“Shadow IT” is one of those terms that you hear tossed around by government IT executives on a regular basis. It’s an anxiety-ridden phrase filled with fear and insecurities. Public servants using shadow IT isn’t the actual problem, though – instead, it’s a symptom that people aren’t being equipped with the tools they need to work effectively. I think we should embrace shadow IT instead of trying to squash it. Here are some fun re-branding efforts to help with that.| sboots.ca
Monday is election day! Back in December 2019, I wrote a set of suggestions for the next GC Chief Information Officer. In the same tradition, here are some suggestions for the next Minister of Digital Government. Digital government work – and public service reform, which is what it ultimately is – isn’t really a newsworthy election topic. It’s near and dear to my heart, though, and I’d love to see more conversations about it from public servants, politicians, and the public alike. W...| sboots.ca
Delivering good services to the public, in the internet era, depends on designing and developing good software. Although there are about 17,000 IT professionals in the Canadian government (and an estimated 60,000 contractors and consultants), there are very few senior developers within the public service. Here are a few reasons why.| sboots.ca
I read a great post this week from Robin Rendle, about design systems and about the mismatch between how people describe their work publicly and how it’s really going on the inside: “My hunch is this: folks can’t talk about real design systems problems because it will show their company as being dysfunctional and broken in some way. But hiding those mistakes and shortcomings by glossing over everything doesn’t just make it harder for us personally, it hinders progress within the field...| sboots.ca
When I rejoined the federal government in 2016, our team’s desks were around the corner from a large team working on a financial management transformation project – the walls of their area covered in mesmerizing, plotter-printed posters. This was my first introduction to enterprise architecture. If you haven’t worked in government IT, it can be hard to describe, but if you’ve seen business capability models, target state architectures, TOGAF frameworks, or architecture review committe...| sboots.ca
It’s April, so like most Canadians, I spent a lot of time logging in to the Canada Revenue Agency and other government websites. The CRA’s login system is better than most of the 60 or so separate login systems used by federal government departments, but it’s still not very user-friendly. Fortunately, there’s a commitment to improve this – “a common and secure approach for a trusted digital identity platform” – in the most recent mandate letter for the President of the Treasu...| sboots.ca
In early 2022, the President of Shared Services Canada (SSC) announced that he was retiring. In what has accidentally become a tradition, below are some suggestions for the next president to take on the role: start moving to zero trust networking and away from perimeter defence; enable the rapid, secure adoption of third-party software-as-a-service tools at scale; and incrementally make SSC services optional instead of mandatory.| sboots.ca
If you’re working on IT or service delivery projects in public sector organizations, I have one very specific rule for you to follow: avoid vendor lock-in. To do that, you should own your data, own your front-end interfaces, own your software source code, and avoid long-term contracts. This post dives into why vendor lock-in is a problem, and how those strategies can help prevent it.| sboots.ca
Lee Berthiaume from the Canadian Press wrote a fascinating article last week, based on an internal Department of National Defence report on IT support. The report describes DND’s IT processes and systems as “out-of-date and poorly supported”, and blamed “onerous levels of oversight”. This is a persistent problem across federal government departments.| sboots.ca
One of the most persistent myths in Canadian government IT is that storing your data in Canada protects it against eavesdropping or interception by foreign governments. If someone on your government team has asked to use a new online tool and your reaction is, “no, you can’t, because it’s hosted in the United States,” this article is for you.| sboots.ca
One of the long-held norms of government IT is the perceived benefit of “commercial, off the shelf” software solutions. In government environments, being able to buy ready-to-go software products to meet government IT needs is appealing. In many cases, though, extensive customization requirements means that COTS purchases don’t live up to their promise. They’re marketed as a car and they turn out to be boxes of car parts: lots of time-consuming assembly required. Here’s a rule of th...| sboots.ca