When it comes to providing effective digital services, the technology delivering the products is not the most important part, two state ITleaders sayson the latest edition of StateScoops Priorities podcast.
State government information technology’s”biggest opportunity”forserving citizens more effectively isthe development of a consistent governance framework, saysJ.R. Sloan, Arizonas deputy chief information officer.
Whats the value of the project and the decisions that were making? Sloan says. Thats the biggest gain to be had and the benefit out there.
Once thats determined, the state needs to work together across different departments and agencies to deliver services in a clear and efficient way to the citizen, Sloan says.
Were a federated environment, so while we do have some of those central authorities, we also have governance structures that are distributed throughout the rest of the state, Sloan says. Not everything bubbles up to our level.
In Arkansas, Scott Utley, the states chief enterprise architect, says hefaces similar struggles,especially when it comes to unifying the states approach to contracts and unified services.
We are decentralized, so one of our biggest challenges is having a centralized view of contract administration, Utley says.
In his state, that process is unified through a technology approval process that has multiple places for oversight from both the state IT agency as well as leaders across Arkansas’government.
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