuring that there’s still good morale for people that are there, you reduce anxiety, so you don’t allow them to feel the negativity. I think just overall support. And then looking forward, ensuring that people feel secure.

Terry Gerton Very much back to Tyler’s focus on effectiveness. I would rephrase it maybe as mission-first, and then you used very common phrases, evidence-based data-informed decisions about who really needs to remain and where there might be duplication. So thank you for that. Tyler, let me go to you, because another big area of concern around inefficiency in the government is the federal government’s legacy IT systems. And many have tried wholesale modernization and many have failed. What recommendations do you have for modernizing the federal government’s ancient legacy IT systems?

Tyler Higgins I think legacy, or we’ll use the phrase “ancient IT systems” or IT modernization, is overwhelming. I think that’s why it continues to be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. I think the mistake is going in with the assumption that you can do an all-or-nothing approach, that one fell swoop, you can change systems, you can change data, you can change your tech stack. One, that just doesn’t fit in the nature and the structure of our government, but also it’s just not practical. You wouldn’t see even large organizations do that, much less the highly complex nature of our federal government. And so, when I think of that question, my kind of sense is there’s really not one-size-fits-all solution, so the smartest path forward needs to have some guiding principles and then an aligned strategy where each agency can tailor their strategy based on their unique mission, or based on their unique business need, whatever their security posture might need to be, what their workforce capabilities might need be. There’s an element of returning to base business fundamentals: What is needed to streamline processes, what is need to eliminate redundancies, how can you have true data that you trust and you own? The world of AI is here, how do we adopt that? How do you modernize those components, so 20 years from now, you’re not 20 years behind once again? So I think a great starting point, to kind of sum it up, is understand the business value, understand your technical requirements of each system, each agency, and start just biting off things that are actually addressable. And a lot of times those addressable might start with, hey, let’s start with data. How do we have a strong data governance and then systems interact with that data? How does each agency have a clear technical framework for what they want to try to achieve, and how does that align to their mission? And how can they bite off little chunks at a time? Doing these steps in a very sequential pattern, you can modernize with precision. You can modernize specifically, precise, while saving money, reducing the risk and ultimately improving performance, or to the first question, the effectiveness of each organization.

Terry Gerton So an organization that’s trying to modernize their legacy IT stack that’s written in COBOL or FORTRAN, while bringing in AI and robotic process engineering and agents and all of those things, where would someone even begin to think about that?

Tyler Higgins Yeah, I think you almost have to boil it back down to, what is the core contents of the system and what’s the core output that that service or agency or system is trying to accomplish? Trying to find what are the connection points, then you can start breaking it down to say, okay, what is transferable to a new system? What are the complications to a new system? And really start kind of framing things up. One of the principle rules of any system integration or modernization is you don’t go live with the system without the other one still in existence, right? And usually you let things run concurrently together, which sounds like waste, but ultimately that redundancy is needed to effectively modernize and effectively evolve. So for COBAL or some of these other systems that have been around for 50, 60 years, you need to date back, to say, what’s in here and where are we trying to take it? What are all the inputs? And really map that out and find the dependencies. Once you start finding these dependencies, you can figure out what is practical and then you can start incentivizing. How can we get automation? How do we get AI or robotic process automation? These types of things can fit in that evolution.

Terry Gerton That’s really helpful framing. Lynn, I want to come to you for the third big area of modernization, perhaps, and efficiency, which is in procurement processes. That has been a key focus of the Trump administration. They’re implementing lots of changes at the General Services Administration. How can federal agencies, or how do you recommend that federal agencies streamline their procurement processes at this point?

Lynn Jenkins That’s near and dear to the private industry and any kind of government contractors. We believe you should use some of the pre-existing contract vehicles like the GSA multiple award schedule, use some the current BPAs, and also what they call best-in-class or BICs. So using some of agreements that are there versus trying to have new types of contracting vehicles. The other thing of course that we are enjoying is just the looking at the FAR and that’s being changed on a rolling basis. So we do agree with what the government is doing in removing some of those non-statutory regulations as well as making it in plain English, like plain language so that it’s easy to understand. The other thing is just the centralized contracting. So using entities like the GSA, which many agencies will be able to use, some will still maintain their own contracting vehicles, but that also makes it more effective for the analysis or putting out RFIs, so requests for information, sources sought. We can reduce the timeline so we can go from a very long [stretch] between solicitation and award, just reducing some of those steps. There’s so many, but I’m trying to highlight some of the important ones. I think also considering using OTAs, other transaction authorities, using more of the SBIRs, STTRs, that’s Small Business Innovative Research, phase one and two, that allows industry to actually introduce more innovation. More pilots, more minimal viable products, incrementally seeing some of those benefits. I’d say also just standardization, and the last one which would be helpful, is to allow industry to be involved in more technical challenges. So I’ve heard recently, like a chili bake-off. So rather than vendors delivering PowerPoints or writing long technical responses, allow vendors to show you what they can do for you. And just overall continue to use procurement automation, whether it’s the e-procurement or the procurement co-pilot where industry can understand where to put their capabilities and there’s a clear and transparent view.