In this podcast, a panel consisting of Aileen Black, and SVP of Public Sector at Collibra, Nick Hart, the President of Data Foundation, Dr. Barry West, the CEO and Founder of West Wing Advisory Services, and Iram Ali, the Senior Customer Enablement Advisor for US Federal and Non-Profit Businesses at AWS highlight the value of data governance, and how it can help advance mission.
Speaker 1: On behalf of Collibra and Carahsoft, we would like to welcome you to today's podcast focused around data governance to help advance mission where Eileen Black, an SVP of Public Sector at Collibra, Nick Hart, the President of Data Foundation, Dr. Barry West, the CEO and Founder of West Wing Advisory Services, and Iram Ali, the Senior Customer Enablement Advisor for US Federal and nonprofit businesses at AWS will discuss the significance of having a data governance platform to manage data.
Aileen Black: Good morning, and welcome to Collibra's Digital summit. It is my honor and pleasure to moderate this panel. My name is Eileen Black, and I'm the Senior Vice President of Sales for Public Sector for Collibra. I'm have the pleasure of having a very distinguished plant panel with us here today. Let me do some introductions with us is Nick Hart. Nick is president of data.org. Nick, do you want to introduce yourself real quick?
Nick Hart: Sure. So yeah, I lead an organization called the data foundation. And we are a DC based nonprofit that basically talks about data every day, and how we can use data to inform policymaking and all aspects of decision making. So we're on the front lines for talking to folks in Congress and the executive branch to make our data more useful.
Aileen Black: Also with us is Iram Ali from Amazon Web Services. Would you like to do an introduction of yourself?
Iram Ali: Yes, thanks, Eileen. Again, Iram Ali, I serve as the Senior Advisor for Customer Enablement and Engagement for our US Federal and nonprofit business and worldwide public sector.
Aileen Black: And finally, Dr. Barry West. Barry, would you like to say a couple words?
Dr. Barry West: Yeah. Thank you, and Welcome, everyone. Barry West, retired federal executive and also spent time in the private sector. And currently, I am the founder and CEO of West Wing advisory services, which I started two years ago, management consulting practice that focuses on cybersecurity and cloud computing.
Aileen Black: Fantastic. You know, 2020 clearly showed us the importance of data and having practices to implement data innovations that drive more value of your data as being a strategic asset. And, you know, having a strategy isn't a nice to have anymore, it's a must have, I mean, the ability for the outcomes and the resilience that was shown from agencies that had one, versus agencies that didn't have one have been painfully apparent. The insights that drives the outcomes, mission objectives, having a firm foundation of having a David or data governance platform that can implement these are extremely important. Now, Nick, you have recently done a study with data.org, with some of the CEOs across the federal government, where do you see these priorities? And where do you see things across the board?
Nick Hart: Last year, in 2020, amidst the pandemic, we conducted a survey of federal Chief Data officers. And you know, for those who may not be aware, this is a relatively new role inside the federal government that was mandated under a law that was signed back in 2019, the foundations for evidence based policymaking after evidence act. And we're learning a lot just as the CEOs are getting off the ground about where they're struggling, where they're really succeeding and thriving, and also how they're coordinating with each other. So not surprisingly, what we learned out of the survey last year is every CEO is kind of looking a little different, depends on what's happening in their agency, how well they're resource to the reporting to even in some cases, matters, whether they've been assigned to report directly to the Chief Operating Officer, the deputy secretary or working closely with the CIO. And I think one of the major takeaways out of the survey, which is not surprising to this audience is that the CDO can only be successful if they're really collaborating across the entire enterprise. And again, that's going to look a little different for every particular CEO, because every agency and every mission that is within the agency is different. But there are some common struggles that they've identified common themes things like prioritizing getting data governance boards established and identifying that data assets that they'll put on open data plans, and even some common themes around basic data standards that are still missing inside government today. I mentioned those things because that's kind of the boring stuff that a lot of people forget is really necessary when we're talking about organizing and governing data. But it's so essential to extracting the value from the information from the data that we're already collecting, has to be organized has to be managed, and ultimately go is the operational term here. And that's really what the CEOs are set to do. So we learned a lot about how well things were going. And I think, if anything, we've watched over the last year that CEOs are actually thriving, even amidst some resource challenges. And that's in large part personality driven. Some of the individuals that were designated a name for this position are phenomenal. And they are really being innovative and capitalizing on some enthusiasm and momentum that exists both within the agencies as well as the private sector, to make them successful. And I hope that they can continue capitalizing on that for years to come. But I know there's sometimes a tail and, you know, making real rapid progress now in 2020 2021, is so essential. So we're actually getting ready to feel the survey again, launches in just the next couple of weeks. So that will get new and refreshed insights about what's happening out there among the CEOs today.
Aileen Black: Now, there's also the federal data strategy that was put out by OMB with very clear guidance, for agencies for best practices. Now, Barry, you have driven some major change across agencies as prior CEOs to numerous agencies, where do you see things? And how would you approach this? If you were a CTO today?
Dr. Barry West: Yeah, I think we've made some great strides. But we still have a long ways to go. The chief data officer, I think, is a great position. But how do you keep that position out of getting into the day to day operations, and really have them sitting at a place where they're constantly looking at your entire enterprise and all of your data? And I think that's been one of the big challenges is some of the leadership does not know how to use the job. But I think we're making great strides. I think it really starts with the leadership. And I think the more that our leaders get educated, just how important the data is, I know, cybersecurity has been our big thing that everybody keeps pushing, but you've got to have clear and concise guidance, guidance and policy around your data. Otherwise, you really don't make the headway that you need to make. So I think we are doing well, we need to keep the momentum going. I think we've got things like the council chief data officer Council, I think it's now really getting some momentum, we're getting CIOs that understand the importance of that position. And really, you know, before it kind of grew out of the Enterprise Architecture group, if you will, we talked about the Data Reference Model. But now we've got this position. And I think we really, we really need to position it right in the organization and capitalize on it. But still a lot of work to do.
Aileen Black: You know, I recently worked at Google. And whenever I went in to a agency, they wanted to get some of that AI. And there's so much net new technology out there that really can be leveraged for some fantastic outcomes. But the basic foundation is having your data in order, right is having that data firm data governance into to ensure that you understand where that data came from, and information around it, or the outcomes may not turn out the way that you would like, but at the end, what you brought up was a cultural change. And that cultural change has to start with that leadership, that leadership position within the organization. So where do you think the CDs should fit the set, Barry? I mean, should it sit in the CIO shop? Or should it-
Dr. Barry West: You know it's industry, I held six CIO positions in government. But I really don't think it's it should sit in the CIO office, I think it should sit in the deputy secretary or the chief operating officer of the organization. And typically the CIO. If the organization structure right, the CIO would be appear for the chief data officer. And I think that's where you really can get the most bang for the buck, if you will, of that position, give them a seat at the table, really show the organization just how important the job is. And that's when you really start seeing some change and movement. And they're not pigeon holed down in a CIO organization, where, you know, they walk into a meeting, and they're like, they really don't get that respect of, you know, when you're trying to put something as difficult and culture change in place.
Iram Ali: Aileen, if I could just add something to what Barry just said, from my experience. I remember maybe about eight years ago, I was at a meeting at the White House. And we were introduced to the brand new chief data scientist, and we all laughed, we're like, what's a diet data scientist, we had no idea what they were talking about. And, you know, he talked about what he was going to be doing and kind of his strategy and how he would roll it out to the rest of the federal government. And we just sat there kind of like, Okay, that sounds really interesting and, you know, really kind of out there but, you know, now it's kind of in your everyday jargon, and you know, you understand what it is and you know, each agency is really working to build that capability. and then to you know kind of just put stamp what Barry said as well as that the closer that your data officer is to the mission as opposed to it is where you're really going to get the most important information and the most relevant data to be able to applied to apply it to technology such as AI or whatever you're trying to do for that organization so I think we've come a long way in terms of the government.
Aileen Black: With your background in national policy and having worked with the white house around you know how to implement this and the policy around this can truly make a difference for national security you know absolutely a lot of information out there doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong but if you understand the context around that information in that data you can make much more meaningful decisions around it so you know what would be your thought about what's the next steps right now to help move this agenda that can really make a huge difference for our nation.
Iram Ali: So you mentioned national security and international security really depends on our nation's ability to stay ahead of our adversaries and a big component of that right now in the environment that we're in right now is to adopt the latest security technologies and to collaborate our agencies need to collaborate with the private sector and with other organizations that are doing really important work a lot of that is available in the cloud and in a cloud definitely facilitates that so for example you know we talked about AI and machine learning like you can't do a lot of that without having cloud capability and you know that would allow these agencies to achieve their missions faster to speed up innovation to be creative and how they're saving money and you know saving budgets so that they can scale up quickly without having to entail like a you know lengthy or costly process of acquiring hardware and then you know that way you're also kind of creating a level playing field if you will for the different agencies that are working on a similar mission so there's a lot of collaboration that can that can happen that way as well we believe that the national security community at large including the defense community is really working very hard to be creative with cloud and to blaze a trail to kind of create an example for the rest of the other government agencies that might be a little bit behind so national security i mean if something is working in the national security realm and you can implement security and technology that can really advance that mission if it's working there then it can work in other agencies that maybe don't need that level of security but can also benefit from the ability to learn and to innovate quickly.
Aileen Black: Nick you did this study you're been working with the CDO council. Where do you see the priorities for CDOs going in 2021?
Nick Hart: Well so you know it's been interesting in the last year to watch the CDO council even launch itself as this new construct in government and you know just right out the gate I think it was fascinating to see how quickly the CDOs recognize the need for community across these issues that have in many cases been neglected for far too long and that's not to say that not every agency was managing data that's I don't want to give that connotation here at all but the prioritization of data governance is new this is kind of a new field and I think the CDOs are rightfully struggling even with the CDO council but some of the observations that they landed with last year like knowing that COVID had to be a priority you know there were some mixed signals happening in federal government but the CDO community clearly recognized that and they have a working group as part of the CDO council that was literally supporting organizing government information around COVID response they recognize that small agencies and big agencies operate a little bit differently and might have some different challenges and so there are different stratifications of how the CDOs are organizing within the council I mentioned those kinds of examples because CTOs are really building this identity inside government today and this is going to be the priority in many ways whether it's explicit or not over the next year is building out that identity being recognized as leaders inside the agency and to Barry's comments a few minutes ago you're really figuring out that reporting structure so they can have access to senior leadership and the senior high level policy discussions that are happening inside an agency so if we really want CDOs to be successful it's not just about resource I mean resources are really important don't get me wrong but access to decision makers is also really key and if that process gets muddled and there's some broken lines of communication it can really set back the activities and success of a CDO over the long term I actually back to various point about like the reporting to deputy secretaries I wholeheartedly agree that if we want CDOs to be successful in the long term thinking about them at that level in an organization is really essential so to the question about priorities obviously there's a lot happening in the country right now that seems or supporting response to COVID response being a major theme economic recovery, even some of the equity concerns that we're struggling to figure out how we organize data to respond to or even do basic analytics for. So all of those are things that CDOs can really have a important role in, if they are kept with that role. So this gets back to the point about leadership here is really key and recognizing that CDOs have a big, big part to play.
Aileen Black: Sounds like leading by example, and choosing the right opportunity to actually lead that example to shine the light on the progress. So as a prior leader in the CIO at agencies like FEMA, where do you see the biggest opportunities are around had some great points in regards to national security? Where do you see some of those, I don't want to say low hanging fruit, but the key opportunities to really lead that cultural change to create more of a data centric culture?
Dr. Barry West: So I think we've got some leading agencies that are really doing some cool stuff. I know, the Veterans Administration comes to mind, Veterans Affairs, rather, is one that comes to mind right away, I mean, what they did during COVID, in getting all of their 1000s of employees to work remotely as all agencies, but for our veterans, you know, making things still available, not missing a beat. So I think leveraging a lot of these agencies that get it that have the leadership in place now, and having them driving a lot of these initiatives is going to be key. But also identifying those mission areas that you mentioned, FEMA, that's, that's a perfect example of where accurate and timely data on the edge can make the difference between life and death. And when you have people out there, in a disaster situation, as we did with Hurricane Katrina, I happened to be the CIO of FEMA during Katrina, it was amazing. It's some of the collaboration that we were able to do, and some that we weren't able to do with state and local governments, because of some of that data that was not set up properly with governance and having barriers in place where we really couldn't been do well. And NASA is another pretty good example. They're doing some amazing things right now, as our space program moves forward, they have a chief data officer, and they're doing some really great things over there, Ron Thompson and his team, I think there's a lot of pockets right now, I mean, and that we just really need to start leveraging those. The other point I want to make is the private sector, I think we should leverage the private sector and some of our major organizations that are doing well, many of those organizations love to share information with government. And I think we need to do a better job of getting to the private sector, and especially some of the big corporations that are doing great right now around data governance.
Aileen Black: There certainly are some huge highlights out there. I know that the Avana program and Office of Secretary of Defense for an example, happens to be foundationally, built on Collibra. But the ability to be able to have that view of that data, that 360 degree view, it allowed them to very actively react and provide some lifesaving equipment for an example across not only within the Department of Defense, but to the private sector. So you know, the use of this can make many missions actually be possible. Besides that, it also can help on other issues, such as, you know, racial bias, right? It's understanding where your data is coming from, you can understand why some of the outcomes are so it really gives that better view of the information so that good decisions can be made. Now, Iran, you deal with so many different agencies, you see so many different outcomes here. Where do you see as the biggest opportunities going forward, at this point in time? Have you seen some great outcomes with data governance?
Iram Ali: Definitely, we've seen a big shift lately with the Department of Defense, they've installed a CDO that has oversight over all the different services, and he himself is, you know, taking an interest in kind of what's going on an individual level. So I think that's an organization that's really looking forward and as before leaning and setting examples for the rest of the federal government. But one thing I would say is that across the board, you know, both Barry and they talked about culture issues that need to be addressed, I think across the board, one thing that's we've seen as a vendor, as a as a collaborator with the agencies, that they are really looking at, how do they shift the culture. And that's been a, I think, a positive success story, where there Look, there are actual leaders in place that are looking to make changes, you know, from the top down, and you know, when the leaders are taking that kind of an interest in, you know, bringing technology and change to the organization, it's really well received. So, that is something that we're seeing that you know, culture has been a blocker in the past, but it's an area where we see some improvement and they're moving to put in the right direction. And another place where we think that there's a lot of opportunity is in training. You know, there's a lot of organizations that are, you know, up and coming and they're, you know, trying to build capabilities with regard to the cloud specifically, but then, you know, generally speaking, just, you know, adopting new emerging technologies, and training is something that they are looking to make a lot of investments in. So we see that that is across the board a big positive that we can tap into.
Aileen Black: We're partners with the effort at OSD with David Spreken. Education is key, right education for all your data citizens to really have an understanding of that firm foundation, why this is so important, and to make it part of their daily practice. And we've really seen a difference in the outcome of having everybody have that ability to be able to have that understanding. Nick, we've talked about some analytics in this key importance for the stakeholders, you haven't really addressed some of the issues associated with making people feel good about this with the data, privacy and security concerns that may be can you talk a little bit about that and help to help support that effort to help get that education out so that people, you know, can trust and share their data and have everybody become a true data citizen?
Nick Hart: Sure, I guess I would stress here, this is not just about making people feel good. This is about real protections that are necessary. And if done, well build trust in the entire enterprise of data management and use. So increasingly in government, we're talking about sharing data across silos. So information that's collected by one agency, or one bureau or one program may not be accessible to other programs. Well, if we're going to minimize the burden on the American public, and how we collect information and maximize the value of the information we already have, that often necessitates some level of sharing and access, which could also have implications for the research community for the private sector as much as government itself. Okay, well, if we're going to talk about sharing information, we have to be really serious about how we're protecting that information. This is not a discussion to take lightly. And it's something that often gets skirted in many data conversations that I'm part of. But it's so important. And I think if you've just watched what's happened with agencies like the Census Bureau, or some of the Federal Statistical system agencies that are collecting confidential records, so when we're collecting information from the American public in those agencies, we're literally promising them that their PII their personally identifiable information will not be used in ways that are beyond the scope of what's articulated both in law and the promise that we give to them. There's a lot that requires agencies to operate an organized around protecting that confidentiality, pledge, cybersecurity protections, D identification protocols, risk reviews, the list goes on and on. And increasingly, I think it's been promising to watch parts of the federal government, including through the federal data strategy, and the action plan that was issued last year, really prioritize some of the things around risks of re identification, as we're making more information open and accessible. We know that there are increased risks about linking one data set with another and finding Nick Hart's information, if that's really what you're looking for? Well, if we're going to maintain that pledge of confidentiality, and truly protect privacy, we have to figure out better techniques and maybe even new approaches to managing those risks. And there are some really great efforts at DARPA, DARPA, the Census Bureau around deploying new technologies and privacy preserving approaches. That is not to say that we figured out all of the right answers, but the fact that government is actually innovating in this area right now is really encouraging. And it's that kind of innovation. And you mentioned the private sector role here. The private sector also has a major interest in advancing some of these technologies for its own data protection. So this is a really joint endeavor, where I think there's a lot of potential for public private partnerships that could emerge. Things like multi-party computation, homomorphic encryption, differential privacy, I mean, these are not things that are just for government. They are also relevant for technology firms, data vendors, Nick Hart as a private citizen. And we have a long ways to go and making some of those things real and in a broad way. But cybersecurity also has a lot of themes that we could talk about here. And, you know, this is one of the reasons why coordination between the CDOs and the CIOs and the cisos. You just stack up the number of chiefs in government, these folks have to work together because this is not something that any single person or any single office can tackle alone. These are complicated, wicked challenges, and they're going to continue to evolve. So talking about it, but also ensuring that we're prioritizing the resources to truly protect the information. At the same time we're making it accessible for analytics and use. It's going to be tricky, but we can still do it. You can definitely do it.
Aileen Black: It's absolutely key from the beginning from the foundation of your design of data governance, security and privacy needs to be baked in. And some of our efforts that we talked to around the neck. Second is that's the basic foundation and the only way OSD can move forward on Obama is to make sure those things are in place. And besides that, marrying in other security compliance departments like FedRAMP, you need to make sure that you have that multi-dimensional look at the security and the approach to make sure that again, it's baked in from the very start, what has been your experience in that area? And what are your thoughts on this?
Dr. Barry West: Yeah, it really baking it in I mean, it has to happen. the right people have to be collaborating on this the beginning of projects or new projects that you take on, we would use what we call the CIA triad, in security terms, and that's the confidentiality, the integrity, and the availability of your data, you have to check the box on all those areas, you have to have your Cisco and your CDO, and your CIO, collaborating and understanding these systems inside now. And you know, Nick mentioned risk management, I'm glad to hear you say that, Nick, because our friends up at NIST in Gaithersburg do some outstanding work, and it's free, it's on the internet. And a lot of our organizations don't take advantage of it. But everything is there, they've got the various special publications, the risk management framework that we can leverage, these things have to be done with our systems, because in the end, it all affects our data. If we're not doing the good risk mitigation, around our data, it can be compromised, as we just saw with the solar winds, incident that really dealt back with a, you know, a supply chain issue. But it just shows you how quickly things can happen can go south, and the number of organizations it can affect. So we have to keep security is that horizontal, I call it at horizontal technology that always has to be upfront and baked in.
Aileen Black: So each of you have had some experiences cross back, where have you seen some examples of things that have worked well?
Iram Ali: I think I mentioned earlier, but I just want to, you know, drive this point home is that, you know, leadership has really become more data driven across the board in, you know, pretty much every agency and it's been, you know, quicker, and some and you know, a little bit more measured. And others, we definitely see that building a data driven culture has been priority across the board and the federal side. And you know, we've always said that a most successful organization in this respect would be aggressive and having a top down goal that forces organizations to move faster than it would on its own. And senior leadership needs to definitely be aligned. And truly committed to modernization. And you know, data is one way to do it. And without the data, they're not going to move as we're in the direction that they need to, especially with the challenges that we face globally. And leadership needs to kind of set a clear direction and expectations for the rest of the workforce to get everyone on the same page and make sure that they're working towards the same goal. And it's, you know, leadership is in a position to either block things or do nothing, but we are definitely seeing a trend towards, you know, more openness, more assertiveness in in making sure that they're moving in the right direction.
Aileen Black: Nick, do you have any thoughts?
Nick Hart: Tons. I mean, there's so many good examples of things that are happening inside federal agencies, and also inside state and local agencies that I think give us a lot of reason for encouragement. And, you know, it's not always really big, flashy projects. I mean, sometimes really basic analytics and you know, improvements in performance metrics and, and the visualizations that program managers are getting, even that minimal level of effort, I shouldn't call minimal level of effort. This, the more smaller scale projects can be very productive at building that culture around data literacy, particularly where it doesn't exist. Some good examples, the Department of Agriculture's CEO Ted Calc started as a very small operation at USDA, when he was named as the CTO basically worked around the agency identifying programs to partner with and work with and build up use cases or success stories early wins the Department of Education, similar model where they started small and of course, education has always had a history of data use through the Institute of Education Sciences, as well as a lot of things that people see around like this College Scorecard which links together information from educational institutions with income. And so we can see where people's earnings are long term. And these are like novel uses of data that provide high value return for not just the agency but also the American public gets a benefit by being able to use this information better. I use education as an example here because they also have a very large Chief Data office now, working under Greg for Tony, who's the CEO, there are two divisions of staff. One more focused on governance, but one specifically focused on analytics for education data sounds odd, but its novel approach for CEOs because it takes them out of exclusively talking about governing information to also helping people be better users. And that pairing I think, is a really good success story in education, where there are lots of limitations on how you can use education information, there's actually a ban in the federal government in federal law, that limits the information we can collect from schools, about students and kids. And so they have to be creative about how you get the information that you need to answer questions, but also produce meaningful insights. If that's not a success story that they figured out some of the solutions to do this, including really leaning in on some of the technologies that I mentioned before, they're doing a multi-party computation pilot, that's a fairly new concept in not just government, but society. But, they're actually applying it in a real test case. Other good examples, the IRS has access to some of the information that we consider the most sensitive about the American public income and earnings, it will always be that way. I'm just predicting. And even despite that sensitivity, they've identified strategies to really lean in on research uses of income data. Right now they're developing synthetic data files, so that researchers can better analyze and design the programming and the code to actually use income information, then they submit it to the IRS, through the statistics of income division, can run it against what's called a verification server, and get real answers to the questions. But without introducing the risk of new privacy harms. This is the really cool stuff that is happening inside government agencies today. And all of these activities. It's not just one person, it's not just the CDO, these are partnerships. These are collaborations, often with folks that are also in the private sector. And so really good success stories. And we could we could do this all day long. There's just so much happening out there. Barry, what are your thoughts?
Dr. Barry West: Yeah, I think you hit on something. Data custodians, I think you're going to see start seeing more and more of a shift of our folks, especially in it to become good data analyst, and custodians, because those people are the ones where are really you know, down in the in the trenches that are really making the big difference. But the next point, a ton of use cases, we can spend a whole day talking throughout each department of some of the great things. But I think back for example, when I was the CIO, the Department of Commerce in 2008, timeframe, 2006. We didn't even we weren't even planning on using the internet. For our major part of our senses. We still did a paper census, if you remember, we had a prototype where we did some online. But we have made great progress when you know, you take a step back, and you look where we were just 10 years ago. And you look at how now what we've done with data and being able to collect data. And you know, when the cloud first came on, it was like, we can't do that, you know, the inspector generals were like, we can't put data in an Amazon cloud or a Google Cloud, because we don't know where it is, we can't go we can't see it, we don't trust it. And look at what we've done as far as moving that mindset in that culture, and reversing it and saying, yes, companies like Amazon, like Google, like Oracle, like Microsoft, they can meet the strict security requirements around the data. And we are going to, you know, let that happen. And, you know, it's been successful. But a ton of great stories out there, all business administration has done some great things as well, within the Department of Homeland Security, I'm a little biased there, because I spent so much time but you know, for a department that's only 18 years old, they're doing some major things around data and sharing of data, which, if you think back to 911, that was one of the major pushes for wanting to put that department in place was because not being able to share data accurately and quickly. So we've made some outstanding strides in these areas.
Aileen Black: You know, having a data driven culture, having these positive opportunities, I've worked very closely with Collibra with DHS and their efforts around that area, and made some incredible Strides Against pulling together those disparate agencies over the years and sharing the information to move the mission agenda and actually have those decisions being driven from a data perspective, from an every single individual perspective can make any job like you said, it needs to be culturally across the board. So we have these great points a line, what would you say get in the past administration made progress, and now we have an opportunity to continue that momentum with the new administration. What would be your advice to help drive this agenda forward? And to help achieve some of these great results that we're talking about? Nick, you want to go first?
Nick Hart: Yeah, I'm always happy to talk about this question because I always have strong opinions. Well, obviously there's a lot to do, but we've talked about the need for leadership. And I would say that’s a need for sustained leadership. So one of the things that quietly happened in the last administration was the production of something called the federal data strategy. We've already alluded to it. And it was a largely a political document, it had an incredible amount of feedback from civil servants across the executive branch, as well as input from state and local governments and industry, academics, nonprofits. I worked at OMB for a decade, and I gotta say, OMB is not known for seeking a lot of feedback from anyone. This was an outlier. I mean, this was really an example where they did due diligence to get as much feedback as possible, then they incorporated it and the immediate real. So the federal data strategy was, was really this this collaborative effort that hits on the need for culture change, but also creates a plan to do it. And so the fact that there is this one year action plan, produced in 2020, gave everyone a document to rally around it, but it wasn't just a document, it was like something meaningful that you could do, and people did it. Looking forward, we need that we need a coherent national data strategy to persist. This was not a Trump administration document. This was the executive branch. This is the federal data strategy. We really need that to continue, including through the production of a new action plan. What should people be doing in 2021? What are the organizing themes? How do we get the CIOs the CTOs, the cisos? The CFOs, all the Chiefs collaborating on these important topics? How do we prioritize the resources for making them successful? What's the next step and producing open data plans? Agencies are devising what we call learning agendas? These are strategic plans for data and evidence helping us identify where data gaps are in government today? Well, how do we encourage agencies to continue doing that while making it meaningful, not a compliance exercise, these are all topics that a coherent national data strategy can help agencies organize around, but also sends signals to those like myself and our data coalition initiative, that are the industry folks that are on the outside of government trying to support these efforts, send us the signals that we need to know how we can actually be supportive, and making an encouraging government to be successful here, CEOs, obviously, you're hearing me, I think they need to be successful, there's a path to do it. But the leadership from the top is just so important, from the White House from the Office of Management and Budget. And putting together that data strategy helps everyone organize, so the community can really thrive.
Aileen Black: Very, as a prior leader in an agency, people actually care about things that are measured. So what would you be your advice to help drive this very public measurement of organizations that are doing the right things?
Dr. Barry West: I just wrote down performance metrics, right, before you asked me that question. Because that was going to be my next comment is you have to build in performance metrics. You know, it's great to have the budget, your timelines, your risk mitigation, but you have to have those performance metrics built in, and you have to hold these leaders accountable. It has to really hit home for them to continually take it seriously. And back to our earlier discussion about the placement of the CDO, Deputy Secretary, you know, why not get our presidents Management Council, which is usually comprised of the deputy secretaries of all the cabinet agencies, this becomes a strategic initiative that they are graded on by their bosses. But that's the level it has to get to there has to be built into the strategic plan, but also the tactical plans, as Nick mentioned, the action plans. And that's where you start really collecting these performance metrics and holding people accountable. When we really got into this security thing, years back around the Clinton not clinger Cohen, but the bismah of when that came about, it wasn't until agencies got a scorecard, and got rated that it really started getting attention from all the department heads like what we got to take care of this, I think we need to do something very similar around our data and performance metrics around data to really get the attention of our departments
Aileen Black: Iram, you, you have a unique background experience of both being in industry and also be being in that leadership side from the very highest levels of the federal government. What are your thoughts around this area?
Iram Ali: I completely agree with both Nick and Barry said, you have to tie outcomes to the mission and keeping budgets separated in terms of it dollars and mission dollars is really going to hinder that collaboration. If you talk to the Secretary of Defense, the different Deputy Secretary defense they're not going to be that concerned with is a certain system working or how is it you know, how are we getting, you know, hardware software onto computers, but what they're going to look at is how is it helping the warfighter? How are we getting the information that the warfighter needs to fulfill that God mission or you know, service mission, whatever they're working at. So without that direct line to the mission, we're not going to you know, see a lot of and I definitely see on the agency side on the national security and defense side, they're moving for that. And it's an easier kind of message to convey to them. On some of the other agencies, it's a little bit slower because the just historically, and then we go back to that whole culture, I mean, culture is, is like the driver, everything, historically, they've had those things divided. And you know, to explain to them that AI ml is not an IT tool, it's a mission tool. And here's how you are going to drive your mission and you know, get what you need to fulfill it, that takes a little bit of time. And you know, we're working on it. And we're trying to help. And we run a lot of workshops. And we have a lot of executive level briefings where we can just you we're not trying to sell anything, we're just trying to show you that this is this is what you can do with data. This is what you can do with the tools that help you understand your data and analyze it, we see progress that way. But it has to be tied to the mission, it can't just be an IT endeavor.
Aileen Black: You know, our experience of successfully implemented, you know, data strategies, you really need to have everyone be a data citizen, which includes that educational format of understanding the outcomes of being able to safely and securely share that information. And then truly leverage and trusting information. And it those decisions are at every level within an organization. And if you can drive that throughout the organization from the very top and the leadership, like Nick, you said, having prime examples, and Ron talking about mission outcomes, and really showing that, and then making sure that the organization is held accountable and empowered, like Barry, you said, really makes a huge difference. There's just so much to talk about around these areas, we could have this conversation for hours, we've kind of covered many different subjects, is there any area that you want to make sure that a final thoughts about where you would you know, like to leave people thinking about what they should do next, to help drive a strong data governance and outcomes that we really all would like to see.
Dr. Barry West: I've been I would say in my you know, to sum it up is I think we're at an inflection point, with a lot of things around technology right now, we have many, many technologies that are, you know, we've been talking about them for years are finally maturing AI, machine learning, 5g, Internet of Things, cloud computing, you know, which has been around, but it's really now I mean, we're doing some fascinating things around the cloud. All these technologies now, are based upon having great data. And you know, it's great to have all this. But if you don't have good data that you feel comfortable about, the technology is just, it's just out there. So in order to leverage these technologies, we have to drive home, the importance of our data being secure, being accurate, being timely, and then when we will start seeing the benefits and our leadership in government has to understand that that would be the thing I would tell the new administration coming in is you have to understand that you have to put the budget in place to support it. And the people being held accountable through performance metrics.
Iram Ali: Everything he said, you know, plus one, and, you know, invest in your people. I mean, if you don't invest in the right, you know, you're you can buy all the systems in the world, you can, you know, throw money at the problem, but unless you're investing in your workforce and your people and having them understand what that you know, what, what can the next generation is? And what, you know, what's, what's going to happen if we don't do that, you know, what if our data hygiene is terrible, what if we're not, you know, putting, you know, budgets where we need to, like I talked about before into the mission, what's the outcome, kind of show them the other side of the coin, and, you know, really kind of drive a desire to move on to the next phase.
Nick Hart: I really just second what Iram and Barry, who said, you know, my suggestion might be taking a step back that we think about this more as an ecosystem, not and our traditional sense of, you know, different functions of government. And I think that's increasingly necessary, as we're talking about sharing across silos, the integration of the IT system thinking and systems design, with the very design of the program itself. And this is a very different way of operating for much of government, our procurement vehicles aren't set up for it, many of our hiring processes aren't set up for it, if we're really going to make the difference and fulfill this vision that we're to jointly talking about here. There are areas that that are beyond the scope of what we've talked about so far that will need reform. And procurement has to be pretty high on that list. Because there's a lot of vehicles that are just not set up for success right now in it or analytics, particularly long term projects. If we were talking about areas that that a new administration could really look at, that might not be the most exciting, but we will be really essential training, procurement and some of the procedural things that are in place, including some unnecessary barriers to doing this work. That they could break down administratively. That would go a really long ways.
Aileen Black: What about recruitment? Sometimes it's difficult to be able to recruit right? I wouldn't want to work with any other organization in the world than our government, because who doesn't want to work with somebody who's catching the bad guy getting a little old lady checks or teaching our children? Right? I love the fact that I work with the new organizations to help meet their mission. But sometimes there's disparity in compensation. With private sector versus public sector. Do you have any thoughts in regards to helping recruit a data army?
Dr. Barry West: I think right now we have the direct hiring authority in a lot of agencies for areas around security, and around procurement. But I think we seriously need to look at that for the data area, and getting good data custodians, good data scientists, and giving them some of that pay that is outside the normal pay bands. Because a lot of these people you know, there is like security, and procurement there specialists very good at what they do, and subject matter experts. And I think we should think about that that model, along with the direct hire, direct hire is working good. And in certain organizations and others, it's not being used at all. So it's pockets of this hiring practices that we need to get a lot better at.
Nick Hart: There are also creative vehicles that we could do a better job of using inside government today. And this really starts with agencies recognizing that they don't have to go it alone. Like if you're a CDO as a single person shop, you can still ask for help, it's okay to ask for help. Some of those creative vehicles could include, for example, the use of the intergovernmental personnel, actor IPAs, where folks from the outside of government, academics can come in to government as fellows and actually support some of the analytical functions that may not be able to happen under current resourcing constraints, but can still comply with the needs and help fulfill the goals of a CEO or an agency's mission, things like that we could do a much better job of also articulating to agencies that you can actually use this authority, it's already on the books, you don't have to reinvent the wheel here. This all starts with the folks that need help standing up and saying I need help. If we don't know that it's hard for people on the outside to even volunteer and know where they can go.
Aileen Black: What about private partner public partnerships? Iram, do you have any thoughts on that?
Iram Ali: We're a big fan of them. My boss, Teresa Carlsen, who's the Vice President for worldwide public sector, her favorite thing is to work with the US government. I mean, it's a really fulfilling thing. And we do a lot of our innovation on the commercial side. But we're happy to kind of provide that to our government customers, because that's where we think that it's going to make the most impacted people's lives.
Aileen Black: Well this has been a great panel. I want to thank you for joining us today. And we could have spoken about this subject for another two hours. So first of all, thank you and helping agencies meet their mission objectives through better data governance.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. If you'd like more information on how Carahsoft or Collibra can assist your organization, please visit www.carahsoft.com or email us at collibra@carahsoft.com. Thanks again for listening and have a great day.