b'With (our) product-driven approach, we have a new way to operate and manage IT offerings that are better, cheaper, and faster.What were your initial challenges? are a support organization that provides the best tools to the patents and trademarks teams. In the end, we accomplish our Upon arriving at the USPTO, I recognized the need tomission by supporting the organization in meeting its mission: change our culture to improve delivery and workflow. Withawarding patents and registering trademarks.my team, I focused on creating a New Ways of Working (nWOW). I challenged our IT staff to automate moreI reference the old real estate adage: location, location, workflows to make things better, cheaper, and faster. Thoughlocation. Similarly, my three biggest priorities are culture, some efforts may fail in thirty, sixty or even ninty days, in theculture, and culture. We need to ensure that people have the short term, we can learn from small failures and adapt.right attitude while pursuing our new ways of working. This culture shift includes moving away from the old ways, and As I learned in the Army, checklists and SOPs (standardtoward the new ways of working. It requires you to act now. operating procedures) are merely guidelines for tacticalYou must have a sense of urgency. You must be bold. Do not execution. What matters most is what happens on thejust do little things, but do something that really matters. ground. Bringing this mindset into how we execute IT at the USPTO is key to producing better, faster, and cheaperFinally, seek to simplify processes. It is all about a sense results. We need to be more agile, and bring commercialof urgency. You must make people see and feel a sense of best practices into the agency. Given that the USPTO is aurgency. One of the most effective commercial practices Ifee-based organization, we have an obligation to operatehave adopted is a thirty-, sixty-, and ninty-day plan. If you more like a commercial business.cannot complete an IT modernization effort with milestone results in ninty days, then do not do it! Our goal is Better, As an example, with our people to teams effort, weCheaper, Faster.adopted a matrix organizational approach. Staff maintain their reporting structure and job descriptions, but are detailed to product teams. We eliminated the project management organization and created business product teams. We pivoted from managing over 200 separate, unique projects to thirty products across four product lines: patents, trademarks, enterprise business, and enterprise infrastructure. Each product line has about seven or eight products within it. With this product-driven approach, we have a new way to operate and manage IT offerings that are better, cheaper, and faster.What is your role at USPTO?As the CIO, you must set the vision and develop a roadmap outlining how to realize that vision. This has to do with transforming the culture. There are three key elements: people, process, and tools. You must apply the right tools to the right people with the right processes. All elements are necessary to make sure that we accomplish the mission. We 2022 IBM Center for The Business of Government 41'