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OCTO + ROWE = Real Change

Oct 14, 2010 » by Cali & Jody

We are SO EXCITED to announce the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer has signed on to go ROWE. Their 550 employees will become the first agency in our nation’s Capitol government system to be a Results-Only Work Environment. We congratulate this courageous and forward-thinking decision to change the game.

Following is an interview with Bryan Sivak, Washington, D.C.’s Chief Technology Officer. He discusses why he believes ROWE is the way to go.

An excerpt:

“As long as you can define specific deliverables for employees you can implement a ROWE. My perception right now is that one of the most critical components to making this work is for managers to accurately define specific deliverables for their employees. This is easier for some employees than others. Programming tasks can be broken up into units of work, and projects can be measured on a cost and time basis. But there will always be a way to measure an employee’s output. If not, I challenge the manager to determine whether or not the employee is really necessary.”

You can read the whole story here: Transforming the Workplace

Oh wait, it gets even better…

As noted by Gadi Dechter, Associate Director of Government Reform, “Sivak has agreed to let CAP’s Doing What Works project attend internal meetings and planning sessions as his 550-person agency tries by January 2011 to become the first government department in the country of its size to “Go ROWE.”

Check out what an OCTO employee had to say upon hearing about ROWE for the first time:

“I remember when Bryan first talked about this in my office,” says Shirley Kwan-Hui, a member of the agency’s TechStat team. “I looked at him, shocked. You’re serious? I can go home, pick up my child, and log back into work later? That whole weekend I did not sleep. I was just so happy.”

Kwan-Hui, in a halting voice, compares ROWE to her 10 years of organizing workers in New York City’s Chinatown sweatshops. “I have the passion for changing lives of people, especially the way they work.”

Please read about the beginning stages of OCTO’s ROWE migration here: Going ROWE: Hopes and Fears

More to come. More to be excited about. More ROWE!

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  • C. A. Hurst

    Hey ROWE Team!

    What a great article! Go Rowe!

    • Cali

      If adrenaline could be bottled and sold, you could fill about 5 million gallon jugs with what we have running through our systems right now! We thought 2010 was going to a big year…2011 is going to be HUGE.

  • Concerned Employee

    Good job! ROWE is growing, and growing fast!

    • Cali

      Yes it is – and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! :)

  • KellyK

    Fantastic!

  • PersephoneK

    This is amazing news! Congratulations to the ROWE team. Its amazing how once something that works catches on, its starts to spread like wildfire. Before you know it, non-ROWE organizations will be forced to consider whether the status-quo is good enough for them, or if they want to concern themselves with outcomes.

    Cali… as always you’ve peeked my curiosity with your crypticness… LOL! Its always so hard to wait to see what you all have up your sleeves!

    • Cali

      Oh, Persephone – we love to keep you in suspense. You know that by now! The wildfire is definitely spreading. Public sector, private sector, other countries, you name it. Here’s another one to pique your curiosity – ROWE in Poland…we’re talking with them next week and they want to move quickly. Hmmmm…stay tuned! :)

  • Jenn

    OUTSTANDING! EXICITING! DC government always seems to be bashed in the local news, but I think they just jumped light years ahead of everybody!

    Just curious, will they be able to extrapolate the savings in commuting costs to DDOT/VDOT/MDOT and Metro/MARC/VRE?

    • Cali

      Basically, they said “Enough with the ‘we’re flexible’ line. Give us the real deal.” And to that, we said “OKAY!” :) Bryan Sivak, their CTO, is courageous, forward-thinking, and not afraid to be a pioneer…everything we look for in a leader of the ROWE movement. We’ll have to check on the savings in commuting costs…stay tuned for more on that…