The Hindu Business Line : Integrate e-gov projects

With the exception of the Railways Reservation System, IT (information technology) applications seem to have had no remarkable effect on the manner in which citizens benefit from the services of the Government, writes S.K. Agarwal in Towards Improving Governance ( www.academicfoundation.com). While initiatives such as common Citizen Services Centres can play a major role in increasing accessibility, there is the need for the domain ministries and local self-governance bodies to be computerised, the author suggests. “There have to be services at the back-end for the front-end common service centres to deliver.”

He defines ‘e-governance’ as ‘an electronic delivery of government services to citizens, business and other external consumers of such services in a reliable, timely, and transparent manner, rather than computerisation of one department or the other. The aim of e-governance is “to provide simple, moral, accountable, responsive, and transparent, i.e. SMART government. The resulting benefits are less corruption, transparency, paperless offices, greater convenience, revenue growth and/or cost effectiveness.”

The book makes a mention of projects such as of the Tamil Internet Research Centre, which funds activities promoting the use of Tamil on the Internet to maximise access to the citizens, and the Vernacular Interface Project of the Government of West Bengal that aims to facilitate the use of computers in rural and semi-urban areas for access to information on tax payments, electricity, telephone bills, etc.

There are some popular e-governance projects, but often these function in watertight compartments, bemoans Agarwal. Integration of various e-governance projects is necessary, he urges, so that the Government can be ‘at the doorstep of the citizen offering a basket of services.’

A reassuring read that keeps alive hopes of better times in public governance.

Team norms, a productivity tool

Teamwork finds emphasis in one of the ‘ten golden rules’ at Google, observes a new book from Xavier Gilbert, Bettina Büchel and Rhoda Davidson: Smarter Execution ( www.pearsoned.co.in). They cite the Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, thus: “Modern corporate mythology has the unique decision maker as hero. We adhere to the view that the ‘many are smarter than the few,’ and solicit a broad base of views before reaching any decision.” At Google, explains Schmidt, the role of the manager is that of an aggregator of viewpoints, not the dictator of decisions. “Building a consensus sometimes takes longer, but always produces a more committed team and better decisions.”

Attaining high team performance requires intensive social interaction, so when the team members first meet, the priority should be to build a supportive social context, the authors counsel. “Fear of rejection is a natural reaction of people who meet for the first time. It can lead to some apparently irrational behaviours triggered by primal defence mechanisms.”

To avoid such instances leading to ‘certain team members taking positions vis-À-vis each other, positions that could subsequently damage team effectiveness,’ Gilbert et al propose two activities, viz. getting to know each other, and establishing team norms. For the former, there is no need to invest in expensive outdoor training. “Simple activities such as walking in the forest or in the countryside are just as good at this early stage. Singing exercises, theatre acting, or drum playing exercises have also proved to be very effective with teams.”

As for norms, the authors emphasise that these are not a nice-to-have option but a productivity tool. “They are meant to allow the team members to focus safely on the work at hand and to avoid energy-wasting frustrations… Team norms set the boundaries for what is expected behaviour, and what is unacceptable behaviour.”

Sound lessons for those aiming at better results.

Distribute accountability for security

Hold everyone accountable for security. Thus reads the first of the thirteen basic security principles, in Hacking Windows Exposed, third edition by Joel Scambray and Stuart McClure ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com). Since the number of thoughtful security experts in the world is not going to scale to cover all of the activities that occur on a daily basis, the authors advise distribution of accountability for security across the organisation.

Another principle, oft-flouted, is to authorise all access using least privilege. “Authorisation (which occurs after authentication, or login) is the last major mechanism that protects sensitive resources from access by underprivileged users,” caution Scambray and McClure. “Guessing a weak password is bad enough, but things get a lot worse when we discover that the lowly user account we just compromised can mount a share containing sensitive corporate financial data.”

A sobering thought in the book is that there is no perfect solution. Rather than let paranoia disrupt business goals, pay attention to ‘risk management,’ considering the technical and political realities.

For instance, do you realise that technology will not protect you from social attacks? Watch out! “Some of the most damaging attacks we have seen and heard of do not involve technology at all,” the authors observe. “So-called social engineering uses human-to-human trickery and misdirection to gain unauthorised access to data.”

Compulsory addition to the security professionals’ shelf.

No e-mail on Fridays

Five thousand employees of US Cellular, a large wireless carrier, were shocked when told that they were no longer allowed to communicate with one another via e-mail on Fridays. “How could that be possible? In an age in which we’re all so dependent on electronic transmissions to communicate quickly, effectively and accurately with our co-workers, banning e-mail is almost like prohibiting the use of calculators in favour of fingers and toes,” narrate Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini in Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion ( www.vivagoupindia.com).

But, interesting things happened as a result of the ban. Two co-workers who previously had an e-mail only relationship, and who were now forced to talk over the phone, were ‘surprised to learn that they were not, in fact, across the country from one another, but rather across the hall!’

Although it, no doubt, took some time to get accustomed to, the consensus at US Cellular today is that the no e-mail Fridays policy has been a resounding success, the book notes.

Ready takeaways!

Tailpiece

“What can be worse than absent signal for your cell-phone?”

“A battery that has run out of power?”

“Far worse is to have no ‘missed calls’ at the end of a long meeting!”

dmurali@thehindu.co.in