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OMES highlighted in new book: One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams

Monday, June 26, 2017

Strategies employed by the Office of Management and Enterprise Services to unify the state’s information technology under one umbrella are highlighted in an important new book on organizational leadership, One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams, by bestselling author Chris Fussell.

One Mission is a follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World authored by Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Fussell. In Team of Teams, McChrystal and Fussell articulate concepts used by the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and Afghanistan to create a more adaptable and effective team.

One Mission presents OMES Information Services as a case study in how to successfully apply these concepts to one of the most complex projects in state history: the State of Oklahoma’s unification of IT assets.

“Our inclusion in this important book is an honor,” said Secretary of Finance, Administration and Information Technology Preston L. Doerflinger, who is the director of OMES. “Our experience shows that it’s possible to rethink government and employ forward-thinking, non-bureaucratic concepts to how we do business. Such thinking and tactics allow OMES to bring more value to our partner agencies and to Oklahoma taxpayers.” 

The Information Technology Consolidation and Coordination Act of 2011 charged OMES with increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the state’s technology services. Over the past six years, OMES has reduced redundancies, made large strides toward unifying technology and has completed unification of more than 100 mandated and voluntary agencies at a currently estimated reduced spending and projected savings of about $283 million.

A critical tool employed by OMES Information Services from Team of Teams is the use of a daily video teleconference accessible across the entire organization. Typically running 20-40 minutes, the daily call focuses on current issues, what the organization needs to accomplish before the next touch point and what new intelligence has been uncovered since the last touch point. It is an effective means to focus the state’s IT resources on specific outcomes and empower team members to achieve desirable results as quickly as possible. This tool has allowed OMES to become more efficient and pass cost savings back to the agencies we serve while maintaining, and in many cases improving, service levels.

“Using the tools from Team of Teams has helped us refocus and better coordinate our business,” said Oklahoma Chief Information Officer Bo Reese, who leads OMES Information Services. “By uniting our people around one vision, we increase our performance and can better serve our partner agencies.”


Media Contact

MICHAEL BAKER
Director of Public Affairs
(405) 522-4265 | [email protected]

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