Outdated information technology systems are the biggest obstacle to improving government performance, White House chief performance officer Jeffery Zients said on Monday.

Zients has spent the first 100 days of his tenure on a "listening tour" at federal agencies. He presented some of his findings this morning at the annual American Society for Public Administration conference in Washington. He said he also heard many complaints about other government management problems: the broken hiring process, poor contract oversight, redundant programs.

But he reserved the bulk of his criticism for the government's troubled technology efforts.

"IT is the largest gap that I've seen in my first hundred days," Zients said. "IT has been the major driver of the productivity gains and the service quality improvements in the private sector over the last decade. And from what I've seen, the government has missed out."

Zients promised to fix the IT development process — "from spec development to procurement to project management" — but didn't elaborate on his plans.

Zients said he was encouraged by the response to the Office of Management and Budget's spring budget guidance, which asked agencies to identify their most pressing management priorities.

"I'm really excited by what's happening here. The goal-setting conversations are engaged at the right levels," he said. "Secretaries and deputy secretaries are fully plugged in."

Zients also encouraged agencies to turn to their employees for ideas. Some agencies are already doing just that: The Office of Management and Budget, for example, launched a contest to solicit ideas on cost savings. And the Veterans Affairs Department asked its employees to contribute ideas on clearing the massive backlog of disability claims. Zients said employees submitted more than 3,000 ideas; the department is close to choosing several ideas, which will be funded and implemented.

"These types of idea centers are popping up across government," Zients said. "These are incredible tools for increasing engagement and spurring innovation."

OMB also recently asked agencies to identify a pilot program that's too reliant on contracting, Zients said. Agencies will be asked to study the program and decide whether the program needs to be insourced.

"A lot of times these analyses have been done answer-first … there's a desire to outsource or insource, so you start with the answer and work backwards from there," he said. "We're trying to avoid that."

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