Is there such a thing as Good Bureaucracy? - Mark Schwartz

03-02-2023 • 42 mins

As CIO of US Citizenship and Immigration Services from 2010 - 17, Mark Schwartz provoked the federal government into adopting Agile and DevOps practices, overcoming an established planet-sized policy for overseeing the delivery of technology systems.

In this Primer interview, you’ll discover some of the experiences that Mark went through while helping executives from large organizations overcome obstacles to digital transformation, as well as analysing and thinking about what makes a good bureaucracy and what tools are needed to succeed.

Listen to the podcast for some great advice on digitally transforming bureaucracies.

00:00 Introduction

01:07 Mark's backstory

04:40 The US Citizenship and Immigration bureaucracy

09:56 A bad example of a bad bureaucracy

11:56 Management Directive 102

15:42 30 ideas for working with a bureaucracy

17:09 What did MarkS do with Citizenship and Immigration bureaucracy?

25:11 Benefits of Agile

27:23 Patterns/plays to make when working with bureaucracies

34:14 Similarities between the private and public sectors when it comes to bureaucracy and digital transformation

36:58 Mark Schwartz's next book