Avoid Delays. Deliver Value (Continued)

Things have to change. Sustainability is not just about the climate. It is about resources, and money, and not squandering opportunity to create, not just a healthy environment but a strong culture that can sustain the people we have today and the future. How do we do that when governments run so inefficiently and with so many delays. What has to change? And how?

I recently read an article in Bloomberg explaining why the concept of eliminating daylight savings time (DST) in Europe is not so straightforward. The article explains that all of the member states had an opportunity to vote as part of the EU Parliament and then the Council had to sign off. The measure had passed to eliminate it by 2021, but there were supposedly many factors that prevented it. It said that the task passed to the EU Commission after the vote, because an impact assessment had not been done. Of course, the Commission passed it back and said there needed to be a “common position” first (um...isn’t that what a vote was to establish?) and so therefore nothing had happened and the measure had not carried forward despite the vote. This is very clearly a failure of process and procedure and not doing things in the right order. How do you vote on something without an impact assessment? And why does the commission think that a vote is not considered consensus?

Next up in the news was the announcement that in the United State the Infrastructure Bill had passed thus pushing 1.5 trillion dollars forward divided between things like transportation in rural areas, elimination of lead drinking water pipes, bridge repairs and so on.

And before both of these as I elaborated in the original article, I was on a bit of a rant about a failed infrastructure project in Ohio that was awarded 50 million dollars to implement a transportation initiative for which they competed against over 75 other cities. The project in five years used the money and failed. Why? Well according to the article, COVID amongst other things was to blame, but the reality is because they were using the wrong solution for the problem. Unfortunately the linked article didn’t go into what problem specifically the project was trying to resolve but sources close to me had inside knowledge. They were trying to solve a socio-economic problem with a high tech solution that wasn’t fit for purpose and then rolled out the COVID excuse as part of the justification when it all went wrong.

What do these all have in common?

Now what do these three things have in common and why am I writing about them AGAIN? They all demonstrate a failure of government to do things the right way around. How did the EU Parliament have a serious vote on ending DST if there had not been an impact assessment of what that would mean to the member states of the EU? And the U.S. passed an infrastructure bill without any specific details (but a lot of pages of fluff) and line item costs to accompany the trillions of dollars allocated. And Ohio was awarded prize money from the Department of Transportation based on a fancy presentation that clearly didn’t explain how they planned to get to the end goal successfully.

And why should we care? In all of the cases those were tax dollars used to fund programs that failed. In the case of the EU, they couldn’t even get to launch because they were finger pointing. And by the way, no task force made up of the heads of state has ever actually been the ones to get anything done. BUT we should also care because all of these things have a profound impact on quality of life. And if not handled properly all of them will line the pockets of big consultancies that have made a living off of failed government initiatives while people who desperately need the changes are left out.

So what is the solution? And why does this keep happening?

In large part, politics gets in the way. Agenda are played out. Money is thrown back and forth. People and their needs are held hostage for political ambition, and sometimes decisions are made that seem to be the right thing, but there is no real plan. Then, in sweep the large consultancies who have made fortunes on government programs and contracts often at the expense of progress. The people in the position to agree to the contracts do not have the knowledge to understand what needs to be done. If they did, they probably wouldn’t need so many government contractors. The requests for proposal are poorly written (copy paste is a favorite), the selection criteria is as well, and a group is hired often on price point alone (well maybe a flashy presentation too) and things are off and running in all directions. Then if something isn’t going well, the finger pointing begins and the base year on the contract turns into an option year or four and it continues because it is easier to keep the devil you know than try to cancel a contract and start over. This may all sound harsh, but I have worked on both sides of this coin and witnessed the bad and the ugly.

In my last article entitled Avoid Delays, Deliver Value which I wrote without knowing there was going to be a follow on article, I delved into what could be done in a Step-by-Step process. In fact, I have been talking about it so much that I have partnered with others, who are equally frustrated, to create a process called From Ideation to Implementation to help organizations identify the problems they are trying to solve, creating viable solutions, and then properly funding and implementing them with agile ways of working, but also well thought out business decisions that include the right people in the room.

And what pushed me? To be honest, it was when I found out the motivation behind the self-driving car project award by the Department of Transportation. I just can’t get past it. It makes me so frustrated that there was an incredible opportunity to do the right thing for the right people and those with privilege thought a high-tech solution would fix it. If you are trying to solve a socio-economic problem in an urban area, how do you do that if you don’t invite community members to the table? How do you even get to a point where you assume you know the solutions that will work for the people living the experience? But yet somehow we had self-driving cars as a solution to a socio-economic problem instead of one that made sense and was feasible. And my second motivation was when I heard about a struggling economy who had to give money back because they couldn’t figure out how to use it properly. That just made me stop for some time and ponder where we are. That people who desperately needed services didn’t get them because the people charged with managing the funds and the programs didn’t know what to do.

And what am I going to do about it other than write two blogs about my frustrations with governments squandering incredible opportunities to emerge triumphant for once? I am so serious about it that I have completely changed the direction of Agility for All for 2022. I am partnering with amazing people to put together a solution that is not over-priced and complicated, but will start organizations down a path toward success. Am I taking on big government? Absolutely not. I don’t have the stomach for it anymore. But if I can help small organizations with big missions, then I will know we have achieved our goals. Can I guarantee success? Of course not. But it will give anyone who wants to give it a go a fighting chance of achieving results. And I hope that more of us in a place where we can make a difference step up and join us or start their own worthwhile, value-driven programs.

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INDRA A. BOOKS

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