The Value of Collaboration for Government Agencies

By Rick Howard, CIO DHS State of Oregon
December 19 2008
To meet the growing need for public services, government agencies must improve the coordinated delivery of those services by adopting new models of collaboration. Yet the spirit of cooperation and sense of shared purpose that is essential to provide better coordination of government programs and services is difficult to achieve in a world of limited resources.

Developing a technical infrastructure that permits citizens to easily access public services while increasing the efficiency of government operations is often considered a worthy, but overly expensive, investment. Unless the costs and benefits of each new IT investment are clearly articulated in the form of a sound business case, such acquisitions are easily viewed as diverting scarce public funds from the direct services that government provides. Consequently, public sector investments in emerging technologies often lag behind those in other sectors of the economy and the benefits associated with modern information systems remain unrealized.

In such an environment, government agencies would do well to pursue innovative approaches to software development that draw on the collective knowledge of business experts and IT professionals. Through collaborative methods that promote rapid prototyping and short development cycles, the cost of designing and deploying new software applications can be reduced as functionality is increased.

In an effort to share the costs of software development and decreasing the overall risk, state agencies are beginning to reach out beyond their borders to join with their counterparts in other states. By pooling their intellectual capital and financial resources, these states are forming partnerships with independent organizations that offer the necessary technical expertise to quickly develop open source software solutions that adhere to the standards necessary within the framework of a service oriented architecture. This is an exciting trend within the public sector IT industry and one that is likely to become increasingly attractive as government agencies seek to gain the most value for their IT dollar.

TriSano exemplifies collaboration. The coordinated contribution of the subject matter community (doctors, nurses, public health officials) setting the vision, providing user stories and determining the priorities promotes innovation and truly make a difference in the lives of the citizens it serves.