Dear Friends :
This might interest
you
Hcp
Sent: 20 October 2017 11:37
To: Cabinet Ministers
Cc: ssbhalla@gmail.com; bibek.debroy@gov.in; ashima@igidr.ac.in; rathin@nipfp.org.in; rr1@nipfp.org.in; ratanp.watal@gov.in; ceo-niti@nic.in; hcp@recruitguru.com
Subject: BREAKING SILOS IS SIMPLE
===============================================
Adopt Innovative
Ways
======================
Hindustan Times ( 19 Oct ) carries following
news report :
“ Adopt innovative ways to break silos
in Govt : PM “
Bureaucrats
should use technology for delivery of
better governance; ministries should not work in silos and work as a team to realise the dream
of creating New India by 2020.
This was Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's missive to about 380 officials of the rank of director
and deputy secretaries with whom he interacted this month.
“ The PM exhorted the
officers to work with full dedication towards creation of New India by 2022.
He said that silos are a big
bottleneck in the functioning
of the Union government. He urged the officers to adopt innovative ways to break silos,
which will result in the speeding up
of various processes of governance," a government release said.
=======================================================
I suppose , by “ breaking silos “ , PM means :
Keep each other
informed of what you are
doing / working on , so that the “ left hand knows what the right hand is doing
“ and you do not end up slowing down others’ efforts or end up working at cross
purpose
Keeping each other
informed about your initiatives will , not only avoid duplicate work but it will enable
you to complement one another and synergize your efforts
Here is how , we
managed this ( breaking
silos ) at the small
Switchgear factory of L&T , way back in 60s ( call it V 1.0 ) :
Whenever , a manager
sent out a letter ( to any outside party ) or a memo ( to an internal
department ) , he asked his secretary to make a carbon copy , marked “ FOR CIRCULATION “
Of course , he did
this only when he considered that communication to be important enough for
other Managers to know and felt that this knowledge would help the recipient to
raise questions or guide him in his own decisions
Despatch Mail Room
attendant responsible for all outgoing and internal mail distribution , would
remove the copies marked “ FOR CIRCULATION “ , bunch these
together , attach a CIRCULATION SLIP carrying the names of 8 / 10 managers and
deliver to the manager whose name is right at the top
When the first-named
manager finishes reading all those copies , he will enter “ date read “ against
his name and place the bunch in his out-tray . And more often than not , he
will enter his own remarks / comments on any of those letters / memos
Mail attendant will
pick up the bunch and deliver it to the next-named manager
Utterly , Butterly ,
Simple !
It worked beautifully
well and all of us were in perfect SYNC , at all times
No doubt , when the
factory grew and we had more than 20 managers , this system broke down since it
would take a full month before the last-named manager got to read what others
had written !
But then , those were
the days when :
Managers had secretaries
( who typed on typewriters ) and used stapling devices
Managers boasted of “
OUT
and IN “ trays on their tables !
There were no
computers / no internet / no Outlook / no Skype / no Online Collaboration
softwares / no project-plans / no smart phones / no Webex / no Whatsapp / no
nothing !
To day , every
private sector manager and government officer , has access to all the
above-mentioned aids
What could be holding
them off , from coming out with VERSION 2.0
of the 50 year old process described above ?
It can be nothing
more than cultivating an attitude which says :
“ If sharing this
info with my colleagues will make us move faster in providing better governance
, then I will share it . Of course , I will not share info which must be kept
secret ( even for a short while ) and which cannot be leaked “
Dear Narendrabhai :
But how is a Govt
Officer to decide :
·
Who ( which officers ) need to know
about my views / thinking on this subject / topic and therefore , must get a
copy of my email ?
If you decide to
appoint a Committee of Secretaries to come up with guidelines re this ( sharing of email info to other govt
officers ), then very little is likely to happen !
They may end up
setting up another “ Empowered Committee “ !
For V 2.0 of the process which
L&T followed 50 years ago , please consider following approach :
·
Government is already working on a big push
for data analytics , in order to improve decision making .
·
Why not ask some leading software company to
analyse those millions of emails ( sent out by various govt officers over the
years ) and come up with an Artificial Intelligence based software , which will
( after reading / interpreting the content of each outgoing email from an
officer ) , decide , WHO all ( other govt
officers ) should get a copy ( cc: ) ?
Let us call such software : IDEA { Intelligence based Delivery of Email Alerts }
Google / Amazon / Microsoft / Apple / Facebook etc are already
using / employing similar AI based
software algorithms for delivering advertisements to millions of “ most likely interested “ people around the
World !
Let no one tell you : This is not possible for a
software to decide
Google’s AlphaGo Zero AI algorithm “ learns from scratch and with no human
help beyond being told the rules ……… because AlphaGo Zero learns on its own
from a blank state, its talents can now be turned to a host of real-world
problems
“ ( source : Business Line / 20 Oct 2017 )
And if anyone needs
convincing , CBDT has recently awarded
a $ 100 Million contract to L&T Infotech to develop a software platform (
using Semantic Web ) , to capture “ Tax Evaders “ , by scraping
Social Media sites !
One more thing :
Do not expect the
government officers to welcome the idea of IDEA !
Most of them still
believe their POWER lies in being in
possession of some such information to which , they alone are privy !
20 Oct 2017
www.hemenparekh.in / blogs
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