From Government Online to Service Transformation

by Paul Crookall

WHAT STARTED AS A BOLD POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT IN 1999 – TO BE KNOWN AROUND THE WORLD BY 2004 AS THE GOVERNMENT MOST CONNECTED TO ITS CITIZENS THROUGH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERNET – IS MATURING INTO SERVICE TRANSFORMATION.

The McKinsey Quarterly (July 22, 2004 on-line) reports that many private-sector CEOs are disappointed that IT hasn’t done more to improve performance. According to McKinsey, effective CIOs are those who go beyond their traditional IT role to work hand-in-hand with business-unit leaders. These CIOs delegate more of their operational duties so that they can focus on helping business leaders identify and use technologies that will help them achieve their business objectives. The same principles apply in government where Canada is making a name for itself in using technology to transform both the delivery of government services and the government operations that provide those services.

Accenture’s May 2004 report on e-government in 22 countries found Canada is continuing to blaze the trail for the fourth year in a row and is even increasing its lead on its rivals. According to Accenture, “Canada’s focus on self-examination and its relentless pursuit of user feedback have allowed it to build what is clearly one of the world-leading customer-focused government online programs.”

Editor Paul Crookall interviewed Helen McDonald, the federal government’s acting Chief
Information Officer and Elise Boisjoly, Director General, Government On-Line Branch,
Industry Canada. At Industry Canada, McDonald guided the development of the Canadian cryptography policy and the development of privacy legislation for the private sector. She also shaped the department’s online strategy and set up governance mechanisms to guide its implementation. McDonald joined Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for putting key federal information and transactional services on-line by 2005. In May, with the departure of CIO Michelle d’Auray, McDonald was appointed as interim CIO.


HELEN MCDONALD
Canada has made tremendous progress with our Government On-Line (GOL) initiative. The 130 most commonly used services are now available online, at least to some extent, and
Canadians like the service provided. They report that online services are more accessible, better and more responsive, and that their confidence and trust in transacting online is increasing.

Two operating principles have guided our GOL initiative from the beginning. The first is that services must be organized around the needs and expectations of citizens and businesses. Canada is known as one of the countries that consults its citizens most frequently on service delivery preferences and experiences.

Some 10,000 clients in Canada and abroad participate in online surveys, focus groups and other feedback mechanisms. Topics range from the key services they want to see delivered online to issues such as privacy and security.

The second is that we must approach GOL from the perspective of the entire government and involve collaboration across departments, agencies and even jurisdictions. The Government of Canada is increasingly moving to common approaches and processes to ensure interoperability and to increase efficiencies.

Our commitment to keeping our finger on the pulse of Canadians’ changing needs and expectations is leading us from GOL to service transformation.

We have asked citizens and businesses what they want and they have told us. They want multi-channel service with channel integration and client relationship management. They want the ability to conduct all transactions through a single window and with a single account. They want the government to reuse the information it already has to trigger program benefits. They want reduced fraud. They want simplified and consistent program rules and outcomes. They want seamless inter-jurisdictional service. And they want more transparency about the operations of government and the chance to provide their views on programs and policies.

Delivering what citizens and businesses want will require a strong client focus to rethink and integrate services, and an enterprise-wide approach to rationalize how the government delivers service. Transforming services and programs requires us to set a common service vision for the Government of Canada – and we have been working with departments to set such a vision for individual Canadians, small businesses and international clients. Canadians want to be able to use multiple channels to interact with government, and that means client relationships must be managed across channels. Government must also set and communicate client service targets and performance standards, measure success in achieving these results, and use this feedback to improve service delivery.

But transformation will also mean that we take advantage of common business processes, technologies and architectures, and work out how we could be more cost-effective through an enterprise management approach to our investments and infrastructures.

To be able to integrate the actual work that is done behind the scenes to provide services to these clients, the government is elaborating an enterprise architecture program, and some of the early harvest for mapping out all the services governments individually and collectively provide to a common clientele will be launched at GTEC. Once these services and processes are mapped for a common client, using a common language and toolkit, we are in a better position to determine what needs to be fixed – where we can streamline or integrate according to common functions or types of programs. This will mean better service for Canadians and more cost-effective government.

The government is also conducting an examination of the infrastructure that now exists to deliver service across the federal government – call centres and in-person access centres in particular. For the most part, these were built by individual departments and agencies as they were needed. But we want to see if we can better use this infrastructure or achieve better value for money by looking at our assets from the perspective of the government as a whole to see what could be shared.

In terms of IT projects, involvement by the business owner, the general manager, is essential to success. Initiatives must be driven by a clear business case that not only demonstrates, through solid research, a return on investment, but also presents a clear plan for achieving the intended outcome and harvesting the benefits.

Putting services online should not be just about automating them. The benefits come from rethinking the processes that provide the services and determining how to dramatically improve effectiveness and efficiency for the government and client. Then you start figuring out the technology solution. But you do the rethinking first.

So spend the time thinking through the original value proposition. Make that the best it can possibly be. Do not include redundant, misleading, non-essential or out of date requirements.
The business owner needs to stay engaged – they shouldn’t abdicate to the IT person – in that case they cease to be the “business owner.” They own the underlying policies, program design, the transformation strategy and benefits harvesting. Someone has to be accountable for all the risks. If the risk is that the new service won’t be used enough to generate the expected benefits, someone has to own that risk, and manage that risk. The business owner must continue to have a big stake in the success of the project to ensure it is successful and to harvest the benefits, since that is where they can be realized.

Too often we look at these big projects as if they were simply a technology project. They aren’t. They are a business project. And if they are big, that usually means that a significant amount of change management needs to happen – that is not a technology issue, but something the business owner must manage.

Business owners also need to look at their own program from an enterprise-wise approach. That is not an easy thing to do – it means getting over the “turf ” issue and looking at the program from the perspective of the department, of the federal government, and even from the inter-jurisdictional perspective.

The question everyone should ask is whether there is a common client that would be better served if we acted together. Do I need the same information as someone else and would it make sense to reuse this information? Is there a common business process for which a common solution can be found? A more holistic approach will enable the government to both maximize the benefits of our IT spending and improve the level of service we provide to our clients.

That being said, we continue to make progress in horizontal projects, including inter-jurisdictional projects. Joint councils representing service delivery and Chief Information Officers are working on shared projects such as a common approach to authentication of clients, a research and benchmarking institute and a single site for determining all licences that are needed to start a business.

Over the next year or two we can look forward to a coherent service vision and strategy for the Government of Canada. This will be presented to Ministers this fiscal year. Ministerial guidance will be sought on the overall direction for service transformation and options for the renewal of the service face of government. The service vision and strategy will be used to align and drive transformation and integration activities across the federal government.

The CIO will continue working with Public Works and Government Services and line departments on strategies to accelerate the shift to self-service. A new service policy will be developed to set strategic directions for the continued service improvement post 2005, including performance measures.

Canadians have told us the kind of service they want from the government and we are working hard to deliver on those expectations. GOL has encouraged departments and agencies to fundamentally rethink how they manage information and services. As a result, there is now willingness across government to restructure systems and processes and that willingness is going to enable us to transform government to meet the changing needs and expectations of the Canadian public.


ELISE BOISJOLY
The GOL story is not just an IT story, it is part of our social and economic agenda. Through the Connecting Canadians agenda, the government committed to make Canada the most connected country in the world, linking all Canadians to the internet to promote productivity in the knowledge-based economy. In support of that agenda, the government had to become a model user and a driver through its GOL and eGovernment initiatives.

We’ve been pretty successful. Accenture’s international study has ranked us first four years in a row – because of our breadth (130 services), our depth (not just info, but being able to do a process from end to end), and our client-centred management (understanding and responding to clients through extensive research and consultation).

What we see now is that increased exposure to the Internet has raised Canadians’ expectations of and demands on government. Government must transform the way it interacts with Canadians and business to meet the increased demands efficiently and maintain performance and satisfaction ratings for government services.

Service transformation is an ongoing journey, not a onetime project. Canadians want services that meet and are organized around their needs and they couldn’t care less about which part of government is providing the service. They want to see governments transform their organizational “silos” approach into an integrated multi-channel, multi-service network operating across programs, departments and jurisdictions. Our objectives are:
1.     better services for clients – increased access to services, increased satisfaction, differentiated services to meet differential needs.
2.     program effectiveness – programs accomplishing their goals, results for citizens.
3.     efficiency – cost savings, cost avoidance, process excellence and better asset utilization. As we achieve efficiencies, we can reallocate funds to other areas of need.
4.     program integrity and transparency of programs – increasing trust in government.

Service transformation is not just putting your service online and making it more accessible – it is rethinking your service, from a client’s perspective, across partners and levels, across channels, to be responsive. You need to better integrate your back office. As you are rethinking, you need to look at the business process to see what is no longer needed, and can be dropped.

One example of the great cooperation across jurisdictions, and finding ways to work through exchange of service, memorandums of understanding, and cross-funding without having to change the constitutional division of powers has been the Canada Business Service Centres (CBSC). They have been operating for ten years and have put in place various collaborative arrangements across the country to provide seamless access to federal, provincial and territorial government services to business. For example, in Manitoba, in the same building, you have provincial and federal employees. The client can’t tell one from the other. The HR manager has to deal with two unions and collective agreements. They have succeeded in making conditions as similar as possible. The CBSC service just won a UN award for excellence.

We can’t forget about citizens who are not online, we cannot have just one channel. But the online channel is often the most cost-efficient to government and satisfactory to clients. Age, income, location, literacy levels are all factors contributing to the digital divide and we need to ensure all citizens have access to government services.

Successful service transformation ventures share three management practices:
1.     a clear business case driven by the business owner, not the IT owners: It responds to a business need and focuses on the functionalities more than the technology. That allows the providers to find the best way to meet the need.
2.     project governance: The owners are involved throughout the process, they don’t step back. There is a governing body, lines of accountability are known. Governance includes “gating” – clear steps and decision points where a go/no go decision is made. Business managers and IT managers need to sit at the table together and make decisions collectively.
3.     project management: People often don’t realize how important that is. What are the risks, especially in the areas of privacy, technology and procurement? Who owns and manages those risks?

IT projects are risky. The more you want to transform a process, the more you want to push the envelope, the more risky they are. Risk management, mitigating risk, putting in the right gates, are all important. General managers who are concerned about their technology capacity, who don’t have a good handle on IT, should pay attention to the three key management tools. Get involved, become more technology-astute. It has become a core capacity to have a basic understanding of technology and what it can do for you.

Look at best practices, learn from others, study the lessons learned and get into a community of practice. And if it is failing, fix it or close it down. Sometimes we are afraid to say “Whoa, that’s it.”

Three challenges need attention if we are to be successful:
1.     Greater online take up means lower costs per transaction. We promote usage several ways: supporting the development of skills – the student connection puts students into small businesses to help them get e-savvy; broadband and satellite puts connectivity to remote communities; incentives – make it cheaper to incorporate on line, transfer some of the savings to the user; marketing to increase awareness; improved user-friendly interfaces.
2.     Canadians are quite protective of their privacy. They don’t want departments to share data, but if it improves service, they may be willing to consent.
3.     Transactions need to be secure, and users need to trust their information won’t be misused.

Canada has a unique opportunity to be a leader in the knowledge economy, to be known around the world as a leader in e-learning, e-business and e-government. Transforming government will require a change in the culture of government: moving from our departmental approach to a whole of government approach where horizontality, governance and accountability will be aligned.