Government Culture Inhibits Shared Services

Joseph Marks | Nextgov | February 7, 2013

Technology has finally caught up with the will to share services more efficiently in government but federal agencies’ siloed and cautious culture is still a major impediment, the senior adviser to the government’s Chief Information Officers Council said Thursday.

It’s difficult to convene CIOs from across the government to sort out basic information including who should be a supplier and who should be a consumer of shared services such as wireless Internet and data storage, Adam Hughes said during an event sponsored by the American Council for Technology - Industry Advisory Council.

“We don’t have good processes in place to be able to have formal information sessions and that’s what I want to focus on this year,” Hughes said. “That’s a real impediment to even getting over that hurdle to create an environment where shared services can work, to have folks in the room to say ‘How can we do this?’”