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said, “people really did need to earn their spot in the coalition by being involved from the beginning. A few companies were in the room at the beginning but didn’t hang around, and they’re now not in the group. They’ll have to go the hard way to get back in.”
When I asked Rasmussen if there was any push from within the orga- nization to grow faster or put fewer demands on members, he said no. “No one wants to turn us into pay to play or to grow too fast,” he added.
Focusing on principles and values
The coalition currently invites only small and midtier businesses to join, but in 2020, it will consider allowing in up to three large companies (with annual revenues over $55 million). But the current members are concerned that bringing in large companies too fast could allow those companies to take over the organization.
“We have to find our voice,” Ras- mussen said. “If you introduce \[large companies\] too early, the money and the size they bring in can overwhelm us before we’ve got our foundation set.” Many traditional contractors will balk at the requirement to submit code, but that tells the coalition that such firms shouldn’t be members, he added.
“There is an undercurrent of a power dynamic shift here because we have all unfortunately been pushed around by the bigs,” Rasmussen said. “And so I think this is, in a way, a chance to push back and say we have something
to teach you. We are all open to large businesses coming in if they want to embrace our values and delivery tools. It’s not about the size of the animal, it’s about the way they work. If they’re willing to learn and be coachable, we don’t have much of a problem with that. In fact, that would be progress because we want change. The success for us will be when the bigs feel like they have no other choice but starting to act more like nontraditionals.”
He stressed that it is important to “focus very intentionally on principles and values and not on frameworks and delivery method. Anybody can emu- late agile scrum and come back with the frameworks that don’t embrace the intent. What we’re trying to work through is how can we really change the hearts of these companies.”
I asked Rasmussen whether he might be overemphasizing the group’s cachet and the kinds of adjustments the coalition could demand from potential members. He said he is see- ing more and more requests for pro- posals from agencies that require bid- ders to submit past code.
“The tides are turning quickly,” he said. “Civic tech is accelerating. We are seeing some longtime government officials changing. At some point, we become the norm. Sure, there’s some risk in our approach, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.”
I also spoke with Jessi Bull, senior business development analyst at Nava Public Benefit Corp. and a
member of the new Digital Services Coalition board. I told her that when I wrote my first blog post about the coalition, I noted that members would teach one another how to navigate the federal marketplace. The mem- bers have matured a great deal in the past 18 months and don’t need that help as much, but Bull said it is still an important purpose of the group to share ideas and best practices — partly with one another but more importantly with the government. She added that perhaps the most important role of the coalition is being an advocacy group for digital modernization.
At the time of my first blog post, Rasmussen repeatedly said the coali- tion members would look out for one another and share information that would help the collective. However, the CMS BPA has produced a situa- tion in which coalition members will be in head-to-head competition with one another for task orders. It will be interesting to see how the coalition navigates that situation.
Rasmussen’s biggest worry for the future, though, is that the U.S. Digital Service will fail or be abandoned. “If USDS fails, in the following ensuing sort of collapse of the whole ecosys- tem of people outside USDS, we could lose people who have committed their whole careers to moving forward,” he said. “There are a lot of people in the civilian agencies who aren’t in the media every day and are quietly understanding it and getting it. So if the USDS fails, there would be a knock-on effect. I actually have friends deliver- ing inside government who are little islands, and I would hate to see their careers suffer.” n
Steve Kelman is a professor of pub- lic management at Harvard Uni- versity’s Kennedy School of Govern- ment and former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. His blog can be found at fcw. com/thelectern.
“I wanted something that would stand out and compel people to take notice and want to learn more.”
— DELALI DZIRASA, FEARLESS SOLUTIONS
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