Moving Forward with FITARA: Agency CIOs Can Lead Real and Lasting Change

The scenario: A House government oversight subcommittee chairman and ranking member have a strong interest in how agencies are managing technology, in light of a new law that gives agency CIOs more leverage over operations. The subcommittee leaders ask the Government Accountability Office to assess agency performance in key areas, and the subcommittee then takes the assessment and assigns grades that come back with far more Ds and Fs than As and Bs.

Making Decisions in a Time of Transition

How can new leaders quickly gain situational awareness?  How can they harness ongoing processes like budget formulation and performance reporting as inputs for decision- making? How can they use and integrate expertise such as risk management and strategic foresight into actionable information? Are there decision-making frameworks and models that leaders can adapt to produce faster decisions based upon evidence? 

Making Decisions in a Time of Transition (Part II)

This post is a continuation of our first blog on decision making, which highlighted a number of challenges for the next administration to address. In this blog, we present the key findings and recommendations in four areas. These action areas include: Decision Processes – finding ways to harness government decision processes and not getting bogged down. Define clear parameters - use career staff to help incoming appointees translate governing priorities into clear goals and action plans that take into account existing budget and statutory constraints.

Announcing the IBM Center’s Visiting Fellow—Patrick Lester

Over the past decade, the federal government has systematically increased the use of evidence-based, data-driven approaches in decision making, sometimes called “Moneyball for Government.” These efforts embrace traditional fields such as program evaluation, but now include the use of open data, business analytics, and social and behavioral sciences for describing problems, predicting needs, and testing new approaches.

How CIOs Can Enable Innovation

Innovation plays a key role in government transformations at all levels. Over the past several years, governments have increasingly established chief technology officers, chief innovation officers, chief data officers, entrepreneurs-in-residence, and simi­lar roles to promote new approaches to innovation.

Center Releases New Report: Mitigating Risks in the Application of Cloud Computing in Law Enforcement

Today, the IBM Center for The Business of Government is pleased to release the report, Mitigating Risks in the Application of Cloud Computing in Law Enforcementby Paul Wormeli, Executive Director Emeritus, IJIS Institute.

How Can Good Management Help to Avoid the Fiscal Cliff?

Over the coming weeks and months, perhaps no issue will dominate the attention of leaders in Washington like reaching a deal to address the “fiscal cliff”.  The components of these discussions are well-known:  sequestration if a budget deal does not find sufficient savings to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years, tax increases across a range of areas, a looming debt ceiling deadline in early 2013, and the need to pass the annual 2013 budget as opposed to the current continuing resolution. 

The Next Four Years: Managing Across Agencies – Building from Collaboration to a New Model

 - to move to a new model of managing activities from a cross-program view, leveraging resources to more effectively serve a citizen or business.

Governing in the Next Four Years: The Center for The Business of Government Looks Ahead

We intend to look at a variety of emerging trends, offer innovative approaches to address challenges today and tomorrow, and update a number of widely read reports from prior election cycles.  We hope to engage in a dialogue with government and industry leaders, and welcome broad and deep discussion going forward.

The Center Expands Its Focus on Innovation

In the last several years, the focus on innovation as a core driver to government performance and transformation has increased significantly.  The role of Chief Technology Officers, and new positions of Chief Innovation Officers and new Innovation offices in a number of agencies, pose challenges for leaders regarding how best leverage this burgeoning areas of expertise.  In that light, the Center for The Business of Government is enhancing its focus on innovation as a key element in helping government solve hard problems.

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Executive Director
IBM Center for The Business of Government
600 14th Street, NW
Second Floor
Washington, DC 20005
United States
(703) 627-5108

Dan Chenok is Executive Director of the IBM Center for The Business of Government. He oversees all of the Center's activities in connecting research to practice to benefit government, and has written and spoken extensively around government technology, cybersecurity, privacy, regulation, budget, acquisition, and Presidential transitions. Mr. Chenok previously led consulting services for Public Sector Technology Strategy, working with IBM government, healthcare, and education clients.

Mr. Chenok serves in numerous industry leadership positions. He is a CIO SAGE and member of the Research Advisory Council with the Partnership for Public Service, Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Policy Committee for the Senior Executives Association, Member of the Government Accountability Office Polaris Advisory Council for Science and Technology, and Member of the American University IT Executive Council. Previously, he served as Chair of the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) for the government-led American Council for Technology (ACT), Chair of the Cyber Subcommittee of the DHS Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, Chair of the NIST-sponsored Federal Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, and an Adjunct Associate Professor with the U of Texas LBJ School of Public. He is also a three-time member of Cyber and Cloud Computing commissions with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Chenok also generally advises public sector leaders on a wide range of management issues.

Before joining IBM, Mr. Chenok was a Senior Vice President for Civilian Operations with Pragmatics, and prior to that was a Vice President for Business Solutions and Offerings with SRA International.

As a career Government executive, Mr. Chenok served as Branch Chief for Information Policy and Technology with the Office of Management and Budget, where he led a staff with oversight of federal information and IT policy, including electronic government, computer security, privacy and IT budgeting. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Branch Chief and Desk Officer for Education, Labor, HHS, and related agencies in OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Mr. Chenok began his government service as an analyst with the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and left government service at the end of 2003.

In 2008, Mr. Chenok served on President Barack Obama’s transition team as the Government lead for the Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform group, and as a member of the OMB Agency Review Team.

Mr. Chenok has won numerous honors and awards, including a 2010 Federal 100 winner for his work on the presidential transition, the 2016 Eagle Award for Industry Executive of the Year, and the 2002 Federal CIO Council Azimuth Award for Government Executive of the Year.

Mr. Chenok earned a BA from Columbia University and a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.