Uncle Sam Issues Shared Services Guidelines

The US landscape is politics-charged, no matter where you turn. Blame the recent elections, or perhaps it's just the new normal–there is hardly a decision made these days, that does not appear to be colored by the political landscape. But it's not all bad! One piece of news that absolutely delighted me, was the announcement, this week, that the White House is debuting a shared services catalog for IT Services across all its agencies – named Uncle Sam’s List [a sense of humor never hurts; by the way, the link won’t get you far, but it’s always useful how shared services are being visualized or presented]. This affects a lot of people. According to a report on nextgov.com, a team of IT officials have produced this catalog to help government agencies cut IT services costs. It’s exclusively available to Federal staff [split across: commodity IT, mission services, and support services], and allows one agency to shop services from another agency if those are provided at a lower cost. Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel must be thrilled. He's been pushing the shared services agenda for a couple of years now. His guiding principle has been that generic systems offer opportunities for savings as opposed to systems supporting agency-specific needs and requirements. This thinking is familiar to most of us, but it has been a particular challenge for the government, as agency organizations work within silos, and very little exchange happens across their walls. What's driving this new initiative is a multidisciplinary team performing cost benefit analysis between traditional procurement and the shared services model, for a given service. What makes this exciting is the sheer scale and reach of the Federal organization. We know of a number of well-developed, mature, and highly successful government shared services, notably Health and Human Services, and NASA, and this development marks another step in the right direction. It's welcome news to see this kind of consolidation and to recognize that it's driven by transparency – the cost benefit analysis places the facts squarely before the decision-makers. This reflects a trend towards open systems, and clear exchange of data. The Federal CIO’s blog announced the release of the "Federal Shared Services Implementation Guide" yesterday, describing it as a "compelling approach for federal agencies facing growing mission requirements in an environment of declining resources." It also promotes a "Shared–First" culture. What's commendable here is that the communication is upfront, and that the implementation guide highlights the thinking underlying this move to shared services. It clearly communicates the organizational goals, performance levels, return on investment, and innovation that an interagency strategy will support. It also includes specific steps to identify candidates for shared services, explains how to make the business case, examines funding models, and offers agency templates. And, importantly, it outlines some challenges that agencies might encounter [well done: there's nothing as effective as managing expectations]. The final blog message is telling, and could apply to any one of you: "The new fiscal reality being faced by the Federal Government is continuing to push agencies to innovate with less – a prospect that is much easier to achieve by leveraging shared government services. Consequently, when a Shared-First approach is implemented in concert with PortfolioStat reviews, standardized architecture methods, and digital government planning concepts, agencies will have a stronger set of tools by which to innovate with less." Elsewhere, the FWC quotes: "Shared services are a top priority for the Obama administration, for reasons outlined in the May 2012 Federal IT Shared Services Strategy. Yet while the potential efficiencies and cost savings are substantial, identifying good shared-services opportunities, settling on an appropriate funding model and getting executive-level buy-in are all serious challenges. The implementation guide details the existing options, outlines the questions agencies will have to answer, and offers guidance for determining when shared services -- as either a user or provider -- would make sense." It also warns: "The time for agencies to consider exit strategies from a shared service provider is during the initial planning for transition and during negotiations with the shared service provider. Planning in advance for a possible exit, if it becomes necessary, is critical to the success of any transition." Well done the White House. Note: see the full Federal Shared Services Implementation Guide. If you are part of the public sector, and want to drive improvements through your organization, be sure to stay ahead on shared services strategies: find out who is leading at Shared Services & Process Improvement for Higher Education, Healthcare and Government, in the US; or the Public Sector Transformation Forum in Australia – both running in November. Also, don't miss the UK's Procurement Transformation Summit – this is where a lot of attention will be focussed in the future.

Uncle Sam Issues Shared Services Guidelines

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