This state CIO brings a no-nonsense approach to an arduous job.
Brenda Decker has worked for the state of Nebraska for more than 30 years and has spent the past five as the state’s CIO, so she knows how important IT has become to delivering government services. And she knows how to get the job done on a tight budget. It’s a daunting task, because Decker oversees an organization that provides technology services to state agencies as well as to cities, towns, counties and schools. During her tenure, Decker has led critical improvements in IT, such as a large-scale e-mail consolidation project. In September, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers recognized Decker for her leadership with its annual Meritorious Service Award.
Brenda Decker
Family: A husband, three adult children, their spouses and seven grandchildren.
Most interesting thing people don’t know about you: I cut and hang drywall. I enjoy home remodeling projects.
What futuristic technology would you love to see become reality? Cloning, because I need two of me.
What do you do in your spare time? A lot of reading. Anything from technology-related books and magazines to just about any type of novel. I love mysteries, action thrillers.
Are you a Huskers football fan? Absolutely. I’m sitting right now in red with my Huskers pin on.
The CIO’s office lists a specific vision, mission and core values. Why articulate those in such a detailed manner? We had a networking area, we had a computing area, we had an area for IT policy. And the governor asked me as the new CIO [in 2005] to bring those areas and the operational area into one entity. So we felt very strongly that we’re bringing these groups of employees together who had a “been there, done that” mentality, and we wanted it to be very specific so people could see what we were shooting at rather than it be a pie-in-the-sky, this-too-shall-pass kind of thing. We felt we needed to actually say not only what we’re going to do, but “Here are some specific things, and people will be held accountable for these.” It was important for us that people understood we weren’t just putting words out there. We were putting words out there for people to operate by.
Your mission statement talks about “providing premier IT leadership, policy and operations.” How do you define and measure “premier IT leadership”? That our customers, our client agencies, have no reason to ask anyone else to provide IT services. We measure that by asking customers, and making sure we’re not hearing, “You’re not doing this for me. I have to go somewhere else.”
Has anyone said that they want to hire an outside IT provider? A couple of times we’ve had people come in and say that to us, and sometimes it makes sense. But the norm is that when they say that, we find ways to fix the issue and we retain them as a customer.
What are the biggest challenges this year? We’re all looking to do more with less. But we have very large cooperative IT projects that have been started over the past two years that we needed to complete or were well on our way to completing irrespective of the budget issues. We didn’t want to say, “The budget wouldn’t let us complete the projects.” And we had to address the budget issues at the agencies. Some agencies were looking at programs that would be cut, and we had to look at how to provide those programs more efficiently using technology.
What is your strategy to deal with that challenge? We’re big believers in project management. Let’s sit back and look at what milestones we have left, what do we have going on that would give us pushback, what are our barriers and risks, and actually have a brainstorming session where we say no idea is a stupid idea — throw it out there and we can decide if it’s something we can use. It’s amazing how creative people can get when you ask for their input and say, “Let’s all work on this together.”
What do you see as the biggest challenge of the next decade? One is going to be our retiring workforce. We have a lot of legacy systems that have people who can do the upgrades and maintenance, but those people are going to be retiring. We’re going to have to really deal with modernization, and we’re going to have to deal with how we support systems if we can’t get them modernized.
How will you handle the anticipated retirements? We’re trying to bring people in and pair them with people who have dealt with our legacy systems and see if we can develop the mentoring that can cross over that retirement period. We know that at some time we have to get those legacy systems replaced. But we have bought ourselves some time through the mentoring process, and we’re trying to work with the agencies to help them understand that the system you developed in 1972 really needs a refresh.
Gov. Dave Heineman praised you for both your practicality and your creativity. How do you balance those? I think it’s a situation where you’ve got to let people bring you ideas, to come up with new and exciting ways to do things. But you then need to back them up and look at that idea and ask, “How do we afford it, how do we make sure it’s something palatable to our clients, and how do we move very slowly into those things and not leave behind the people who might not adopt the new technology?”
Government Technology magazine once named you one of the five most influential women CIOs. How do you see yourself as an influencer? I believe that a lot of [the agencies] have looked at our organization and the changes we made and said, “They really are making a difference in how we deploy technology in the state of Nebraska.” So they come to us and to me and say, “I’ve got this idea,” and I’m able to influence how we deploy it. And I have a talent apparently in getting people into a room and able to talk to each other.
— Interview by Computerworld contributing writer Mary K. Pratt (marykpratt@verizon.net)
