Have all big government internet projects pass the approval of a technical panel made of professionals from the tech statup[sic] sector.This is an interesting idea – and one that I could buy into (under the right conditions…)
I’m a government employee that manages systems and projects that run into the millions of dollars. Would advice from the private sector help me?
Maybe.
Caveats:
Private sector consultants are in it for the money. I can pay them for advice, but in all honesty, it’s not a sure thing that I’ll get advice that is worth more than what I paid. I’ve seen plenty of cases where ‘Those who can, do; those who can’t
Free advice from the private sector IT might fall under a different umbrella though. Presumably one could find skilled private sector IT practitioners who have an altruistic motive rather than a profit motive, and presumably one could find skilled persons who can donate sufficient personal time to solving public sector problems, or who work for a corporation that is willing to release them to advise on public sector projects instead of performing miracle's for profit in their own corporation.
The ePetition is a bit off the mark though. It asserts that:
All proposals of high budget IT projects should pass through a panel of independent professionals from the private sector who are experienced in running large scale internet start-ups. [emphasis mine)I’d suggest that there is no reason to think there is a relationship between large scale startups and large scale IT projects involving legacy business processes, government rules & laws, legacy systems, legacy processes, public sector budget cycles, etc. I’d rather see advice from those who are experienced in large scale IT projects, rather than successful startups. I don’t think that’s the same skill set.
