What Kind of Government BI would be really useful?

Vivek Kundra, erstwhile CTO of the District of Columbia has been appointed CIO of the U.S Government by President Obama.

Vivek outlines the plans he has as the Federal CIO in many forums like this one here.

His previous project the Digital Public Square, is an interesting web site to visit and poke around.

What I found there was a lot of interesting Business Intelligence! What I did not find there, was even more interesting, and hope he focuses on those also, when he starts initiatives as the Federal CIO!

In the Digital Public Square there was a lot of raw data in the form of spreadsheets, about purchases, large and small, that they made for the DC. It has spreadsheets that lists amounts like $24 for copying services from Vendor X or $450 for some other product from Vendor Y.

There are also spreadsheets that list purchase orders issued by DC to various vendors.

This is Business Intelligence that promotes a lot of transparency and a very good first step! It can root out corruption with no bid contracts, or one vendor repeatedly getting orders for certain kinds of services or products. If you keep collecting this raw data, if you were an investigative reporter, you could dig up a lot about corruption.

Transparency is very good, essential and valuable!

However, what will be even more useful are statistics about processes, efficiency and effectiveness about the Government agencies themselves.

For example, the purchase order for $240 to Vendor A, how long did it take? How much money did the Government spend on processing it? $2 or $400 in people's time and effort?

This is where a lot of waste in Government is! This is what matters to businesses and people that deal with the Government, encourages or discourages them in anything they try to do with it.

How long does it take to get a Passport today compared to two months ago?

How long does the Government RFP - Proposals- Award cycle take for a product or a service to be sold to the Government?

Hope Vivek addresses this kind of BI also. This is where the waste in Government lurks and the true costs are!

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them - Galileo Galilee