New Projects: Balancing Tech Innovation and Oversight in State Governments

San Francisco, California — We are thrilled to introduce the first set of projects from our Tech Executive Leadership Initiative Government Challenges series.

The projects, focused on Balancing Tech Innovation and Oversight in State Governments, seek to help the State of California improve its approvals processes for digital transformation projects. We released the projects at our webinar today; you can watch a video of the event here.

We invite you to read more below, and to check out this project and others on our website: Aspen Tech Policy Hub Projects.

NextGen PAL

by Colin Jenkel, Michelle Lee, Genevieve Liang, Sam McVeety, and Tejash Unadkat

This project recommends the CDT update its Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) process to incorporate (1) low-overhead “discovery” and “prototype” phases, (2) a smaller process for smaller projects, and (3) caps on the overall size of all projects. With these changes, the state would gain the ability to have shorter and more agile planning, discovery, and approval cycles.

California Technology Fellowship Program

by Rohit Chandra, Erika Cheung, Laura Lanford, Craig Montuori, Carlos Torres, and Greg Warden

This project recommends that the State of California establish a Technology Fellowship Program to leverage talent across its departments to achieve key digital service delivery goals. The Technology Fellowship Program would run annually, bringing employees across state agencies into 12-month rotations at the California Department of Technology. Following training on modern digital service delivery techniques, fellows should lead critical tech innovation initiatives through the Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) and execution.

PALPro Planner

by Rebecca Kantar, Matt McDonald, Greg Novick, Parimala Rao, and Isabel Yang

This project proposes that the CDT invest in a PALPro Planner tool to help technology project owners schedule deliverables around crucial budget and Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) deadlines and manage workflow. The PALPro Planner would recommend schedules based on historical project timelines; notify team members, approvers, and stakeholders of pending tasks; and enable collaboration and feedback within the tool itself.

Learn more about these and other projects here.