France needs a CTO now !
I have been like you following the disaster of the France.fr launch. I am not here to comment the failure but more to share with you, the urgency of having a profound and radical change in the technology leadership of this country.
In France, crucial digital government projects are designed and implemented as if Social Networks, Mobile, Open data and the Cloud didn't exist. In their world we still live in the 2000’s.Disasters after disasters, France keeps failing in producing digital government services that matter and work well. This is hurting badly our country and it has an important impact on budget constraint and capacity of reform.How can you conduct reform when the tools are not there, or not adaptable ? It has also an important impact on the life of our citizen. As a citizen, I believe we deserve the best tools possible, and sometime, when I use some of theses services, I am wondering of what we have been punished from.Here are the two main issues that come to my mind :a) The lack of interest and knowledge in technology of our political and administrative elite.Projects are handled like if they were designed in the late 70's. Add to the mix the tradition in France of building cathedrals (predicting everything in advance doesn't work under today's rules). They are a few people that get it but they are usually not in charge.A good example : the “dossier médical personnel” (DMP), a center-piece of Health Policy. In December 2010, any French citizen will be able to open a file and begin creating a secure, personal electronic health record (EHR). A huge and ambitious program, with 65 million DMPs. For security and privacy concerns, the agency which runs the project announced that it will not have mobile access, neither provide mobile services. Yes you heard, in 2010 no mobile access.Another example : Chorus, an integrated ERP for budgetary and accounting processes of government departments. It is the most extensive inter-ministerial program ever carried out in France. Its cost jumped to 1.3 billion euros. Its delay had dramatic consequences : ministries are unabled to pay their bills. In Ministry of defense, 120.000 bills are awaiting payment. "Our concern is the delay, the amount of the expenditure and the tool itself" declared the President of the Cour des Comptes (Court of Auditors).A lot of digital government services are still lacking good and modern web and mobile access. They use proprietary technologies and are not tied to the Web open stack.the solution : hire a CTO pair him with a CIO, make sure that the CTO is young (I would say 35/40) and knows his stuff, and the CIO should have 20 years in experience in "managing the digital government" beast.b) A mediocre ecosystem of large services integrators combined with a lack of transparent processes The equation of death of most government projects : Decision makers that have no clue + Integrators that lack competences and innovation= disastrous projectMost French System integrators live in a technology bubble. In the last 10 years, the technology make it easier to build scalable products, Google, Facebook opensource all their technologies. Theses technologies are rarely used, because people don't take risk like startup do. It is hard to build a project that will last if you don't love technology and if you don't want to try to build something that matters. The lack of transparency in technological choices is an issue. Why did we end up using this and that ? We never really know and it's very frustrating.The solution : Define an open government stack that include a pool of technologies to be used by all digital government project.
Provide in a website available for every citizen with all projects, contractors, technology used, Term of references, technical documentation and the name of the government team that has conducted and approved the project. Citizen and end users should be able to provide rating and feedback to every digital government website. This website already exist in the US, btw.So why is this so important ?Inadequate digital systems hamper the capacity to reform. One example : The current government had the intention to harmonize the pensions of civil servants with those the private sector. The calculation of the civil servants pension would now include the best 25 years, instead of the last 6 months as previously. This reform appeared to be impossible because the public pension information system was designed to save only the last 6 months. Because of data unavailability, this reform has been postponed. I am not discussing the validity of the reform here, but the fact that because of a faulty design of information system, it is not achievable.
In Japan it was even worse when 50 millions pension files where erased by mistake.In today's world, managing an efficient digital government environment is the only way we can make a change in this country. Investing in a better and smarter system could also reduce the impact of the bureaucracy. Think about it. What if all your citizen, taxpayer life was as easy as using Facebook?But It’s even more than that. Since the Greece Fiasco and the flacky Euro Zone, France can not afford to have a bad rating for it’s debt. The unthinkable scenario of seeing France in a similar situation as Greece is high and probable. One of the rating parameters is the ability for France to vote and DO the reforms. With a faulty information system, we are incapable of making changes and we put ourselves at risk.There an urgency for changeBringing the digital government to the standard of ease of Facebook, Google and other services should be one of the major goal of the next decade.I will not vote on the next elections for a president that doesn't have a CTO among his top advisers.
In France, crucial digital government projects are designed and implemented as if Social Networks, Mobile, Open data and the Cloud didn't exist. In their world we still live in the 2000’s.Disasters after disasters, France keeps failing in producing digital government services that matter and work well. This is hurting badly our country and it has an important impact on budget constraint and capacity of reform.How can you conduct reform when the tools are not there, or not adaptable ? It has also an important impact on the life of our citizen. As a citizen, I believe we deserve the best tools possible, and sometime, when I use some of theses services, I am wondering of what we have been punished from.Here are the two main issues that come to my mind :a) The lack of interest and knowledge in technology of our political and administrative elite.Projects are handled like if they were designed in the late 70's. Add to the mix the tradition in France of building cathedrals (predicting everything in advance doesn't work under today's rules). They are a few people that get it but they are usually not in charge.A good example : the “dossier médical personnel” (DMP), a center-piece of Health Policy. In December 2010, any French citizen will be able to open a file and begin creating a secure, personal electronic health record (EHR). A huge and ambitious program, with 65 million DMPs. For security and privacy concerns, the agency which runs the project announced that it will not have mobile access, neither provide mobile services. Yes you heard, in 2010 no mobile access.Another example : Chorus, an integrated ERP for budgetary and accounting processes of government departments. It is the most extensive inter-ministerial program ever carried out in France. Its cost jumped to 1.3 billion euros. Its delay had dramatic consequences : ministries are unabled to pay their bills. In Ministry of defense, 120.000 bills are awaiting payment. "Our concern is the delay, the amount of the expenditure and the tool itself" declared the President of the Cour des Comptes (Court of Auditors).A lot of digital government services are still lacking good and modern web and mobile access. They use proprietary technologies and are not tied to the Web open stack.the solution : hire a CTO pair him with a CIO, make sure that the CTO is young (I would say 35/40) and knows his stuff, and the CIO should have 20 years in experience in "managing the digital government" beast.b) A mediocre ecosystem of large services integrators combined with a lack of transparent processes The equation of death of most government projects : Decision makers that have no clue + Integrators that lack competences and innovation= disastrous projectMost French System integrators live in a technology bubble. In the last 10 years, the technology make it easier to build scalable products, Google, Facebook opensource all their technologies. Theses technologies are rarely used, because people don't take risk like startup do. It is hard to build a project that will last if you don't love technology and if you don't want to try to build something that matters. The lack of transparency in technological choices is an issue. Why did we end up using this and that ? We never really know and it's very frustrating.The solution : Define an open government stack that include a pool of technologies to be used by all digital government project.
Provide in a website available for every citizen with all projects, contractors, technology used, Term of references, technical documentation and the name of the government team that has conducted and approved the project. Citizen and end users should be able to provide rating and feedback to every digital government website. This website already exist in the US, btw.So why is this so important ?Inadequate digital systems hamper the capacity to reform. One example : The current government had the intention to harmonize the pensions of civil servants with those the private sector. The calculation of the civil servants pension would now include the best 25 years, instead of the last 6 months as previously. This reform appeared to be impossible because the public pension information system was designed to save only the last 6 months. Because of data unavailability, this reform has been postponed. I am not discussing the validity of the reform here, but the fact that because of a faulty design of information system, it is not achievable.
In Japan it was even worse when 50 millions pension files where erased by mistake.In today's world, managing an efficient digital government environment is the only way we can make a change in this country. Investing in a better and smarter system could also reduce the impact of the bureaucracy. Think about it. What if all your citizen, taxpayer life was as easy as using Facebook?But It’s even more than that. Since the Greece Fiasco and the flacky Euro Zone, France can not afford to have a bad rating for it’s debt. The unthinkable scenario of seeing France in a similar situation as Greece is high and probable. One of the rating parameters is the ability for France to vote and DO the reforms. With a faulty information system, we are incapable of making changes and we put ourselves at risk.There an urgency for changeBringing the digital government to the standard of ease of Facebook, Google and other services should be one of the major goal of the next decade.I will not vote on the next elections for a president that doesn't have a CTO among his top advisers.
