Teams, millenials and a virtual foreign service - FedCloud - The Future of federal work

As part of thinking through the pieces of one of the projects I am working on (described at bottom), I recently read a paper from Deloitte, Fed Cloud: The future of federal work. In the paper, Deloitte is proposing that the federal government set up three types of government bodies: thin agencies (which are much smaller than today's agencies) have employees that fall into two categories, mission specialists and front line workers; shared services, so that agencies can share back-office support; and thirdly, a problem and project focused mass of individuals called Fed Cloud. Because the FedCloud is the most interesting part, I will pull in some of the papers text on it:

"Fed Cloud: 'a new model for government based on team collaboration, whereby workforce resources can be surged to provide services to Federal agencies on-demand;" 

(essentially a mass of individuals that you move around project to project as the demand changes, forming teams, dismantling teams, etc.)

"the Fed Cloud could become a new pillar of the federal government, comprising permanent employees who undertake a wide variety of creative, problem-focused work. As needed, a Fed Cloud model also can take advantage of the efforts of those outside the federal government, including private citizens looking for extra part-time work, full-time contractors and individual consultants. 

Cloud workers would vary in background and expertise, but would exhibit traits of 'free agent' workers - self-sufficient, self-motivating employees who exhibit strong loyalty to teams, colleagues and clients."

I agree with them that there is a lot of potential, but I would also like to share several pieces that I felt were missing.

• The teams within the Fed Cloud would be highly transient - teams would be short-lived as projects don't last very long and resources are reallocated to other projects. This does take advantage of individuals need for change, but I question the lack of deep relationships within teams that are lost as individuals shift from project to project often, rather than working with each other over a long-period of time.
• Similar to this, they also don't touch on the need to ensure that teams have the ability to go through their regular form-norm-storm-adjourn cycle. In many cases we will need real teams because of the type of work we need from these groups (as compared to much more narrowly focused 'working-groups'). I wonder what length of time will be needed for this team forming process to occur, and whether the time lost associated with this forming process, occurring again and again as projects change, will be a significant loss in productivity.
• They over emphasized the value that millenials put on the ability to change roles often, versus the value they put on job security and compensation. A millenials desire to change roles often will still be constrained by the need for job security and compensation, and this will need to be taken into account. The nature of many millenials (which I am one) to need to be transient was taken as an assumed fact, and a strong one at that, and I am not sure this is a good design assumption.
• My simple point is: millenials prioritize transiency now, but not to such a degree that job security and compensation don't matter. I also speculate on whether there will actually be a pendulum swing back towards prioritizing job security and compensation, as millenials enter their mid-late thirties and if they haven't already, start families.

I am very interested in the potential of a Fed Cloud sort of structure, or mode of operating, and I only share the two points above to add thinking to this. Our government institutions need to evolve to meet the new demands, and we are only at the early stages this evolution - lots of innovation and experimentation in this space is needed. Which is exactly why I was excited to see that they highlight the Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) that the US State Department currently leads.

The VSFS is a program where US based students volunteer over their academic year. They get the opportunity to engage with US Embassies and other missions abroad, while the foreign offices get great minds and skills to work with them on projects. These are also lower cost than typical in-country internships, which require travel, office space, and accommodations. There are currently two types of engagement in this program, the first are placements where a participant is connected directly with a foreign office and volunteers for 5-10 hours a week over a 8 month period; the second is micro-tasking, where foreign officers put small projects (less than four hours work required) in an online system where pre-screened and qualified students are signed up. The students then execute on these activities within their busy schedules. 

The VSFS program gives a great opportunity to learn and test these methods in a complex federal government institution, so that we evolve towards a Fed Cloud type model of government. 

One of the projects I am trying to push forward is the replication of the VSFS program for Canada's foreign offices. Trialing this in Canada, while learning through the State Departments program, will help us get closer to a more nimble, more effective government. Of course, there is a long ways to go, and in addition to the value in experimenting and learning, this program is also great in and of itself. As I mentioned, it gives students the opportunity to contribute to foreign missions and provides cost-effective resources, new ideas, and a great talent pipeline to our foreign affairs institutions.

The paper can be found here: http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/Federal/us_fed_The_Future_of_Federal_Work_092011.pdf