Accelerating Government Innovation With Leadership and Stimulus Funding

With the evolving maturity of innovation offices and digital teams comes the imperative for leaders and managers to provide pathways for these organizations to succeed and work together effectively, in terms of embracing new ideas and scaling those that prove effective beyond a prototype or pilot.

Silo Busting: The Challenges and Successes of Intergovernmental Data Sharing

Even with the stumbles that have occurred in standing up a national system for sharing pandemic-related health data, it has been far more successful than previous efforts to share data between levels of government—or across government agencies at the same level.

This report offers a rich description of what intergovernmental data sharing can offer by describing a range of federal, state, and local data sharing initiatives in various policy arenas, such as social services, transportation, health, and criminal justice.

Eight Keys to Accelerating Government Data Innovation

The forthcoming report describes the value that can be created, and the ways that services can be improved and made more customer-focused by sharing data across agencies, across levels of government, or from government to nonprofit or corporate partners. From this review of success cases, a set of ideas about what can precipitate or accelerate success emerged, resulting in this list of factors that create momentum for data sharing.

Two Models for Successful Intergovernmental Data Sharing

Certainly, there have been some disappointments in quality and timeliness of data, and the availably of data in electronic format.  But in many cases the career public servants who have collected data for many years are only now seeing their important work gain public attention.  Excellence in government data management is not new.  Many of the best leaders and innovators in government data analytics have been refining their craft for over a decade, building success incrementally over time.

Jane M. Wiseman

Jane Wiseman leads the Institute for Excellence in Government, a non-profit consulting firm dedicated to improving government performance.  She is also a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration.  She has served as an appointed official in government and as a financial advisor and consultant to government. 

Data-Driven Government: The Role of Chief Data Officers

The push for data-driven government is currently of intense interest at the federal level as it develops an integrated federal data strategy as part of its goal to “leverage data as a strategic asset.” There is also pending legislation to require agencies to designate chief data officers (CDOs).

CEO, Institute for Excellence in Government, and Senior Fellow, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
Harvard University
124 Mt. Auburn Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States
(617) 448-4250

Jane Wiseman leads the Institute for Excellence in Government, a non-profit consulting firm dedicated to improving government performance.  She is also a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration.  She has served as an appointed official in government and as a financial advisor and consultant to government. 

Her consulting, research, and writing focus on government innovation,  data-driven decision-making and operational efficiency in government.  With the Harvard Ash Center and the United Negro College Fund, she developed a data-informed approach for urban responses to the upskilling and reskilling of unemployed and underemployed individuals.  With the Harvard Ash Center, she supports a national network of urban Chief Data Officers to accelerate the use of analytics in local government.  With Harvard Ash Center, she created an open platform for government access to the best examples of government operational efficiency approaches, with case studies showing successful implementation.  She has written on customer-centric government, data-driven decision-making in government, pretrial justice, and 311 for a variety of audiences.

Her prior consulting work has included organizational strategy, performance management and eGovernment strategy work for Accenture and Price Waterhouse.  Selected clients include the National Governor’s Association, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Criminal Justice Association, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United States Postal Service, the State of Michigan, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the United States Department of Commerce.

Ms. Wiseman has served as Assistant Secretary, Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and as Assistant to the Director for Strategic Planning, National Institute of Justice, United States Department of Justice.  Ms. Wiseman represented the Justice Department on detail as a Staff Assistant for the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.  Ms. Wiseman holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Smith College and a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.