Consider the sets "Excellence" and "Government IT." There is a great deal of evidence that these are non-overlapping sets. Put another way, the phrase "excellence in government IT" is an oxymoron. Of course, there are people who think otherwise. Mostly, these are government workers and their enablers.

Digital Government Awards

It appears there are organizations promoting and celebrating "digital government." Who knew?

Part of what these guys do is hold awards ceremonies honoring the best, the brightest and the most accomplished. There was an awards ceremony for New York in 2014.

30 people were individually honored for Outstanding IT Service and Support. In addition, 10 awards were given in various categories. One of the categories is related to one of my favorite subjects. The award, "Demonstrated Excellence in Project Management," is a double killer: excellence in project management, which you mostly demonstrate by chucking it over the side of the boat, and excellence in government IT, which is pretty much the null set. So "government project management?" If there ever was a candidate for something emptier than the null set, that's got to be near the head of the line.

One naturally wonders what magic project won this coveted award. This project was so good that the leader was also awarded the Best of New York Leadership Award. Here are the highlights:
This is a bit hard to figure out. Mostly, it appears, he spent money and outsourced work. He put a little data center into a big central one, and by the way bought a bunch of new equipment (that's what "modernizing WCB's infrastructure" means), and he dumped thousands of cases to an outsourcer ("third-party administrator" sounds more official, doesn't it?), I guess because those poor government workers were just overworked.

But I was unsatisfied. I really wanted to know how he got the top award for project management. So I clicked to find out: And I was rewarded with this page, from the organization that leads, promotes and awards excellence in digital government:

I was truly impressed. I always wondered how all those government agencies, some of which are bound to have bright people who truly want to serve the public, managed to deliver such uniformly expensive, inefficient, labor-intensive systems that often don't work. Now we have the answer: they have an organization that leads them and shows them how its done!

By giving awards, they in effect define excellence down. Think about this guy singled out for the leadership award: he bought a bunch of equipment (for less? more? who knows?), moved to another data center and outsourced some work. That's the best of the best! Think about what everyone else accomplished during the year!