Federal Government Information Technology

Be Boring When You Need To, Innovate When It Makes Sense, GSA CTO Says

Nextgov: It’s a well-known mantra in Silicon Valley: fail fast, fail often. But in government, that's harder to embrace, mostly because of the inherently risk-averse nature. But rather than shying away from that concept, agencies should accept cultural risks and failure, and learn from mistakes along the way, advises one official focused on innovation.

“We have an incredible allergy toward failure,” said General Services Administration Chief Technology Officer Navin Vembar, speaking this morning at FCW’s Achievable Innovation event in Washington. As an example, Vembar, who’s been in his role since February 2016, mentioned a program he worked on a while back that he had to "turn red," indicating it was bleeding cash. He was told any project in the red—meaning, losing money—is perceived as a failure and "an inherent betrayal to taxpayers when maybe that’s not how we should be looking at it.”

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