It feels like we are working for a startup

I knew the concern was legitimate, but believed the benefit from doing the right thing would outweigh the downside — as it always does.

The detractors to Oklahoma’s state government information technology unification may have been willing to concede that a private business would never silo itself into many different IT departments as the state had done; and, that the consultant’s report showing millions in potential taxpayer savings was accurate; however, they had one point in their favor.

Once each state agency had given up the expensive luxury of their own internal IT department wouldn’t it be safe to assume a drop in the level of IT service? Surely it’s impossible for the state to downsize IT services by hundreds of full time IT positions, save millions of dollars and still maintain the same level of service.

It would have been easy award this point to the detractors. After all, we were aware of the obstacles to the implementation of the plan. This would be the single most massive reorganization of our state government in modern history and those taking on the challenge would face dramatic political and logistical opposition; a fact demonstrated when Governor Henry reportedly attempted to hire the first Chief Information Officer for the new unified operation only to have his first six choices turn down the job.

Despite the many obstacles, I felt a better IT product would result.

Here’s why: I looked at the matter from the point of view of the IT employee. I sympathized with the plight faced by the IT employee, siloed away into a state agency, with little ability to grow his skill set. Perhaps he was assigned to one of the numerous antiquated, legacy IT systems. Imagine a job where your primary responsibility involves babysitting a dying technology long after it has outlived its real world usefulness and knowing your skillset has become outdated.

IT employees, once challenged and given the opportunity to fulfill their potential within a first class, modern IT environment, could provide a better level of service even while still dramatically cutting the cost to the taxpayers.

Improving the level of IT service would require a dramatic cultural change and accomplishing that change has taken time; however, many in the the Legislature, the Governor’s office, and in the leadership of the unified IT entity have bravely remained committed to this goal; consequently, staying committed even as the effort experienced inevitable political, logistical and implementation barriers.

The officials have sorted through concerns, parsing the political opposition from the legitimate and valued feedback, learning from shortcomings, and pivoting as necessary to address valid concerns while neither abandoning the objectives of the reform nor giving up on the vision for a transformative cultural change.

Because of this commitment, the effort is approaching a pivotal point where the vision for a cultural change is being realized in a dramatic way.

I recently visited with one of unified IT entity’s officials. This person supervises the latest groundbreaking process to discover and fix IT problems before the state employees who depend on those services ever realize the problem exists. It’s designed much the same as the highly successful Security Operations Center which I wrote about two weeks ago. Those assigned to the new project are treating IT maintenance and repair issues with a similar mindset and urgency level as the state handles IT security and network concerns.

In one statement this employee confirmed the presence of the cultural change: “It feels like we are working for a startup,” he declared.

State IT employees now have the opportunity to use the latest technologies and methods for providing state agencies and their customers with a superior level of service. They are doing it from an environment which resembles the culture of a startup IT company. That’s exactly what we had in mind as we advanced this reform.

Thank you for reading this article. Your interest and input are much appreciated. Please do not hesitate to email Jason.Murphey@hd31.org with your thoughts and suggestions.