Kshemendra Paul, a senior executive in government, explains in his personal capacity why a governmentwide common operating picture will help promote efficiency.
Editor’s note: This commentary is authored by Kshemendra Paul. While I serve as the assistant inspector general for cyber assessments and data analytics, the views and opinions expressed are mine and do not reflect the views or positions of DOE OIG or the U.S. Government. It was developed by me in my personal time using personal resources. While the essay references publicly available DOE OIG and other oversight products, it is not a DOE OIG or oversight product.
It’s time to strengthen the use of data, evidence and transparency to stop driving with mud on the windshield and to steer the government toward improving management of its programs and operations.
Existing Government Accountability Office and agency inspectors general reports identify thousands of specific evidence-based recommendations to improve efficiency, economy and effectiveness, and reduce fraud, waste and abuse. Many of these recommendations aim at program design and requirements, highlighting specific instances of overlap, redundancy and duplication. Others describe inadequate internal controls to balance program integrity with the experience of the customer, contractor or grantee. While progress is being reported in part due to stronger partnerships with IGs, much remains to be done. Indeed, GAO’s 2023 High Risk List, which it has produced going back to 1990, shows surprisingly slow progress of efforts to reduce risk to government programs and operations.
Here are a few examples:
One of the main reasons for agency sluggishness is the lack of agency and governmentwide use of synchronized, authoritative and shared data to support how the government manages itself.
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For example, the Energy Department IG found that, “[t]he department often lacks the data necessary to make critical decisions, evaluate and effectively manage risks, or gain visibility into program results.” It is past time for the government to commit itself to move away from its widespread use of data calls, the error-prone, costly and manual aggregation of data used to support policy analysis and decision-making. Efforts to embrace data-informed approaches to manage government programs and operations are stymied by lack of basic agency and governmentwide data hygiene. While bright pockets exist, management gaps, as DOE OIG stated, “create blind spots in the universe of data that, if captured, could be used to more efficiently identify, track and respond to risks…”
The proposed approach starts with current agency operating models, then drives into management process integration to tackle root causes of dysfunction from the bottom up. It recognizes that inefficiency, fraud and other challenges are diffused, deeply embedded and have non-obvious interrelationships within the federal complex.
Technology and leading management practices offer a way forward. Specifically, a governmentwide common operating picture (COP) of government programs and operations federated across agencies could be created by aiming modern data management and analytics, entity resolution and artificial intelligence technology at fragmented federal data. The COP would tie together authoritative federal budget, finance, procurement, payroll, human capital, investment, asset, program and performance data.
The COP could further integrate other federal, non-federal, crowd-sourced and commercial data and information, and usefully link the same to specific federal programs, functions and organizations. For example, AI can ingest and link documents and their semi-structured information such as laws and regulations, congressional hearing and report language, GAO and OIG reports, findings and recommendations, agency and program strategies, plans and program evaluations, financial and performance reports, and incurred cost and financial audits.
The COP would provide a visualization of immediately available opportunities to increase efficiency, reduce fraud, improve performance and level up through benchmarking. It could do this at the program and agency levels. At the governmentwide level, it could provide insight into opportunities within mission areas, geographies and functions spanning agencies. Perhaps most importantly, the COP would have an immutable record of past data, decisions and actions to repeatably support and improve current decision-making.
Using the COP, OMB and agencies could develop and meaningfully scale an objective, ongoing and data-informed process of rating and reviewing specific risk-prioritized programs and operations across agencies. This process would enforce accountability for agencies to:
The criteria to distinguish between programs could build on approaches being used today by GAO and the IGs. Those that are not well managed or are not well performing are candidates for intervention to strengthen management controls to improve efficiency and reduce fraud. For example, based on agile oversight DOE recently initiated concrete moves away from pay and chase toward improved internal controls with energy-related rebate programs. Some programs may require deeper interventions, such as redesign, turn-around, merging with other programs, streamlining or downsizing until they demonstrate improvement. Occasionally, opportunities for incremental investment may surface. Finally, the COP could help agencies, the Office of Management and Budget and the White House develop and address their key analytic questions and instrument key performance indicators supporting their policymaking.
In some cases, cross-agency action may be indicated. In many, perhaps most cases, congressional action will be required. Transparency with the COP, in keeping with the Evidence Act, supports Congress’ Article I role. Indeed, the proposed approach could leverage Recovery Act lessons learned to partner with IGs and engage the American people to increase the public’s role and confidence, and that of state and local governments and other recipients of federal funds, in reforming government to make it more efficient, effective and accountable.
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Leadership and inclusive data governance, building on the federal data and evidence policies and agency capacity seeded by Evidence Act implementation over the past five years, are critical to the successful development of the COP. Furthermore, transparency, authoritative data and evidence are powerful tools towards changing incentives and behaviors inside agencies and with others towards aligned improvement.
OMB should consider establishing and resourcing a Federal Chief Data Analytics Officer (FCDAO) within OMB, focused and empowered to refine and validate the business case and approach, then build and scale the COP. Agencies should align their resources and contribution to the COP including elevating and building on their data analytics efforts, strengthening their adoption of data-centric architectures and not falling into the trap of subordinating the COP to modernizing legacy information technology. OMB would need to identify seed funding. Reduced fraud and waste could in part be repurposed to support agency working capital to resource the effort. Indeed, success establishing positive agency control over their data and its quality will open lower cost pathways to address technical debt.
The FCDAO would partner with other OMB leaders and agency counterparts to build the COP and ensure its use by agencies to close budget-management-performance gaps to drive governmentwide efficiencies, reduce fraud and support delivery of improved outcomes. The FCDAO would also work through policy concerns including data access and use, privacy, security and transparency. The potential impact of this trillion-dollar reform opportunity is magnified by its focus on engaging the public, integrating their input, reflecting the government’s actions, and showing results.
Kshemendra Paul has served for the past 17 years as a senior executive in the White House and across many federal agencies, leading people, building coalitions and advancing progress against complex public sector challenges. He has developed an aptitude and passion for using data and technology, focused on improving government management and information sharing to better serve the American people. Previously, Paul held a variety of private sector technology innovation, development, consulting, and leadership roles. He received Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics, and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from University of Maryland, College Park.
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