Agile: How We’re Working Differently

By Alex Benay, Chief Information Officer of Canada

Things are moving quickly with everyone here in the NextGen team, and we’re making good progress in exploring options for a new HR and Pay solution for the Government of Canada.

In August, we officially launched our procurement process and notified vendors of our new agile approach. Then, on September 19, we held a very successful Industry Day, which had 100 vendors in attendance, either in person or online through WebEx. Working collaboratively, we used their insights to refine our business requirements. Then on October 1, we launched Gate One of the agile procurement process, which closed on November 13. Most recently, we’ve launched Gate Two of this process, which will close on February 4, 2019.

There’s been a lot of buzz around town about the new way the government is doing large-scale Information Technology projects. The truth is agile is not a new approach, but it is new to government. That’s why the NextGen team is working with organizations that have undergone similar large-scale transformations and with industry to adapt their best practices.

We have met, for example, with the governments of California and Alberta, both of which have been watching us from afar, and have indicated we’re on the right track. While this is good news, we know there is a lot of work ahead.

Now, I’m often reminded that many people, mainly in government circles, don’t really know what “agile” means, or understand the flexibility and pace needed to support it. So, let me give you a glimpse of how it works.

Speaking as someone who used to do business with government, I can tell you that its typical procurement process is long and arduous. What’s more, there’s limited communication between vendors and the government, and when we do interact, it’s for one part of a project at a time. This can be frustrating to companies eager to enter into a joint partnership with government, and get their solutions out the door.

But with an agile approach, the project scope is always flexible and open to iteration; it’s not set in stone from the beginning. In this way, mistakes and course corrections can be made during development, and the end result is a better product. Not only that, but the lessons learned can be applied immediately to any large IT project we have in the works.

It can also happen that when the scope of the project is locked in from the beginning, the product we end up getting is obsolete by the time we get it. For example, the Phoenix pay-modernization project started about 10 years ago, but when finally launched, it didn’t serve the needs of employees in our current digital world. Today, we’re used to having information at our fingertips, when and where we need it on smart phones and tablets.

Another important part of the agile approach is challenging the culture of government to get out of its comfort zone, for example, by sharing draft documents in advance and working in an open environment that fosters collaboration.

Finally, let me underscore our focus on users’ needs. Our team is working to put users at the heart of our process. We’ve already had a number of sessions to identify and validate the HR business requirements we’ll need. This engagement will continue with organizations, departments, senior officials, communities of specialists, unions, and project partners to ensure we’re integrating their feedback for vendors. Because agile is about users being our partners, and right from the start, having a say in what works and what doesn’t work.

You can see that through this approach, we’re putting more people than ever under the same tent and offering the space necessary to collaborate and succeed.

That’s why we need your feedback!

We’re listening on social media through our hashtag #NextGenHRPay and will continue to hear from current and former employees by email. Please keep your messages coming, because we read every single one of them.