IBM Center for The Business of Government

Hope for the DATA Act. Hudson Hollister, the head of the Data Transparency Coalition, was interviewed by Federal News Radio on his take of the status of the implementation of the DATA Act, which requires regular reporting of financial transactions by each federal agency on at least a quarterly basis. He shared his frustration, but also some hope. Later that day, GAO testified on the Act’s implementation and noted progress, but more needs to be done.

Customer Service. Federal News Radio interviewed GSA’s Martha Dorris about progress on the Administration’s goal to improve customer experience with government services. She says GSA is developing a digital “Voice of the Customer” toolkit for agencies that include a range of electronic approaches, such as the pilot “Feedback USA” button for instant feedback, and digital analytics to assess 4,000 federal websites. The Shrinking Millennials. According to Federal News Radio, :Federal agencies are finding it increasingly more difficult to recruit and retain younger employees. . .

Information technology has made possible the availability of real-time data and the tools to display that data, such as dash­boards, scorecards, and heat maps. This has boosted the use of data and evidence by government decision makers in meeting their agency and program missions. But what about the use of performance metrics by agency chief information officers themselves? Background. Typically, CIOs have a good inventory of metrics regarding the performance of their technical infrastructure, such as server down time.