Value-Based Management in Government

CHAPTER FIFTEENInformation Technology as an Enabler

IN CHAPTER 2, WE DISCUSSED the “House of VBM,” as described in Figure 2.6:

The “Technology Enablers” involve information technology (IT) that supports the modeling and calculations used by ERM and the EPM methods (including resources and cost management).

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO ACHIEVE RESULTS

For the VBM framework with its EPM methods to work effectively, an organization must have information technology (IT) systems that can support them. Furthermore, in the context of performance, risk management, and resource and cost management, IT systems serve as enablers.

The EPM methods (the ellipse in “The Mechanism” in the “House of VBM” in Figure 2.6), contribute to the balancing of the three scales in Figure 2.1. As described in Chapter 5, the EPM methods are continuously interacting to balance and improve the three scales: the three Rs of results, resources, and risks. This is where decision-making occurs.

From a decision-making perspective, starting with accurate, reliable, and valid source data is key. An IT issue often involves low-quality input data, nicknamed “dirty data.” There are tools to clean data called “extraction, transform, and load (ETL)” that filter source data. For effective decision-making, remember this: in the absence of facts, anybody's opinion is a good one! And usually the biggest opinion wins, which is the opinion of one's supervisor or one's supervisor's supervisor. So, to the degree these senior ...