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How would you describe the typical government worker? What characteristics would you ascribe as 'typical' among the nearly 2,800,000 federal government employe

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.

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.