4 ms·

Yes, but they were from the 18f team, not exactly representative of the typical government worker.

by bdavisx 11y ago

dangerlibrary 11y ago
How would you describe the typical government worker? What characteristics would you ascribe as 'typical' among the nearly 2,800,000 federal government employees? What do think of the engineers at NASA? The biologists and mathematicians working on the human genome project? What character traits do you think are shared by Park Rangers fighting fires and educating people about the value of wilderness in Yosemite, and FBI Agents working undercover to investigate organized crime? I'm genuinely curious.
- bdavisx 11y ago
  I should probably have been more descriptive and said "typical US Federal government IT worker". And I would describe a typical USFG IT worker as someone who's OK with lots of process (because otherwise they would likely have a different job). Certainly not all of them, but many (I would venture to say most). And I speak with some experience here. In the early 90's I taught a class about Microsoft Solutions Framework to a group of government IT people, and they were less than thrilled to have to learn a new way of doing things. MSF is a slightly agile process, more so than many others at the time, nothing like XP or even Scrum though. They had been using a waterfall process for a long time and were just fine with it. While one class doesn't automatically mean that everyone in government IT is that way, from my experience in consulting with several government agencies and other large companies, there are a lot of people who don't want to change. I think that many people who have never had to work in that environment don't realize how it is, certainly nothing like a startup - and I've also worked at a startup in the past as well.
  - dangerlibrary 11y ago
    Just so I understand: Over twenty years ago you taught a class on a Microsoft branded "slightly agile process" and you were surprised how resistant people were to the advice of a short-term consultant. From that you've extrapolated that government IT workers are stubborn and stuck in the past. Got it.
whoiskevin 11y ago
Replace "government" with "Apple", "HP", "Google", "Cisco", or "other big company" and it still works. Process is the biggest issue not people.
- bdavisx 11y ago
  But people created those processes and people keep then in use. So aren't people really the issue even if process is the visible issue?
- devonkim 11y ago
  The process of changing that process itself is what is completely different between public sector and private sector though. Change from within is extremely tough to begin with and companies with truly bad, inefficient processes will likely be out-innovated by companies that can actually organize to deliver results and that doesn't happen in the DC bureaucracy culture, you just get less funding and your agency starts to look ancient and obsolete. For tech companies that become obsolete, they become more sales culture driven and tend to stick with non-tech customers in the F500 that are even further behind technology / process improvement curves. The kinds of folks that stay at jobs for 20+ years and retire are very, very different from the HN style job hopping motivated go-getters and it impacts work output drastically in large numbers. DC has a lot of the really motivated types, but they are oftentimes not doing the tech work. I've been a federal employee, contractor, employee of F500 companies, small regional company, two-person start-up, and start-up employee for some frame of reference.

Yes, but they were from the 18f team, not exactly representative of the typical government worker.

by bdavisx 11y ago

Yes, but they were from the 18f team, not exactly representative of the typical government worker.

How would you describe the typical government worker? What characteristics would you ascribe as 'typical' among the nearly 2,800,000 federal government employees? What do think of the engineers at NASA? The biologists and mathematicians working on the human genome project? What character traits do you think are shared by Park Rangers fighting fires and educating people about the value of wilderness in Yosemite, and FBI Agents working undercover to investigate organized crime? I'm genuinely curious.

bdavisx 11y ago
I should probably have been more descriptive and said "typical US Federal government IT worker". And I would describe a typical USFG IT worker as someone who's OK with lots of process (because otherwise they would likely have a different job). Certainly not all of them, but many (I would venture to say most). And I speak with some experience here. In the early 90's I taught a class about Microsoft Solutions Framework to a group of government IT people, and they were less than thrilled to have to learn a new way of doing things. MSF is a slightly agile process, more so than many others at the time, nothing like XP or even Scrum though. They had been using a waterfall process for a long time and were just fine with it. While one class doesn't automatically mean that everyone in government IT is that way, from my experience in consulting with several government agencies and other large companies, there are a lot of people who don't want to change. I think that many people who have never had to work in that environment don't realize how it is, certainly nothing like a startup - and I've also worked at a startup in the past as well.
- dangerlibrary 11y ago
  Just so I understand: Over twenty years ago you taught a class on a Microsoft branded "slightly agile process" and you were surprised how resistant people were to the advice of a short-term consultant. From that you've extrapolated that government IT workers are stubborn and stuck in the past. Got it.

whoiskevin 11y ago

Replace "government" with "Apple", "HP", "Google", "Cisco", or "other big company" and it still works. Process is the biggest issue not people.

bdavisx 11y ago
But people created those processes and people keep then in use. So aren't people really the issue even if process is the visible issue?
devonkim 11y ago
The process of changing that process itself is what is completely different between public sector and private sector though. Change from within is extremely tough to begin with and companies with truly bad, inefficient processes will likely be out-innovated by companies that can actually organize to deliver results and that doesn't happen in the DC bureaucracy culture, you just get less funding and your agency starts to look ancient and obsolete. For tech companies that become obsolete, they become more sales culture driven and tend to stick with non-tech customers in the F500 that are even further behind technology / process improvement curves. The kinds of folks that stay at jobs for 20+ years and retire are very, very different from the HN style job hopping motivated go-getters and it impacts work output drastically in large numbers. DC has a lot of the really motivated types, but they are oftentimes not doing the tech work. I've been a federal employee, contractor, employee of F500 companies, small regional company, two-person start-up, and start-up employee for some frame of reference.