Page 100 - FCW, August 2021

FCWPerspectives
to all the things about citizen metrics and all of that, but I think our focus is going to be, how do we help the workforce really adapt in this future workspace?”
Shifting standards of
what’s acceptable
Several executives argued that citi- zen expectations had changed sig- nificantly as the number of requests exploded. “A slightly different aspect of this conversation is the changing nature of what’s acceptable,” one said. “I think the aspect of how we identify the appropriate ways in a changing landscape to authenticate engage- ments with taxpayers and the pub- lic” is essential.
Those shifts span everything from signature requirements — what, exactly, qualifies as a valid electronic signature? — to managers’ acceptance of telework.
“Even 10 years ago, I remember the conversation around, ‘Hey, if you can’t give me a work plan for the day, you need to come in and come to work,’” one executive said. “And my joke at the time was, ‘Yes, because if you don’t have any work to do, you darn well better not do work in the office.’”
“I think what’s really pushed us unexpectedly is just this mindset of, ‘we can do all this stuff online,’” another participant observed. “I know that seems so basic, but even rethink- ing our physical footprint, like these processes that we used to say you can only do them in person. Well, actually we figured out a way to do it online. Maybe we’ve had to re-look at our risk posture in doing that, but it forced us to actually do that. I think just that realization that we really need to deliver these services online to citi- zens is huge.”
Another official suggested that “the breakdown of some societal norms and the status quo due to COVID has also broken down a lot of those barriers. We’re loosening security
restrictions. We’re loosening work- place restrictions. We’re loosening the norms around how we communicate with each other. So I’m optimistic that there’s an opportunity here for people trying to do what you’re doing to use that breakdown to open up some com- munications around how to link those things together.”
Learning to ask the right question
Being forced to abandon old ways of delivering service has forced agencies to think about what the central mis- sion goals are.
“Frequently, we can get in position, especially in the procurement arena, where we get a lot of smart people in a closet who go off for three, six, nine, 12 months and figure out pre- cisely what I want industry to help us with,” one executive noted. “And tell them exactly that, as opposed to saying, ‘I want you to be able to extract machine-readable data out of low-resolution images. That’s what I want you to be able to do. And I want you to be able to interface with our systems. I don’t care how you do it. I’m going to make selections based on what the user likes and what has the greatest rate of return in terms of least manual work and least need of correction. That’s what I want you to do. Show me what you’ve got.’ Those conversations are infinitely more pro- ductive than trying to be the smartest person in the room.”
Another official concurred, adding that too often decisions are driven by an “I want this” declaration, “whether it’s from an internal customer or an external taxpayer.” That could be a demand for a new scanning solution to digitize records, or for more call center staffing to meeting increased demand.
“Sometimes we need to respond immediately given a particular situ- ation and don’t have a lot of time to go through a drawn-out analysis process,” that official noted. “But we
need to be able to ask questions about, ‘What are you trying to accomplish?’ ‘What is the end goal?’ and ‘What are you trying to do?’”
“If we don’t resource things correct- ly and we don’t address the business process and policy aspects of things, it’s just going to create a backlog in a different place.” n
Participants
Keith Alderson
Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Debt Management Services, Bureau of Fiscal Service, Department of the Treasury
Richard Burnham
Acting Director DCSD-DMS, Bureau of Fiscal Services, Department of the Treasury
Sheila Rose Campbell
Special Advisor for Digital Services, Office of Policy, Planning and Resources, Department of State
Judith Conklin
Deputy CIO, Library of Congress
Evan Davis
Senior Vice President, Federal Civilian Agencies, MAXIMUS
Nora Dempsey
Senior Advisor for Innovation, Department of State
Sanjay Gupta
CTO, Small Business Administration
Larry Reagan
Vice President, Finance, MAXIMUS
Harrison Smith
Chief Procurement Officer, Internal Revenue Service
Note: FCW Editor-in-ChiefTroy
K. Schneider led the roundtable discussion.The May 26 gathering was underwritten by MAXIMUS, but both the substance of the discussion and the recap on these pages are strictly editorial products. Neither the sponsors nor any of the roundtable participants had input beyond their May 26 comments.
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