How to stay off the High Risk List
The IBM Center for the Business of Government shares some ideas for staying off the Government Accountability Office's high-profile watch list.
What: "Managing Risk, Improving Results: Lessons for Improving Government Management from GAO's High-Risk List," by the IBM Center for the Business of Government.
Why: GAO has been tracking the worst-performing federal agencies since 1990. Being on GAO's High Risk List means an agency is imperiled by waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. It is a recognition no agency wants or asks for.
IBM's study offers a checklist for agencies to get off the list and stay off.
According to the study, no agency can go it alone on any program that matters. But building strong bridges that connect different policy networks is a challenge.
Using performance measures requires mapping them from present problems to success, with milestones along the way. Good performance metrics drive successful project management, the study states.
Inadequate and aging IT systems are a soft spot. The government needs effective information systems to manage its programs and hold its managers accountable. IT systems are also the bridges to other agencies that can help strengthen the organization.
The solutions to some of the government's biggest problems often require congressional action --new legislation, additional funding or both.
According to the study, some areas are high risk because federal agencies simply don't have enough skilled personnel to manage the problems at hand. For example, GAO points out that the Energy Department spends 90 percent of its budget on contractors, but just 5 percent of its federal workforce is devoted to managing these contracts.
Ineffective contract management can drag an agency down into the swamp.
The more the government relies on extended networks of service providers through complex partnerships that cross boundaries, the harder it is to follow the money. Furthermore, weak financial management leads to exploding costs and extended delays.
Highly complex programs are highly risky, and any flaw can quickly erupt into problems elsewhere. Cybersecurity, federal information systems, privacy issues and the sharing of terrorism-related information are all complex and interrelated, and therefore are inherently hard to manage, the study states.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald encouraged Comptroller General Gene Dodaro to put VA on the high-risk list. McDonald reasoned that his agency was one of the largest businesses in the country and desperately needed to improve. He said the notoriety of the list could help that cause by shining a light on the problem.
Former Department of Homeland Security CIO Richard Spires was pleased with GAO's decision to put IT on the list in 2015 because it "focuses valuable attention and resources on systemic problems."
Verbatim: "The high-risk list is not a sentence to eternal criticism. Rather, when seen through the lens of the root causes that got these programs on the list, it is a piercing analysis of the big challenges facing 21st-century government."