Teleworking’s Next Step-Virtual Worker in 2012

In late 2010, the federal government passed the Telework Enhancement Act which required each agency to establish a policy within 6 months of enactment that allowed eligible employees to telework, determined employee eligibility to telework, and notified all employees of their eligibility. After a period of writing and integrating these policies, agencies are now shifting their vision to the “mechanics” of teleworking; refining the ‘how-tos’ of improving the telework experience going beyond the basic provision of a laptop, mobile phone, etc.  What were once seen as outliers, teleworking and mobile technology have become the new norm.

As such, there is an eagerness to see the emergence of technology that will enhance collaboration in the teleworking environment. One early example and avenue is the creation of a hybrid app store that houses both internally developed business-to-employee (enterprise) apps and externally developed third party apps.  This type of platform would allow businesses to distribute company-developed apps to employees, however one challenge still prevalent is the balance between increased user-accessibility and adequate security.   Accompanying the hybrid app store development is a movement towards apps that focus on not only the dissemination of information, but also improving the capacity for collaboration.

With a different type of work environment evolving, the government is looking for a new mix of technology and innovations to ensure that the virtual worker can maintain hyper-productivity and availability; all while lowering agency operational costs. The current cost-savings are reflected in the 2011 Telework Status report to Congress by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which finds that in the federal government “33 agencies reported cost savings/benefits as a result of telework; of these, the greatest benefit was in the area of productivity (39%), then human capital, such as recruitment and retention (37%), and realized savings in leave (34%).” As a workforce emerges that is highly connected with technologically boosted efficiency and performance, time, location, and potential disasters seem to be shrinking as barriers to business-as-usual.  The impact of this Act and the resulting technology has effects larger than workforce adaptation and reduced operational costs; changes can be expected in the broader hiring practices, ethics, IT spending and morale of the federal government and its employees, as noted by Camille Tuutti.

Do you agree with these potentially larger impacts? Do you see any other effects on the workplace by a push towards more virtual workers?  Are there any teleworking obstacles that cannot be addressed by technological innovations?  Do you think hybrid app stores are the next big step for companies?  If not, what other workplace innovations do you think we will see in 2012?

There’s an App for That!

In a call for input on the proposed federal mobility strategy, the government established the “National Dialogue on the Federal Mobility Strategy”, a website to generate ideas and conversation on what to include in its draft strategy.  The format of the website centers around a forum where visitors post suggestions while permitting commentary and rating by others.  Overall, several of the top suggestions focus on accessibility, the development of an app store, and portability.  One top suggestion was the creation of a “government-wide shared services catalog that houses code, application programming interfaces (APIs), and web-services that agencies and the public can easily access and use.” The poster likened the suggested catalog to that currently used by the Department of Defense and its open-source forge.mil site.  The DoD open-source program consists of three different packages, all of which promote the delivery of dependable software, services and systems efficiently.  Overall, the forge.mil looks to provide the necessary technological framework to improve communication and collaboration between teams/individuals working to solve similar issues.

With a federal mobile strategy that looks to capitalize on technology and technological innovations, increased citizen engagement and federal worker productivity, as well as improved delivery of government information/services and reduced operational expenditures are anticipated outcomes.  All in all, the draft strategy and input shows a definite direction for federal agencies; movement towards mobile technology and finding ways to balance the needs of innovation and security.

Streamlining and consolidation of this technology in an ‘app store’ seems like the next big step for the federal government in 2012, as made clear through participation on the web dialogue.  Moreover, the impact of investment in developing reusable assets across the federal agencies will have a definite influence on the larger commercial marketplace, notes Henry Kenyon, ultimately expanding the range of software and engineering opportunities.

Your thoughts? Do you think that an ‘app store’ would increase and improve inter-agency collaboration?  What types of apps do you see being most effective in meeting efficiency and operational goals?  Do you see any major obstacles to mediating issues of accessibility and security when it comes to open data programs for app development?

Policy Informatics Book Chapter: Policy Decisions and Public Deliberations – Ilan Chabay

Ilan Chabay professor of Public Learning and Understanding of Science for Sustainability (hosted jointly at Chalmers University of Technology and Göteborg University), Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, and Senior Fellow, Helmholtz Alliance on Sustainability and Social Compatibility of Future Energy Infrastructure, University of Stuttgart, will contribute a chapter on Policy Decisions and Public Deliberations – Learning to Cope with Complexity

In every part of the world and at every organizational level of society, rapidly accelerating changes in conditions from the very local to global require us to make urgent personal and public policy decisions about the highly complex coupled social-ecological-economic system in which we live. Due to inherent complexity, models using current knowledge under specific limited assumptions and conditions are essential tools for making decisions to lead us on paths to a sustainable future.

Models are fundamental to human thinking and functioning. They are approximations of the behavior of things and reflect perceptions of patterns and efforts to categorize, explain, and predict future behavior of physical, biological, social, and economic phenomena and systems. Models are essential in organizing and interpreting information, whether implicit and intuitive, or elaborate mathematical constructs, and they serve as engines of simulations and games. In games and simulations, they provide experience in considering and analyzing multiple possible outcomes dependent on input assumptions and knowledge.

Yet models and modeling per se are nearly invisible in most educational curricula from elementary school through university. Consequently, most individuals from young students to government ministers have little experience or understanding of the strengths, limitations, and modes of use of models for gaining insights and making decisions.

How can the capacity to understand and effectively use models to interpret the massive flow of information to guide policy makers and citizens be strengthened? That is the central question of this chapter, which is intended to stimulate thinking and action to build this capacity.

Policy Informatics Book Chapter: Innovation Policy Modeling with SKIN – Petra Ahrweiler, Andreas Pyka, Nigel Gilbert

Petra Ahrweiler (University College Dublin), Andreas Pyka (University of Hohenheim), and Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey) will contribute a chapter based on their work with agent-based models for innovation policy.

Innovation Policy Modeling with SKIN

This chapter introduces an agent-based model to simulate the effects and impacts of policy making on the structure, composition and outputs of research and innovation networks. The model allows policy makers to examine the contributions of specific research and innovation policies to societal goals. Additionally, by varying the ‘virtual’ policies, policy makers can evaluate the impacts of different policy levers, judge the effects of policy decisions taken, and make ex-ante evaluations of future policies.

Policy Informatics Book Chapters by Kevin C Desouza and Erik Johnston

Kevin C. Desouza (Metropolitan Institute, Virginia Tech) and Erik W. Johnston (School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University) will write the introductory and concluding chapters.

Defining Policy Informatics Kevin C. Desouza and Erik Johnston

Today, the nature of public agencies and governance processes are undergoing fundamental changes due to advancements in information and computational technologies. Technologies have enabled us to leverage information in ways that previously impractical. Solving complex governance problems, dilemmas, and challenges requires deliberate, and sophisticated, information analysis. In this paper, we lay out a vision for policy informatics. Policy informatics is the study of how information is leveraged and efforts are coordinated towards solving complex public policy problems. Driven by the need to exploit information to tackle complex policy problems and to ensure efficient and efficient policy setting and implementation platforms, governance informatics seeks to 1) enhance policy analysis and design through visualizing, modeling, and simulating complex policy scenarios, 2) study the role of information systems and information-based governance platforms in policy planning, deliberation, and implementation, and 3) advance the management of information systems projects in the public sector.

Charting a Future of Policy Informatics
Erik Johnston and Kevin C. Desouza

“We are arguably in a golden age of computer modeling for policy analysis. Computational power is plentiful. A plethora of models are in use or under development, from small spreadsheet models developed for individual use to large multipurpose supercomputer-based simulations. Computer modeling has become central to nearly every kind of policy concern, from military procurement, to economic forecasting, to studies of global climate change. If computer modeling were fulfilling its promise this would also be a golden age for policy analysis with the computational power of computer models supporting significantly better decision making than was possible thirty years ago.” (Bankes, 1993, pg. 435)[1]

This quote is as true today as it was back in 1993. We have at our disposal the most sophisticated tools ever created and we organize, communicate, and administer more complex policies than ever before. What has changed is the timeframes that we have to master and become comfortable with current technology before it is antiquated. Technology generations are shorter than ever and the skills we need are not mastering any one technology, but becoming comfortable in a changing space that we will never fully comprehend.

In this concluding chapter, we will bring together key messages and lessons learnt from the previous chapters. We will use these as a springboard to chart out a future trajectory for the field. Issues covered will include building a community of practice around policy informatics, the sharing of data and methods, collaborative engagement with practitioners, and even the mentoring of the next generation of scholars.

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[1] Bankes, S. “Exploratory Modeling for Policy Analysis,” Operations Research, 41 (3), (May – Jun., 1993), pp. 435-449.

Policy Informatics Book Chapter: Policy Practice Makes Perfect – Spiro Maroulis

Spiro Maroulis, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, will write a chapter on Policy Practice Makes Perfect:  Principles for Developing Simulation-Based Learning Environments for Action.

While there are many good reasons to build computational models of social systems, in this chapter I focus on one:  computational models can lead to tangible products that can be used as vehicles for stakeholder learning, engagement, and action.   More specifically, I describe my experiences developing and delivering learning environments that use system dynamics-based board games as catalysts for organizational performance improvement in the manufacturing and information technology industries.  Drawing on both the lessons learned from this “school of hard knocks” and extant theory, I present a framework for designing simulation-based learning environments that lead to real world action.

Picture from a workshop where I used The Project Value Game with a group future charter school founders.

Policy Informatics Book Chapter: The Evidentiary Basis of Policy Inquiry – Anand Desai

Anand Desai, of the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, at the Ohio State University will write a chapter on The Evidentiary Basis of Policy Inquiry.

The authority of science depends upon the ability of researchers to draw sound inferences from evidence. However, what constitutes sound evidence for policy inquiry is not well defined nor well understood. We draw upon how evidence is viewed in the social, physical and natural sciences and the law to discuss the many meanings of evidence. We discuss how these meanings relate to evidence for inquiry in the policy informatics context and argue that a single set of principles or rules cannot apply in all contexts. We consider whether rules of evidence as discussed in legal contexts are better suited for policy informatics than those commonly used in scientific research. We draw upon lessons learned from research, teaching and practitioner decision support to develop a framework and heuristics for evaluating evidence for use in policy informatics.