Strategies and policies
They noted limited understanding and appreciation for the value of information for program planning, monitoring, and evaluation on the part of executives and policy makers. Participants expressed concern that a lack of understanding of the nature and level of financial, technical, and human investments necessary to use information well have resulted in inadequate use of existing information, and lost opportunities to create shared resources that would benefit many.

Information quality and availability
Much of the discussion focused on information itself. A key problem was simply knowing what information already exists. Other problems included concern about sensitive, personal, and confidential information as well as the risk of drawing incorrect conclusions from inaccurate, out-of-date, incompatible, or poorly defined data.

Organizational issues
Data ownership, stewardship, and related organizational issues were also prominent. Turf issues that reflect inter- and intra-organizational competition rather than cooperation were cited by many.

Uncoordinated systems
Inadequate, inappropriate, and stand-alone technologies and systems were also serious problems. Isolated systems mean that merging, comparing, and integrating data for analysis, evaluation, and decision-making are inordinately difficult and expensive, and seldom attempted.

Workforce and skills concerns
A consistent set of concerns had to do with workforce issues. Among them was the increasing difficulty of attracting and retaining IT managers and professionals to government service. Serious concern was also expressed regarding information handling and analytical skills across all kinds of jobs.

Many points of view are an asset, not a liability
Unless you are the sole designer and sole user of your system or program, other points of view count. It takes time and special skills to draw out the different perspectives that matter in your initiative. Often people will disagree, sometimes strongly, about the nature of the problem, the choice of goals, and the nature of the solution. Get these different ways of looking at the world out in the open as early as possible. Work with people in groups to craft a shared understanding of the effort. Use these different perspectives to describe the big picture that no one can see fully on their own.

Untested assumptions are not a short-cut
Assumptions are inevitable in any complex work. They can be very helpful as long as they are explicit and periodically tested against reality. One commonly untested assumption is that a new system stands on its own. In most cases it is connected in complicated ways to lots of other things. Another problematic assumption is that a system is readily usable. Again, seldom true--especially when it will be used by people in different locations or job types. A third risky assumption is that data integration is a technical problem. It is, but it’s also an organizational, political, intellectual, and managerial one.

Data doesn’t speak for itself
Not one of the projects we present here could take data at face value. Accessing, managing, sharing and disseminating data poses difficult challenges. Data collected for one purpose may not be suitable for another. Meta data that documents meaning, history and usability may be inadequate or simply missing. Different terms can have the same meaning or the same terms used by different organizations can have different meanings. The list of challenges goes on. Allow plenty of time and resources to tackle them and be judicious about which ones will return the greatest benefits.

Sorry, no silver bullets
The simple fact about information problems is that there are no easy solutions. These problems are tough because they are meaningful and complicated. They take time, money, and effort. No particular method, and certainly no technology, will cut through the maze of complexity in short order. The good news is that there are many useful techniques and tools that can help you manage this kind of work to a successful conclusion.

Good enough is often good enough
Even with the best tools and intentions, it is safe to assume that you will not have enough time, money, or other resources to devise the perfect solution. But if you pay attention first to thorough analysis and then look for reasonable alternatives, you’ll be able to make an informed decision about what is really important to do. A "good enough" solution focuses on those "must-have" aspects of the job, and does not divert precious resources into costly, but less valuable "nice-to-have" features.

Strategy sets the stage
Whether in business or in government, strategic thinking is concerned with mission-critical objectives; it looks outward with an emphasis on customers and stakeholders. Strategies place a high value on human, organizational, and technological resources and seek maximum return on those investments, rather than minimized costs.

The first element of strategy is a clear and agreed upon picture of the business, policy, or program need that is the reason for the effort.

Stakeholders are the second element. We all know that the users or customers of services are stakeholders. But stakeholder considerations don’t stop there. You also need to know who else is involved, who pays, who benefits, and who gets hurt.

Third, remember that every new information system goes into some existing situation that includes other, older information systems, existing business processes, standard operating practices that have grown up over time, and many elements of organizational culture.

A sound strategy also looks ahead. You will face the difficult task of choosing technology that meets your needs today but won’t limit the choices you can make tomorrow. You must also anticipate future legislation, budget cycles, and regulatory actions.

The final element of strategy is the way you communicate it. The best approaches can be communicated briefly and in plain language. Devise a short, high-level statement that tells people what kind of project to expect.

Examples of these elements of strategy can be found in the following cases:

Policies guide action
Policies are one of the basic building blocks of government. Laws, regulations, executive orders, and official statements guide how agencies fulfill their missions. Information policies guide actions and decisions about why, how, when, and who uses information.

Government information policies can serve two different, but complementary, purposes—information stewardship and information use.

If you want to make sure information is well-managed and handled appropriately, you need to devise policies that promote information stewardship. Such policies address:

To promote your information as a valuable asset, you need policies that advance information use. These policies address:

Examples of how government agencies handled policy issues can be found in the following cases:

The devil is in the data
Data quality issues are always present. Whether you are using a single source, reusing information for a new purpose, sharing it with others, or integrating multiple sources, you can expect important challenges.

Data challenges occur when agencies try to identify and address the gap between desired goals and available data. Some challenges include:

Data quality issues occur in every system. The quality of the data often has to be enhanced to be sure it is "fit for use."

Data standards are necessary for effective information use. They are especially important when projects involve several agencies or organizations.

Meta data is information about the data. It’s a crucial piece of the data quality puzzle. You need to know the background and history of the data in order to make decisions about its appropriateness for use.

Contextual knowledge is indispensable to understanding the program environment in which data is collected and used.

Examples of how government agencies are handling these data issues can be found in the following cases:

Underestimating costs proves costly
The costs of information technology initiatives are almost always underestimated. We tend to under-appreciate their complexity and we lack good models or guides for identifying all cost factors. Six factors influence the complexity (and therefore the cost) of projects, but these are generally not accounted for in cost traditional models:

Complexity and degree of change influence total costs as much or more than any direct expense. The more complex the network of required relationships, the more costly it will be to establish, maintain, and manage. The more data sources and the greater their differences, the more it will cost to make use of them. The more interdependent the tasks in the workplan, the costlier the work will be—and the higher the risk of failure. All of these factors demand serious consideration in up-front analysis and cost estimation. The better we get at accounting for them, the more useful our cost models will become.

Examples of how government agencies are addressing these cost factors can be found in the following cases:

Become a skilled information user
Organizations, like people, are information users. Regardless of the size and makeup of your team, you have to do these things well:

Five categories of skills are therefore necessary in any effort to use information in government:

No organization has the perfect mix of skills, abilities, and experiences for every situation. Start by giving assignments to people with the proper skills to carry them out. Or assign activities to those who have the aptitude, desire, and responsibility to develop the necessary skills. Skills can be acquired through training, mentoring, brokering, contracting, or outsourcing.

Examples of how government agencies addressed skills issues can be found in the following cases:

Technology choices matter
Technology choices are choices about the present and the future. Whatever technology is chosen for your project will have powerful long-term implications throughout your organization. It will undoubtedly influence many aspects of work. Once implemented, technology has a way of cementing things into place. It becomes embedded in virtually every aspect of the organization, affecting the way people work. New technology often comes with new business rules, practices, and processes that are very hard to change. Because of these long-term effects, every initiative needs to pay attention to three things: business processes, user needs, and infrastructure requirements.

Mapping out business processes allows you to identify how well current technologies support them. Process analysis will also help you see how new technologies can be used to best advantage.

Make users an integral part of the problem definition, planning, decision-making, and testing. This not only encourages their support, it makes it much more likely that the work they do will be well-understood and accounted for in a new system.

Technology initiatives must recognize and account for diversity in organizational environments and infrastructures. In some instances, the infrastructure is uniform from place to place. More often, technical and other capabilities vary. New technology choices need to take these variations into account.

Technology can often increase your capacity to use information more effectively or for new purposes. Whether you are considering building a new web service, financial management system, or a new database, look for technology that gives you new capabilities to streamline operations, or improve the quality and availability of services and information.

Stay abreast of cutting-edge technologies as well. Many government organizations are now working with researchers to develop and test technologies that handle very complex problems such as environmental modeling, emergency management and response, and manipulation of huge data sets. These experimental systems may lead to future products that address a wider range of information problems.