An Open Government Directive Scorecard, Year One

The Open Government Directive (OGD) was issued on December 8th, 2009, by the administration of President Obama.  The document states:

“The three principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration form the cornerstone of an open government.”

It is around these three core attributes that the directive is focused. 

On this first year anniversary I wanted to take a moment and share my thoughts on how well the US Government has done in terms of OGD and in regards to moving the needle regarding open government overall.  This is clearly subjective on my part and it is my hope that the Whitehouse will take this opportunity to provide a more objective score.

The scorecard is built using the following breakdown:

• Goal Setting: 30%
• Clear Strategies and Measurements of Success: 20%
• Leadership Education and Approaches: 20%
• Personnel Communication,  Training, Retention:  20%
• Use of Technology: 10%

My individual and overall grades, with brief explanation, follow.

Goal Setting
The 11 page PDF file that is the Open Government Directive did an excellent job of defining how the US Government defines open government.  As noted above, it stated that “The three principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration form the cornerstone of an open government”, giving a clear starting point for understanding.

Agencies were given timetables that were fairly clear with only a few areas that I would consider vague.  For example, items like the following were the norm and were very clear:

“Within 60 days, each agency shall create an Open Government Webpage located at http://www.[agency].gov/open to serve as the gateway for agency activities related to the Open Government Directive and shall maintain and update that webpage in a timely fashion.”

While only a few items were more vague, like this example that leaves it up to the agency to define what a significant pending backlog means:

“Each agency with a significant pending backlog of outstanding Freedom of Information requests shall take steps to reduce any such backlog by ten percent each year.”

I have worked with many organizations and was impressed overall by the OGD.

Grade:  95 (A)

Clear Strategies and Measurements of Success
As noted above, the directive does a good job, overall, in setting early metrics for success.  It also leaves it up to the individual agencies to define their own plans and timetables, which is a good approach. The problem, however, is that it makes it much more difficult to determine an overall measurement of success.

Many agencies have done an excellent job with their plans, metrics, and timetables, many have not.

Grade: 80 (B-)

Leadership Education and Approaches
Leadership, management, whatever you want to call it, is responsible for strategies and definition of metrics.  They are also responsible for building a workforce capable of achieving the defined goals.  Primarily due to the grade above, as well as my thoughts on the grade below, I have given a B- grade.

Grade: 80 (B-)

Personnel Communication,  Training, Retention
Many people are excited about open government but many people are also frustrated by lack of personal growth and advancement, progress and processes locked in red tape, and a feeling that they can do more for open government by working outside of government.  These are not simply my perceptions but are the reality of dozens of conversations I have had in the last three months.

Grade: 75 (C)

Use of  Technology
Government 2.0 and open government efforts are being led, primarily, by technologist.  While I feel this  is a mistake it does mean that the agencies that understand the importance of open government are being more creative than before.  The use of social media and other collaboration tools, the use of ideation platforms, the release of open data in open formats, the movement to cloud technologies, and other efforts demonstrate smart IT decision-making.

Grade: 85 (B)

These individual grades lead to an overall score of 84, a solid B for the first year of the open government directive.  Year one has been a success in my opinion.  Year two must continue to show progress and begin to demonstrate real change to citizens.  For this to happen we must see:

• A focus on core leadership practices and potential organizational realignment.
• A focus on employee training and retention.
• A focus on economic goals such as cost savings.
• A quarterly Presidential review with clear scorecards from each agency.
• Avoid making this a political issue.  Washington is more divided than ever, if this becomes a political pawn all progress could be destroyed.

How do you score year one?

John F. Moore