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The 2014 Executive Leadership Conference had simple goals: Connect great people
with great ideas to inspire Leadership and Innovation in Radically Changing Times.
Two of the key programs at ELC thoughtfully collaborated to address these goals.
They were the Shared Solutions Track and the Collaboration Zone. What they did
signals a striking new technique for engagement and learning at this conference and
likely others, as participants provided overwhelmingly positive feedback (examples
provided in the left margin).
The impetus for the Shared Solutions Track is the $64B of the current federal IT
budget that is allocated to traditional O&M functions, a majority of which is used to
maintain administrative and service delivery applications. Costs for maintaining these
applications are duplicated in many agency budgets because multiple agencies
perform similar mission functions and maintain separate applications to support them.
These include banking and finance functions, disaster relief, identity and access
management, and many others. The costs to maintain individual agency legacy
solutions are not sustainable from a long-term budget standpoint and stifle
investments in innovation, including improving the citizen experience.
The Shared Solutions track looked 10 years into the future through the lens of an
inevitable paradigm shift: cross-agency sharing of mission delivery applications
(MDAs). Session provocateurs across three sessions—The Leadership and Program
Management Challenge, The Acquisition Challenge, and The Technology
Challenge— incited participants to define barriers and opportunities to evolving
government to this future state. Participant responses were captured and categorized
for use in a technique known as Human Centered Design (HCD).
The HCD technique leveraged the thousands of years of experience embedded in
track attendees to identify ways to enable cross agency sharing of MDAs by 2024.
The technique includes a series of activities that take groups through divergent-
convergent thinking, also known as “double diamonds”. HCD is driven by Design
Challenges that are characterized as “How Might We” statements. For example, how
might we attract the best talent into public service? These statements invite broad
exploration for a problem to be solved or an opportunity to be seized. They are meant
to be bold, provocative, and not include a solution. HCD enables active listening—
statements that represent something that’s positive (Rose), something that’s negative
(Thorn), and something that has potential (Bud)—to capture observations and
insights that fuel a “double diamond” discussion. First you go broad, generate lots of
research or ideas (diverging), and then you go narrow and arrive at insights or
concepts (converging). This practice helps to generate more creative, potentially
breakthrough concepts.
BRMi Leads a Radical Program Makeover at the
ACT-IAC 2014 Executive Leadership Conference

2. Mike Battle, Founder and CEO, Battle Resource Management, Inc., expertly
performed the Provocateur role for the Leadership and Program Management
Challenge session. The challenge statement for his session was “How Might We
Build from Predominantly Back Office/LOB Shared Services to Mission Focused
Shared Solutions over the Next 10 years?” Using the Rose, Thorn, Bud (RTB)
statements he elicited during the session, he subsequently led a double diamond
discussion in ELC’s Collaboration Zone that lasted several hours. The discussion was
supported by Matt Collier, (a.k.a. HCD Lumatic) from the Luma Institute; panelists
from the Leadership and Program Management Challenge session: Adilson Jardim,
Senior Sales Consultant, Oracle; Kathleen Turco, CFO, Veterans Health
Administration; and Sylvia Burns, CIO, Department of the Interior; and several others
including: Larry Gross, Deputy CIO, Department of the Interior; Izella Dornell, Deputy
CIO, Department of Commerce; Victor Winnard, USDA; Judy Douglas, HP; and
Kathryn Kienast, BAH.
This team benefited from their members’ rich mix of ideas, perspectives, and life
experiences. They synthesized the RTB statements to generate and analyze many
potential solutions to the design challenge, ultimately narrowing their vision to three
powerful concepts. They were represented in posters that an artist in the
Collaboration Zone prepared to illustrate the concepts.
Concept 1 – Citizen Engagement 360
The team quickly realized that very few RTB
statements were linked to the end customer’s
point of view. After all, it is the citizens being
served who have to wade through the
duplicative data entry across agencies to apply
for services and benefits. So why aren’t we
placing greater focus on the customer and
building services around that perspective?
The goal here is a customer-focused
government that is highly efficient and
effective. Citizens will demand greater attention
from their congressional representatives to
change statutes that inhibit citizen-centric
service delivery or to create new legislation to
enable or mandate it. Interim improvements
may be made within existing authorities if
leaders make it a priority. Success may be
measured by increased customer satisfaction.
“Love the new format!
Very interactive.”
“The use of human
centered design was very
useful.”

3. Concept 2 – Enabling the Art of the Impossible
People have a very hard time imaging a
different future when they don’t appreciate the
realm of possibilities. The concept here is to
enable out-of-the-box thinking and adoption of
new ideas through a realistic simulation
experience (a SimCity approach). The
simulation could present the implementation
hurdles and benefits to the mission and end
users of the shared solution. Removing
apprehension of change is a powerful stimulus
that will foster momentum and enhance
creative thinking.
Success of virtual simulation could be
measured in terms of the number of users who
use the tool, the number of new ideas
submitted, and the number of new ideas for
shared solutions that are implemented.
Concept 3 – Drive Transformation with an Outcome Focus
Tom Peters argues that emphasis on the
qualitative measurement of business is vital to
success: what gets measured gets done. The
same accountability should be applied to
Federal agency leaders as it relates to
government wide improvement in efficiency
and effectiveness.
Agencies that consistently achieve their goals
would be rewarded with increased resources
and perhaps greater span of control. Leaders
that follow the status quo route may be
searching for new jobs and their agencies will
receive fewer performance rewards.
Areas where this may be prototyped include
mapping services, GPS, and single security
and identity management processes. Success
may be measured by decreased O&M
spending, increased overall efficiency, and
greater focus on mission improvements
“I was happy to see ELC
move away from typical
panel sessions.”
“We now need to build
actionable plans around
shared service initiatives.”

4. The team presented these posters along with an explanation of their analysis and
thought processes at a wrap-up session at the conclusion of the all-day program. The
response from the attendees was thought provoking and invigorating. RTB
information was also captured and organized into affinity groups for the two remaining
sessions of the program (Acquisition and Technology Challenges). This data will be
handed off to ACT-IAC shared interest groups for follow up action.
Matt Collier (left) teamed with
ELC Program Chairs Susan
Becker, Unisys (Collaboration
Zone) and Chris Niedermayer,
BRMi (Shared Solutions Track)
early in the ELC planning
phase to create this new format
for the conference. It was
challenging at first to sell the
radically different approach to
their colleagues and the
broader community. The idea
of transforming traditional panel
discussions into interactive,
problem-solving workshops caught on and gained momentum as the October
conference date approached. The implementation took months of planning and
coordination. Speakers had to be carefully chosen to start the sessions with Ted Talk
style presentations of potential solutions. Practice sessions put a fine point on
presenting divergent views. The logistics of the meeting spaces, methods for
electronically capturing and streaming the RTB statements, and marketing the program
required constant attention. The effort was well worth everyone’s time considering the
active participation of conference attendees and their written feedback.
“The shared services track
was particularly
compelling. I appreciated
the insights and the
discussion around the
benefits that can be
derived from expansion of
shared service offerings.”
BRMi thanks and congratulates each of the individuals who supported the
track and its success. We look forward to working with you all again.