Government technology and Government Resource Planning (GRP) news from last week, found by the FreeBalance Strategy & Innovation Group.
TOP DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TRENDS IN GOVERNMENT: Daniel Newman in Futurum described the top GovTech trends of IoT connected cities, automation, security and protection, mobility, analytics and digital platforms. Newman suggested that “governments have begun to embrace technology.”
IT BOONDOGGLES IN THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA: It seems that a week doesn’t go by without a revelation about large IT projects in the Government of Canada. My sense is that the press has begun dogged investigations after the high profile problems of the Phoenix pay system and shared services e-mail. The latest, from Dean Beeby of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is about the Passport Program Modernization Initiative, that is “at least $75 million over budget and well behind schedule.” The Government of Canada implementation of PeopleSoft payroll, code-named “Phoenix”, was also in the news with union demands for hiring more IT staff to fix the problem, and public service protests, reported by Judy Trinh and Stephanie Kinsella of the CBC.
OVER-OPTIMISTIC IT PROJECTS: Government IT projects often have problems. This is somewhat the nature of complex IT projects everywhere. For example, an analysis by John Belden of UpperEdge about the “SAP Optimism Death Star”, suggested that “initial optimism kills projects. The cognitive bias toward optimistic planning and budgeting is fueled by multiple sources.” That’s not to say that ERP systems are risk-free after implementation, as Matt Fisher pointed out in Global Manufacturing about a certain vendor’s “new pursuit to monetise” current customers.
