Delaware’s CIO isn’t giving up on his data analytics vision

In his four years as Delaware’s chief information officer, James Collins says he’s learned several key lessons about how to use data analytics to transform government. It starts, he says in a video interview with StateScoop, with anticipating the challenges ahead.

“[I need to be] anticipating that question that didn’t go how you thought it was going to go,” Collins says.

Implementing data analytics also sometimes requires difficult conversations with stakeholders, Collins says, and he’s found a governance framework is valuable to inform those conversations.

“We’re working with our legal staff to put together a governance framework so that we can bring in the different data sets and figure out what can be combined, what needs to be masked, what needs to be anonymized,” Collins says.

While establishing that structure can sometimes feel slow, Collins says it’s essential and worth the time it takes to develop.

“I’m considering it progress, because I was kind of stymied there for a little while,” Collins says. “I’ve had this big vision and it smacked into reality, and now we’re dealing with reality, but we’re still really focused on helping the whole enterprise mature as it relates to data analytics.”

Collins on his team’s recent accomplishments:

Collins on diversity in the workforce:

Collins on open data:

Collins on the technologies that excite him most:

These videos were produced by StateScoop at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers’ annual conference in San Diego, California, in October 2018.