DoJ Lacks WMD attack Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP)

I was, and still am, absolutely 'gob-smacked' when I read this headline on FederalNewsRadio.com yesterday: no plans, no training, no checklists, "we don't really know what we would do in that kind of emergency [a WMD attack]".

It's been said that, if a Dirty Bomb goes off in DC, it would take 35 years before DC could be entered safely without your hair dropping out, suffering skin burns or contracting a cancer of some type. Yet, there's no mention as to whether DoJ has alternative work locations identified and available within hours - almost as bad as the Dept of Homeland Security aggregating its operations at the St Elizabeth's Hospital campus. Now terrorists know where the heart/jugular of the DHS is - duh!

OPM's John Berry, with the aid of the "2010 Telework Enhancement Act" (S.707 and H.R.1722), is strenuously trying to drag the great Federal Horse to the Telework well to drink - however, over the last 15 years, it has only taken reluctant sips. For the Nation's sake, it needs to take some serious gulps and relish every one. Time is not on our side.

Out of The Ashes Rises Video & Audio Conferencing

In my previous editorial blog, I explained that the adoption of Telework is very often, if not always, caused by organizations feeling some form of disruptive pain that could not be ignored or allowed to continue. What better example has been precipitated (pun intended!) by the pain of the global travel disruptions that the explosion of Iceland's volcano, with its associated world straddling grit cloud, caused.

You have to love the headlines:

• "Stranded Travelers Turn to Videconferencing" -- the NYT, 19th April,
• "Ash forces EU Ministers to meet by Videoconference" -- IDG News Service, 19th April,
• "Air traffic bans boost Videoconferencing: Cisco" -- Reuters, 19th April

Others quoted as benefiting from the travel disruptions & scrambled flight schedules are:

• Tandberg, because its $3.2B sale to Cisco closed that week,
• BT Conferencing has seen a 35% increase in demand,
• Videoworks, a Norwegian tech start-up, selling high-def systems,
• Lifesize, taken over by Logitech Intl SA,
• Polycom has certainly become a more attractive takeover target,
• Deutsche Telekom has offered its own facilities to its biggest clients on an emergency basis,
• Skype, an increase in volume of its voice & video calling - even to let a stranded couple in Dubai televise their wedding to their guests in the UK.

 

Pain Drives Telework Adoption ... as always. The secret is to identify the pain points and then show how the pain can be cured. And, shock! The medicine to cure the pain is to adopt a Flexible Work strategy as Standard Operating Precedure (SOP). Flexible working includes:

• "Time Shifting" the commute times - working from home or a location closer to home till the morning Rush (not!) hours have ended and then commuting in; similarly, towards the end of the work day, leaving early and then working from home during the return commute "Rush" time.
• Working from home, or from a location close to home such as a branch or satellite or other prearranged 'drop-in' office.

The focus of the pain points have changed over time, ranging from needing to make Government jobs more attractive to:

• encourage staff, with valuable skills, not to take early retirement,
• to pull back into the workforce staff with special skills,
• to stop staff from jumping into private sector jobs with government contractors,

Flexible work became especially important:

• during the run up to Y2K, both to attract back COBOL programmers to modify software dating back to the 60s and earlier and, at the same time, as part of disaster mitigation plans,
• following 9/11 and the current potential of a Swine Flu Pandemic, as part of Continuity of Operation Plans (COOP) and Business Continuity Plans (BCP),
• during politically sensitive events, likely to need heavy security, such as a World Bank conference or a Summit involving 47 Heads of State,
• to reduce traffic congestion - according to Texas U, we waste 36 days (yes, days not hours) per year caught up unneccessarily in traffic congestion,
• to comply with an Presidential Executive Order (EO) to reduce the Government's Carbon Footprint,
• during, or in anticipation of, record breaking bad weather - such as the great Blizzards of 2010,
• generally, to provide staff with the ability to manage their time between work and their personal lives - to get home in time for Jimmy's Little League, to be able to make an appointment with the Cable Guy, the HVAC Guy, the Doctor/Dentist, to be able to work while on Medical Leave, to vote or to help your preferred charity.

To help to make sure that Flexible Work, especially telework, adoption hits the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director, John Berry's, objective, we need a monthly blizzard or Nuclear Summit! For all our sakes, the current 10% of eligible teleworkers teleworking has to get to 50% and quickly. How about a different type of blizzard - a blizzard of emails to Congress to get it to hold the Agency heads' collective feet to the fire of Flexible Work adoption? After all, this is an election year.

Feds Demonstrate Inconsistent Reaction to the Blizzard of 2010 - The Good, the Bad and the Sad:

The GOOD:--

1. NextGov.com headline on 2/8/10 article, authored by Bob Barwin: "DISA telecommuters can work just fine even with more snow". The Defense Information System Agency (DISA) "...can continue to do its job thanks to a well-established telecommuting operation...."
   
   Apparently, over the last three years, DISA has equipped 70% of its 4,200 employees with laptops and connectivity. John Garing, Director of Planning & IT, said that employees see telecommuting "...as a routine part of their work week." DISA is working with the GSA and OPM to set up secure remote access locations so that even more employees can telecommute. Give the man a 'shout out'; no, make that two shouts!
    
2. WashingtonTechnology.com headline on 2/9/10 article, authored by Doug Beizer: "GSA's new Administrator sworn in by phone during snowstorm". Martha Johnson was called at her home by Acting Administrator, Steve Leeds, to administer the oath of office, with her husband serving as the official witness.
   
   Martha Johnson's first act - to telework the swearing of her oath of office - provides a demonstration of the fact that she "gets it" when it comes to telework/telecommuting and gives us hope for her strong leadership to make a Distributed Work strategy one of her top priorities. She and John Berry at OPM, combined with Aneesh Chopra, make a team that has the collective required skill set and political connections to make Telework work as an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) of Government Best Practice.
    

The BAD:--

3. According to articles authored by Andrew Mitchell of FederalNewsRadio.com, on 2/8/10 and another by his colleague Dorothy Ramienski on 2/9/10 headlined, "OPM: Federal Government closed Wednesday", Federal "...Telework employees MAY [my emphasis] be expected to work from their telework sites...."
   
   Just how lame can OPM be? Not 'MAY', but 'WILL'. Ms.Ramienski's piece went into considerable detail quoting John Berry (Director OPM) outlining the benefits of a strong telework policy and that he teleworked from home himself on 2/8/10; also deserves a Shout Out for John!
    
4. The Washington Post reported that closing the Fed. Govt. for a day, because of weather, costs approx $100 million in lost productivity. Can we assume that if all of the Fed. Govt. had the same 70% telework practice as DISA (see #1 above), US tax payers would be saved $70 million; probably not, but I'd accept $40 million?!

The SAD:--

5. In the Ramienski article (see #3 above) re her interview w/John Berry, she quotes him as saying, "My hope is we can make [telework] part of the routine." He then goes on to say, "...and that we can drive it into actual practice."
   
   This is soooo sad, because the Feds have been working to make telework SOP since the early 1990s, our Congressmen have badgered & cujoled with enabling and reporting legislation and hearings. Congress funded the network of Telework Centers that reach from W.VA and throughout the DC region in all directions. Finally, John Berry is (to his credit) providing a genuine push to implement the most recent legislation -- the "Telework Improvements Act of 2009" (HR 1722) and its companion Senate bill, the "Telework Enhancement Act of 2009" (S 770).
    
6. Federal Computer Week's article, by John Monroe, "December snowstorm highlighted policy disconnect" bemoans why there is so much difference between the attitudes towards telework in the Fed. Govt. and in the rest of the world. Reader comments range from 'Telework? No Duh' to 'Telework Espionage'.
   
   I have often wondered, and continue to wonder, whether Fed managers and supervisors spend more time working out how NOT to implement telework, rather than how to!

DC Feds Use Blizzard of 2010 for Demo of their Operational Continuity - NOT!^*

I have just come in from 2 hrs (would have been 3+ hrs without my wife) of clearing my drive of 29+" of snow - Oh, what joy!

Since reading Washington Technology's 2.4.2010 article, "DC feds hunker down for another blizzard", I had intended to write about the lame Fed policy that allows employees to stay at home, be paid, but not HAVE to telework from home. What does it take for the Feds to follow OPM's John Berry's determination and leadership to get kicking & screaming Feds to make Telework the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Feds ..... get with the program or ... get out.

* My thanx to Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware for their guidance/inspiration for these thoughts. Their site is www.TheFutureofWork.net and on Twitter as @TheFutureofWork .

Scenario #1 US Feds

Snow storm hits, greater DC area. Due to expected hazardous conditions, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announces that Agencies will operate under an "unscheduled leave policy", which means employees who cannot report for work may request unscheduled leave for the day. Storm lasts two days and Federal employees do minimal or no work. Impact on their "customers" unknown and will remain so.

Scenario #2 SCAN Health

SCAN Health in Long Beach, California experiences excessive amounts of rain resulting in flooding, up to 24 inches of water, in significant portions of their corporate parking lots. Their CEO declares the situation too dangerous for employees to come to work and mandates everyone work from home. For two days employees continue work as usual with weather conditions and change in work location invisible to their customers. Work output was minimally impacted. The employee response to management's emergency work at home directive was declared a success. The next question asked by management was why don't we do this more often.