<story><title>Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA</title><url>https://backchannel.com/inside-the-obama-tech-surge-as-it-hacks-the-pentagon-and-va-8b439bc33ed1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>liyanchang</author><text>Disclosure: I&amp;#x27;m an engineer at USDS and these are my own opinions.&lt;p&gt;So in my admittedly short time in the government [0], I&amp;#x27;ve witnessed how all of these problems are due to good intentions. That&amp;#x27;s what makes this all really tough because everything you think is bonkers actually has a reason.&lt;p&gt;The 1400 page travel regulations is a result of trying to prevent fraud - every single issue that comes up results in a new rule.&lt;p&gt;The fact that it takes some projects years to deploy is that we would like to plan and make sure that every resource is well-spent, that it&amp;#x27;s in a number of languages and accessible to the blind.&lt;p&gt;It makes it hard for everyone - I&amp;#x27;ve met lots of smart talented civil servants and government contractors who want to do things differently but have their hands tied behind their back.&lt;p&gt;[0] 2 years feels like forever to me but flash in the pan to many of the dedicated civil servants I&amp;#x27;ve met.</text></item><item><author>cs702</author><text>The federal government hires a team of young, talented, motivated engineers and managers, puts them in charge of failed software projects, gives them the resources and authority they require to turns things around, and -- surprise! -- it turns out they do a GREAT job.&lt;p&gt;In hindsight, this shouldn&amp;#x27;t be too surprising.  What might be surprising is that the same logic should apply to ALL government functions, not just software development.  Who says government projects and agencies &lt;i&gt;have to be&lt;/i&gt; poorly run? Who says we can&amp;#x27;t devise better systems and&amp;#x2F;or mechanisms (e.g., market-based mechanisms) for attracting and retaining great people in government?&lt;p&gt;Throughout history, there are examples of government bureaucracies that have been reasonably well run, in some cases for centuries.  The Habsburg empire, in particular, comes to mind: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;europe&amp;#x2F;habsburg-empire-territories-europe-have-higher-trust-in-justice-systems-a6893946.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;europe&amp;#x2F;habsburg-empi...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>niels_olson</author><text>Disclosure: I&amp;#x27;m active duty Navy and these are my own opinions.&lt;p&gt;In 22 years, I have never been so hopeful for meaningful improvement in my work life as I am now. Having met a few folks  I am all too familiar with DTS and the JFTR (the 1400 pages in the article(1)). I think that&amp;#x27;s a great choice to start with: like Google going after the mundane problems of every person&amp;#x27;s life. This will make a difference. I am on travel now and was on the phone and DTS (simultaneously) for an hour today. And for anyone who tries to apologize for the 1400 pages, please don&amp;#x27;t. I have cut instructions from 238 pages to less than 30. I would argue the major problem is &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; that people are trying to solve every edge case. The major problem is that people are only in a job for a short period of time, come in, and while they may try to solve the edge cases they encounter, they often do that by trying to simplify things by inserting a new abstraction and taking ownership of that abstraction. So the layers of abstraction accrete like sediment. And as long as there&amp;#x27;s no direct logic conflicts, they can promote away from the problem.&lt;p&gt;I will gladly buy any USDS, 18F, or DDS hacker in San Diego a beer. Keep up the good work.&lt;p&gt;(1) It&amp;#x27;s actually 1602 pages: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.defensetravel.dod.mil&amp;#x2F;Docs&amp;#x2F;perdiem&amp;#x2F;JTR.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.defensetravel.dod.mil&amp;#x2F;Docs&amp;#x2F;perdiem&amp;#x2F;JTR.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA</title><url>https://backchannel.com/inside-the-obama-tech-surge-as-it-hacks-the-pentagon-and-va-8b439bc33ed1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>liyanchang</author><text>Disclosure: I&amp;#x27;m an engineer at USDS and these are my own opinions.&lt;p&gt;So in my admittedly short time in the government [0], I&amp;#x27;ve witnessed how all of these problems are due to good intentions. That&amp;#x27;s what makes this all really tough because everything you think is bonkers actually has a reason.&lt;p&gt;The 1400 page travel regulations is a result of trying to prevent fraud - every single issue that comes up results in a new rule.&lt;p&gt;The fact that it takes some projects years to deploy is that we would like to plan and make sure that every resource is well-spent, that it&amp;#x27;s in a number of languages and accessible to the blind.&lt;p&gt;It makes it hard for everyone - I&amp;#x27;ve met lots of smart talented civil servants and government contractors who want to do things differently but have their hands tied behind their back.&lt;p&gt;[0] 2 years feels like forever to me but flash in the pan to many of the dedicated civil servants I&amp;#x27;ve met.</text></item><item><author>cs702</author><text>The federal government hires a team of young, talented, motivated engineers and managers, puts them in charge of failed software projects, gives them the resources and authority they require to turns things around, and -- surprise! -- it turns out they do a GREAT job.&lt;p&gt;In hindsight, this shouldn&amp;#x27;t be too surprising.  What might be surprising is that the same logic should apply to ALL government functions, not just software development.  Who says government projects and agencies &lt;i&gt;have to be&lt;/i&gt; poorly run? Who says we can&amp;#x27;t devise better systems and&amp;#x2F;or mechanisms (e.g., market-based mechanisms) for attracting and retaining great people in government?&lt;p&gt;Throughout history, there are examples of government bureaucracies that have been reasonably well run, in some cases for centuries.  The Habsburg empire, in particular, comes to mind: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;europe&amp;#x2F;habsburg-empire-territories-europe-have-higher-trust-in-justice-systems-a6893946.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;europe&amp;#x2F;habsburg-empi...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>the_watcher</author><text>&amp;gt;  every single issue that comes up results in a new rule.&lt;p&gt;This sentence is the simplest explanation for government (and bureaucratic) incompetence.&lt;p&gt;Think about writing software. Is the optimal solution to every single bug to write more code to deal with that specific situation? Of course not. In many cases, sorting out the underlying cause and fixing that (which may involve new code, rewriting old code, or even deleting outdated code) is the correct approach (assuming that the optimal solution is the desired outcome, there are of course cases where speed of getting something out that works trumps this, but government regulations only take effect once annually in most cases anyway, so they don&amp;#x27;t have a speed excuse).&lt;p&gt;Simply writing a new rule to deal with every scenario is an approach that inevitably leads here.</text></comment>