Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 05

October/November 2018 // Canadian Government Executive / 9 GOVERNMENT World class service providers and SIs have the resources and experience to perform this work which by comparison no public service can match. This is NOT a failing of governments. Governments simply are not exposed to the repetitive experiences that build a sustainable competency in per- forming work of the complexity and scale that world class providers sustain. Service providers and SIs do this for a living -- gov- ernments do not. Do-It-Yourself Risk: “Can I have a cup of Cloud with a side of Agile” The risk I am describing applies when the Government attempts roles it does not have the experience or resources to perform, particularly at significant scale or complex- ity, e.g., create or develop solutions, inte- grate systems, transform environments or provide services. This is compounded by decentralized management and random approaches. By example, imagine IT as buildings. Do you really want a city built where every building developer and main- tainer is using their own building code or no code at all? Where GC organizations own their own application architecture, development and maintenance, this is exactly what is happening. Under poor implementations of ‘Agile,’ each floor of a building would be built on a trial and error basis. Frameworks like ‘Agile andWaterfall’ are neither good nor bad, however their implementations can range from great to catastrophic. Certainly, the ‘Agile’ approach is not a panacea for all ills. World class providers are held to best practices with certified processes in de- velopment, testing and management, e.g., CMMI Institute -- usually at Levels 3-5. These practices and certifications have been in use for several decades; however, I am not aware of any GC organizations achieving such certification. In this day of robust solutions and ser- vices, GC should not engage in its own de- velopment efforts. (In software parlance, “why would you ever try to write a line of code unless you absolutely had to?”) Major software firms spend billions of dollars on software development and testing. The Government simply cannot, and should not, compete with this robust industry -- the risks and expense are not justifiable. Experienced CIOs and CTOs of large en- terprises know full well the risks of doing their own development, to the extent they often have policies stating in-house devel- opment will be the course of last resort. “Measure twice, cut once” is an old ad- age, and nothing in the 21st century has changed its applicability. Experienced solution providers know one of the real challenges is to get requirements correct before providing a solution. Unfortunately, there is a predilection up through the most senior levels to chase “shiny objects” and My observation is people often take the view, “no one else can do a project better than we can do it ourselves,” which is often false. The Government of Canada (GC) needs to recognize its propensity to take on significant risk.