Those of us who work primarily in the Federal Information Technology (IT) Sector know that we are not playing by the same rules as the rest of the IT Community.  There are simply some differences that cannot be underemphasized and are very hard to explain to “outsiders”, but nevertheless they are very real. 

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So with all the strangeness, comes some real benefits.  Here is my list of the top good things about working federal IT:

The Best Things About Federal Information Technology

  • Profit is not the driving factor. By definition there is no return on investment (ROI) when working with appropriated funds.  This makes showing evidence of wise investing and proper purchasing very hard, but it also makes it a lot easier to work when you are not beholden to the almighty dollar.
  • Doing the right thing is important. Associated with the above one, if profit is not the end all be all metric of success, then what is?  The answer is “doing the right thing”.  Now, it can be frustrating to determine who gets to be the judge of “rightness” here, but overall, I see most decisions being made to make things better.
  • There really are rules.  While, many of us can spend days arguing over who made the rules, why they made them, and if they were qualified to do such, when every single rule gets written down and approved, there is a lot less uncertainty on what you need to do.
  • We can all get along.  Since federal agencies are not in competition for funding… especially various federal IT departments, then you really do see assistance, collaboration, and the sharing of best practices and lessons learned.  Try that in business.
  • Quality People.  Since the civil servant hiring process is so equality based, what you see is that the number of nepotistic or friend based hiring is very unusual.  This means that your workforce has to shine on paper and cannot rely on connections for jobs.  I see that the average civil servant IT is far more qualified than the private sector equivalent.

This is just my personal list of observations.  The post became a little long so I am going to cut it off, but feel that there are many more good things to discuss.  I will come back to the topic again.

What do you think?  Do you have experience working in the Federal IT Space?  What were your observations and thoughts about it?  Do you agree with mine?  Please share.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for December 21, 2009  by Scott Coughlin.

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