The Future of Data and Analytics

Despite government’s long history and recent progress with using and communicating data and analytics, as well as technological developments that have increased data processing power and cut data handling costs, current government data and analytic practices are nowhere near as sophisticated as they could and should be. Many government data systems remain clunky and hard to use, while government’s analytic and evaluation capacity is woefully scarce. Governments of the future should learn from past government efforts, both successful and unsuccessful, when using and communicating data. Specifically, all levels of government need to: (1) fuel the front line with timely user-tailored analytics and research findings; (2) obsess on mission, continuously innovating to improve critical processes; (3) use visualization and other communication tools to show problems, progress, causal factors, and likely effects of corrective action in context; and (4) count and characterize events and conditions to inform continual improvement

Read the full chapter here, from Mark Abramson et al (2018) Government For The Future: Reflection and Vision for Tomorrow’ Leaders.