Canadian Government Executive - Volume 25 - Issue 02

8 / Canadian Government Executive // April/May 2019 DIGITAL GOVERNMENT Reducing Risk in the Government of Canada’s By John A. Glowacki Jr. Digitization and IT thru Partnership Don’t Confuse Enthusiasm for Capability A s I’ve mentioned in previ- ous articles, the Government needs to move away from per- forming digitization and IT roles and projects where it is not well equipped to do so, as the Govern- ment continues to incur risk. The Govern- ment cannot compete with the $3 trillion IT industry, which is not constrained by Government hiring processes or official language requirements and can incentiv- ize appropriate levels of staff and manage- ment in a timely manner as needed. Again, “why would you ever try to write a line of code unless you absolutely had to?” This sentiment could be extended to the system integrator role. To again use the construc- tion analogy, the Government does not maintain a capacity of a major construction company for its needs: the Government hires it. Government organizations do not maintain IT development qualifications as industry partners do (e.g., CMMI Institute, typically levels 3-5). However, the Govern- ment does maintain the capacity to govern and manage the execution of the contract- ed work by qualified construction firms. Make no mistake; this is directly analogous to IT systems. Acting as the developer or systems integrator is fraught with risk and can lead, at the least, to excessive delays and cost or, at worst, to Phoenix Pay types of crises. The Government is best able to run and maintain such buildings and systems once they are constructed or otherwise provid- ed. Shared Services Canada (SSC) should continue to build its capacity as the center of this expertise, a) as the Government’s systems integrator, and b) in managing complex projects for the Government, and not have it distributed across several