Data Coalition Interview

[anthonygarvan]

Introductory comments

• What is the data federation effort all about? What am I looking to get out of it?
  This is a collaborative research project with GSA's Office of Products & Platforms and 18F. The goal is to build a toolkit / playbook for undertaking intra-governmental data collection / aggregation projects, such as data.gov, code.gov, and NIEM. Or goal is to find out what works, what doesn't, and what tools are appropriate for what circumstances, in order to accelerate similar efforts in the future.
• Notes & Report will be public
• Any questions before we get started?

What projects are you aware of in the past that might fit into this category?

Standard business reporting project in Australia- regulatory reporting standardization project. Tax minister convened 17 fed & regional agencies for reporting. Involved software industry / vendors from the get-go. Australian Business Register. Standardizing across parts of government that collect similar data from different agencies. (Dutch did something similar) Much more centralized. GLEI has LOUs, approved vendors that will do "vetting" of an entity. Like DNS but with vetting. McKinsey just published.

What projects might be coming down the pike that fit into this category?

HHS compiled all host / award grantee, recognized 20-30% duplicate data elements. Recommended that gov create consolidated taxonomy for grantee. SEC has been doing work expanding XBRL based information collection reports.

What is nice about being Data Coalition-style?

Great advantage - seen as a convener of conversation. People bounce ideas off of them. Disadvantage- sometimes distant from actual work being done. Challenge to be aware of & articulate / defend all the different projects. "It's complicated work and a lot of work is happening" "Very easy for a narrative to build that is counter-productive to the work" "Keep supporting it."

What are the biggest challenges from your perspective in pulling off large, intra-governmental data collection efforts?

"Getting past the ROI question that's always thrown out there as something that can be measured" "What kind of value do you want to put on transparency or easing management friction" "It all comes down to money, for congress especially" "Not anyone's fault, but they need to find something to pay for something" "Should never be an add-on project, should just be part of doing business."

When is a mandate required vs bottom-up?

When there's a clear need within an organization... that's helpful, when there's an impression that this is going to drastically change how this is going to change my job, there needs to be a top-down approach.