Driving Success in Public Sector Technology

Bob Leek, Department Head and CIO, Clark County

Bob Leek, Department Head and CIO, Clark County

Leading with Purpose and Accountability

My career has involved nonprofits, for-profits, and government. I’ve worked for large organizations that required tact, compromise, resilience, and a relentless drive to succeed. I’ve had some great people and some not-so-great people. I’ve been promoted and dismissed. I’ve learned one thing: I work for those whose benefit I am supposed to get. If I remember that my work makes others better, I can paint for those I lead a vision of success and help them understand why we do what we do. Organizations frequently run over budget or fail to meet expectations. How have you ensured your projects stayed on track and exceeded expectations?

Keeping projects on track and meeting performance benchmarks is my unique strategy. Success requires discipline. There is just enough project management for success, not more, not less, according to a post-project review in every case of failure. The right approach, the right leadership, and the right process then make the difference. Compromise, or worse, ignoring the basics, is a sure way to fail.

Aligning Technology to Business and Community Needs

You shouldn’t use technology jargon with nontechnical stakeholders. Instead of investing in risk, growth, margins, service, quality, or satisfaction, successful investments focus on business outcomes. The relationship between technology and business outcomes is indirect or many non-technical stakeholders cannot articulate it. Imagine if... and weave a story with plot, characters, peril, redemption, and a compelling outcome to make the connection between technology investments and business outcomes.

“It’s not an accident that culture is built, it’s deliberate and action-driven”

Identifying these needs is part of the County’s strategic plan, so the IT Department can make technology and operations decisions based on public and county employee needs. Clark County’s Board of Commissioners has identified seven strategic priorities. The seven priorities have been aligned through three “pillars” of work: publicfacing capabilities, departmental needs to fulfill service models, and activities to foster a positive work environment. We can rest assured that every decision we make will support one of the three pillars or one of our foundational capabilities, and that the three pillars are aligned with the seven strategic priorities.

Building a High-Performing, Inclusive and Future-Ready Workforce

In my annual employee engagement survey, I measure three key factors: overall response rate from my employees, the percentage of people who would recommend our team to their friends and family, and the percentage of highly satisfied employees. The measures we take ensure that feedback is encouraged, and that feedback is incorporated into our continuous efforts to make our work environment great.

As part of our inclusive leadership strategy, we build accountability, courage, humility, and continuous learning for our diverse workforce. Each employee is encouraged to create a Personal Development Plan (IDP) that supports their growth. It may be a plan for achieving a promotion, gaining technical skills, being considered for other positions, or preparing for retirement at the end of their career. I and my team analyze every plan to identify areas where we can develop programs that take advantage of scale, cost and timing to benefit the most people while ensuring every individual plan receives the support it needs to achieve the outcomes.

In order to create a great workplace and culture, we define together what accountability, courage, and humility mean for our organization. It’s not an accident that culture is built, it’s deliberate and action-driven. A shared approach to building culture results in a workplace that rewards performance, builds individual and team accountability, and unleashes the innovation of a diverse and talented team.

In the next few years, Augmented Intelligence (AI) will be the biggest trend in IT and operations. Providing tools and solutions to enhance our team’s success will increase productivity, creativity, and efficiency. As a result, we invest in pilots and proofs-of-concept, ask our solution partners and providers how AI is being incorporated into their solutions, and ask ourselves what “better” could be. AI policy and guidance have been developed, and we are following the ongoing discussions at the federal level as well as local and state governments. In this space, we do not yet declare winners; instead, we are collaborating with a variety of solution providers and partners and ensuring that all tests and investments have tangible, measurable outcomes, and managing costs and benefits within budget, technical expertise, and making sure every effort enhances our capabilities. The goal is to improve the lives of people in the communities we serve, not artificial intelligence.

In my opinion, the IT department and its staff should look at how they measure success as they provide services to their constituents if they lack clarity on how they do so. In order for the Technology Department to achieve two key outcomes, they need to be clear on what their jurisdiction sees as success. These outcomes include successful day-today operations, availability, uptime and secure stewardship of the data and systems they support, as well as an improvement in the lives of their communities measured by their jurisdiction’s objectives. We in technology in the public sector have never had a better time to deliver solutions that make a difference than now.

AI

Project Management

Employee Engagement

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