Knowing When, Where and How to Modernize

An interview with LeAnn Oliver, Director of Corporate Business Systems, U.S. Department of Energy’s Offices of the CFO

A leadership expert once said, “Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.” The principle holds true for public and private entities alike: At times, they all suffer from excessive bureaucracy and other challenges. Modernization can be a game-changer for both sectors, but in government, it can be uniquely difficult.

Turning a project from idea to reality requires identifying and planning for likely obstacles, said LeAnn Oliver with the U.S. Department of Energy. For instance, people are naturally resistant to change. “It’s work above and beyond what your normal status quo work is, which you have to keep doing, too,” she said. Modernization funding is almost always a concern, especially for longer-term projects. And the new technology has to work, which is a complicated and expensive endeavor when agencies have many network-connected devices.

For example, a system upgrade can slow employees’ computers if they’re dated and need reconfiguring and budget constraints have prevented an agency from replacing older equipment. “When you have hundreds of thousands of endpoints in your system,” Oliver said, “it’s really hard.”

What is Change Management?

A systematic approach to dealing with the transition or transformation of an organization’s goals, processes or technologies. The objective is to implement strategies that effect and control change and help people adapt to it.

6 Steps to Success

But great rewards are possible with effective change management. It requires a disciplined project manager, akin to an orchestra conductor who ensures that all pieces of the project work in harmony, Oliver said. You also need a “really good project plan because if it is a big modernization, there are lots of tiny pieces to it, and you need to keep track of every single one,” she explained. “The cliché about the devil being in the details is really true.”

Your outcome depends on good cost-benefit analysis — what will give the most return on the dollars you have to spend? — and support from higher-ups helps overcome employee resistance, especially when a project affects people outside your immediate control. “In a perfect world,” Oliver said, “[modernizing] in a collaborative way is probably better because people have buy-in. But sometimes you need the hammer.”

Achieving “quick wins” is helpful — they build momentum, she said — and speaking with all stakeholders early on, to minimize surprises and reluctance, is vital.

Know Your Audience

Plain language and people skills come in handy. “Technical people need to be able to explain [changes] in nontechnical language, so folks understand what’s going on,” said Oliver. That means acknowledging other employees’ levels of IT understanding. It’s the IT equivalent of having a good bedside manner. Does your IT “doctor” know how to deliver difficult news?

What and Why

“Sometimes you can have a visionary leader who says, ‘Yeah, we need to do this,’” Oliver continued. But often, as with cybersecurity, mandatory reforms can have unintended downstream effects on systems and architectures. In some cases, agencies undertake a de facto modernization, driven by the sad truth that software and hardware don’t last forever. When software is no longer supported, an agency must replace it. Improving customer experience is usually a proactive goal, however. Clunky, old, public facing systems frustrate constituents and reduce engagement, she said. But backend changes matter also. “You can have a great portal,” said Oliver, “but once you [enter] whatever you’re [entering] into the portal, it’s got to go somewhere and be used appropriately.”

Just like members of the public, agency workers don’t enjoy waiting for their computers to process data, for the little circles on their computer screens to stop spinning. “Government employees are people, too,” she said.

This article appears in our guide, “How to Kickstart Modernization.” For more ideas about how to make the case for modernization that agency leaders and legislators find compelling, download it here:

Photo illustration by Kaitlyn Baker and Julia Blurton-Jones for GovLoop