Successful collaboratives involving multiple agencies, jurisdictions or domains will need to be designed for success. The scenarios of successful collaboratives collected by NASCIO have a number of ingredients that have contributed to their success. Success was organized through governance, designed and supported through enterprise architecture, and executed using project management.
Governance ensures the right representation and “voice” for establishing the necessary decision rights, process, and organization to deliver outcomes, manage issues, evaluate opportunities and evaluate progress. Execution means actually reaching the finish line – bringing up the process, organization or technology so that it actually delivers as planned. It has been reported that 80% of organizations don’t successfully execute their strategies. How do we ensure strategy is properly achieved? That brings us back to governance. Proper governance includes monitoring progress, employing enterprise architecture and project management discipline to properly plan, stage, and evaluate progress, and make the necessary course corrections along the way.
Chuck Frederick, CIO, City of Denver, Co-Chair of the NASCIO State & Local Collaboration Working Group