Canadian Government Executive March 2012

GORDON CAMPBELL Transformational change . . . p.16

DANNY WILLIAMS . . . and public service renaissance p.16

March 2012 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 3

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contents

March 2012 – VOLUME 18 – NUMBER 3

FEATURES 16

Changing dynamics Interviews with Gordon Campbell and Danny Williams

BY TOBY FYFE

20

The service professional Culture change through certification

BY CODY DODD

21

First contact New office helps navigate Saskatchewan services

BY VAL NICHOLSON

22

Battling bloggers Communicating with the citizen journalist

BY ALAN FREEMAN

COVER

23

What’s in your system?

Integrated application modernization

6

Smooth sailing

KELLY MCDONALD

Shipbuilding offers a model procurement

8

10

12

13

14 Online Extras

BY TOM RING

DEPARTMENTS

Breaking barriers

24

New professionals

Western provinces capitalize on combined buying power

P3s and public procurement

BY J. ROBERT SHANKS

BY CARLY GASPARINI

A new vision

25

Procurement

Doing business better with Ontario

A patch job with possibilities

BY MARIAN MACDONALD

BY JOHN READ

IM/IT renewal

26

The Leader’s Bookshelf

BC’s strategic partnership approach

How do you trust?

BY C.J. RITCHIE

BY HARVEY SCHACHTER

Integrated and lean

29

Governing digitally

Healthcare procurement in Saskatchewan

The power and peril of proximity

BY DAN FLORIZONE

BY JEFFREY ROY

Best and final offer

30

Opinion

How to save money and reduce risk

Setting boundaries for political advisors

BY MICHAEL ASNER AND SHARON SHEPPARD

BY DAVID ZUSSMAN

Online Extras

Missed an issue? Misplaced an article?

Visit www.netgov.ca for a full archive of past CGE issues, as well as online extras from our many contributors.

March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 3

Editor’s note Our mission is to contribute to excellence in public service management

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Toby Fyfe

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Contributors: Tom Ring, J. Robert Shanks, Marian MacDonald, C.J. Ritchie, Dan Florizone, Cody Dodd, Val Nicholson, Alan Freeman, Kelly McDonald, Carly Gasparini, John Read, Sharon Sheppard, Michael Asner, Jeffrey Roy, Harvey Schachter, David Zussman Editorial Advisory Board

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... if a woodchuck could procure wood?

If there is one issue that continues to vex governments and vendors alike, it is procurement. Despite success stories such as the Government of Canada’s National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (see p.6) it seems to be almost impossible to get the balance right between fit, transparency, timeliness and cost in the procurement process.

Fit means making sure that the government gets what it needs to do the task it wants. Take personal service contracts.

As all government managers know, they often want a specific consultant who understands their needs and can work with their team to get the results needed. As all government managers also know, very often procurement requirements force them to hire a resource that doesn’t fit the bill.

Transparency means ensuring that the procurement process, from writing and posting the RFP to evaluating it, is open and fair. As we have seen in Michael Asner’s procurement columns in this magazine, it is a huge challenge for governments to ensure that these three steps are in sync and work well to meet government needs. Unfortunately, in their efforts to ensure fairness and transparency, governments create RFPs that are complex, repetitive and work intensive. As a result, smaller, innovative firms find it difficult, if not impossible, to compete.

Timeliness: the public policy goal of fair, open and transparent competition introduces many tasks and steps that lengthen the process.

Finally, if there is one thing that governments care about today it is cost. The

lowest cost often carries with it higher risks or significantly reduced performance. On the other hand, the highest quality or best solution often carries with it higher costs that cannot be justified in terms of functionality. The compromise that no one likes is “best value.”

In this edition, we celebrate innovative attempts by Canadian governments to improve procurement, including examples at the federal level, in British Columbia, Ontario and Saskatchewan.

Also, we welcome John Read as our new procurement columnist. Procurement is a critical issue for governments, not simply because of the $100 billion they spend across Canada, but also because of the increasing need for managers to be aware of the issues around, and strategies for, the improvement of the process. As we will see in this special edition, there are lots of innovative solutions being tried. We welcome John on board and look forward to his monthly contributions to the ongoing government procurement discussion.

Politicians matter in the world of the public servant. As we have learned in the U.K., strong leadership can set the tone for how the public service interacts with its political masters. Last year, Gordon Campbell and Danny Williams, former premiers of British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador, respectively, were honoured by Ottawa’s Institute on Governance. In this edition, we learn about their views on public service and the role of public servants.

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Feature Procurement

Tom Ring is the assistant deputy minister for the Acquisitions Branch at Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Smooth sailing

A model procurement

Canada’s shipbuilding industry is now on the cusp of resurgence thanks to the federal government’s National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS). Years of work went into making the NSPS a revolutionary procurement activity free from political influence or regional favouritism, one that, in the words of the third-party fairness monitor who helped oversee the NSPS, was “rigorous, fair and transparent.”

In June 2010, the government of Canada announced the NSPS, a plan to select two Canadian shipyards to build large ships for the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard. It would also issue contracts for over 100 smaller ships and calls for bids on repair and maintenance worth $500 million a year. Valued at $33 billion over 20 to 30 years, the NSPS would represent the largest procurement in Canadian history when complete.

Last October, the two winning bidders were announced. Halifax’s Irving Shipbuilding will construct 21 combat vessels.

These include patrol ships designed to con-

6 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

duct sea-borne surveillance, joint support ships and destroyers and frigates. British Columbia’s Vancouver Shipyards Company was selected to build seven non-combat vessels, including science vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard and a polar icebreaker.

“The NSPS is unprecedented in terms of what I’ve seen in procurement during the last 10 years,” says Terry Williston, a former senior public servant responsible for marine procurement who has spent the past two years advising Public Works and Government Services Canada on the NSPS. “Usually, the government will develop its requirements internally, create a request

for proposals and send that out to industry.

There is very little in the way of discussion between suppliers and government at this stage,” says Williston.

“What the government did with the NSPS was start a strategic, long-term relationship with shipyards. In 2009, shipbuilders were invited to a forum and asked for their input and that dialogue became the building block of the NSPS.” A team of marine procurement specialists was brought together to form the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy Secretariat. The Secretariat was answerable to a committee made up of deputy minis-

Procurement Feature ters from Public Works, Industry Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and National Defence.

After the announcement of the NSPS in June 2010, the government met with shipyards on a monthly basis to hammer out details. What would the request for proposals look like? How would the competing firms be evaluated?

Unprecedented collaboration with suppliers wasn’t the only thing that made the

ready been told of the outcome. The deputy minister of Public Works announced the winning shipyards at a press conference on October 19, 2011.

To ensure the process would withstand the scrutiny of the media, politicians and industry, the government engaged several third parties to help it come to its final decision. British shipbuilding experts from First Marine International scrutinized the competing shipyards, auditors from the

Senior management will be asking how the attributes that made the NSPS successful can be applied to other areas of public administration...

NSPS unique. From the outset, it was determined that there would be no opportunity for political involvement; Minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose was only informed of the winning shipyards less than an hour before they were announced to the press and only after all bidders had al-

professional services firm KPMG helped validate the process, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers combed through the competing firms’ financial data and a fairness monitor was brought onboard to oversee the process in its entirety.

“I’ve had full access to everything I’ve

wanted, including meetings, emails, documents, reports and solicitations,” says Peter Woods, the fairness monitor. He adds that, of the 50 such projects he’s reviewed during his career, this process “was one of the best, if not the best.”

The government first set out to complete a good procurement process. What it found was that by engaging proponents to help shape the process, putting control in the hands of the Secretariat, using third parties extensively and building a trusting relationship with suppliers early on, it had an innovative and unique new way of doing business that was beneficial to both the government and industry.

The next phase of the NSPS saw the signing of umbrella agreements, arrangements under which the government negotiated contracts with the shipyards to build ships for each project in January 2012.

The success of the NSPS doesn’t need to end when contracts are signed. Senior management will be asking how the attributes that made the NSPS successful can be applied to other areas of public administration in the months and years ahead.

March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 7

Feature Procurement

J. Robert Shanks is a Regina-based

C G

writer in the Communications Branch of Enterprise Saskatchewan.

Combined market

Western provinces remove business barriers

The New West Partnership (NWP), signed in April 2010 between British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, cements the West as an economic powerhouse of Canada.

The NWP, an historic agreement that creates an opportunity-rich operating environment for businesses, has four components: • A comprehensive economic agreement that will remove barriers to trade, investment and labour mobility, further enhancing the competitiveness of Canada’s three western provinces; • An international cooperation agreement that will see the three provinces cooperate on trade and investment missions to international markets, and share foreign market intelligence to advance joint interests and increase business competitiveness; • An innovation agreement, which will enable provincial innovation efforts to be coordinated to better attract investment and talent, helping build critical mass of innovation activities in the West; and, • A procurement agreement that will enable the provinces to capitalize on their combined buying power through the joint procurement of goods and services.

“Removing barriers to business and working in cooperation with British Columbia and Alberta is good for everyone,” said Dylan Jones, Saskatchewan’s deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs. “And an important benefit of the NWP is opening access to government procurement.”

Collectively, the three governments buy some $8 billion in goods, services and construction annually. A primary goal of the NWP is to open procurement at all levels, which includes municipalities, schools, hospitals and Crown corporations, and it contains a schedule on government procurement of goods and services. Efficiencies and savings should be realized by 8 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

combining the common requirements of all three governments.

The NWP establishes a level playing field for businesses, enabling seamless regulations to reduce red tape, saving businesses money and making them more competitive. Companies will benefit from the removal of labour mobility barriers, making it easier for companies to find workers and for workers to find work.

Strict and enforceable subsidy rules will ensure that competing businesses will not receive unfair advantages. Transportation costs will be reduced from the elimination of the requirement to re-register for temporary travel.

In the long run, increased investment attraction in the combined market of the three provinces will lead to greater opportunities for many industries.

The NWP presents an opportunity for the three governments to harness their purchasing power and achieve savings and efficiencies when buying the things government needs to buy – potentially items ranging from health supplies to educational materials to the office supplies and paper needed in the daily operation of governments.

“The bottom line is that Saskatchewan businesses, too, will gain unimpeded access to procurement opportunities in Alberta’s

and British Columbia’s markets – actually in one huge, barrier-free market,” Jones said.

The NWP makes it easier for business to access government procurement with lower-dollar-value contracts being opened up for competition in all three provinces.

Jones adds that it’s also easier to find out about these tenders because opportunities from the entire public service will be posted in one place, SaskTenders (www. sasktenders.gov.sk.ca), and Saskatchewan businesses will be on a level playing field with suppliers from Alberta and B.C. in those much larger procurement markets.

“It’s something of a quantum leap for market expansion and business opportunity throughout western Canada. The key is to implement it in an open and efficient manner, and I’m very happy to say that this is happening.”

The big thinking behind the NWP is strengthening and promoting the region in an increasingly competitive global economy by enabling the three provinces to work together as one entity – a region with a population of nine million people and a combined Gross Domestic Product of almost $500 billion.

Saskatchewan and its western neighbours are united in the call to eliminate trade barriers regionally and nationally.

The NWP represents this strong commitment by exploring opportunities through international marketing, joining forces on innovative projects and capitalizing on their combined strength as a buyer through joint procurement.

“The NWP is a shift from a segmented, multi-jurisdictional business and investment environment to a model based on a single, seamless regulatory regime that is non-discriminatory,” says Jones. “The end result we are seeing is more efficient business operations, which pays an even bigger dividend, making western Canada an even more attractive place to invest and build new business.”

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Feature Procurement

Marian Macdonald is assistant

deputy minister, Supply Chain Management Division, Ontario Shared Services.

A new vision

for doing business with government In 2005, an Ontario government-sponsored task force generated a number of recommendations to make it easier for small and medium businesses to do business with the provincial government. More important, it cast a spotlight on procurement and the ongoing need to modernize procurement processes.

Four years later, a whole different spotlight was cast on public sector procurement when the use of non-competitive procurement processes captured headlines, significantly influencing procurement in the Ontario Public Service (OPS).

Our response was Vision 2012, a strategic plan that produced large-scale change by streamlining processes to support us and our customers, creating new policies and introducing technology to enable our business, supporting people through new skills development, and bringing our vendor community along with us.

A continuous improvement program was launched in the Supply Chain Management Division of Ontario Shared Services based on Six Sigma process improvement methodologies. Today, the division has 13 staff with their Green Belt certification and 15 more will be certified this spring. Another 25 staff are certified White Belts, creating a highly trained team that together lead a systematic approach to reviewing OPSwide procurement processes to introduce 10 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

efficiencies and drive out waste.

A significant reorganization of the division created centres of excellence that mapped to our core businesses – advisory services, controllership and policy, and enterprise procurement – all supported by a new branch mandated to implement modernization strategies in support of these core businesses.

One of our more popular modernization initiatives was the creation of Supply Chain Management University. Now in its fourth year, SCMU delivers a curriculum to procurement staff that includes project and contract management as well as current procurement trends and for three years has provided OPS executives with a highly rated introduction to procurement called “Surviving the Procurement Jungle.”

Policy changes were introduced to streamline procurement approval authorities and create the Supply Chain Leadership Council. Comprised of senior program and IT executives from across government, mostly top procurement ministries, the council has been given authority to approve procurements valued at up to $10 million. This change reduced the procurement approval process while maintaining a high degree of controllership of major procurement decisions.

Supply Chain Management Division also started reaching out to its customers more than ever before. A Procurement Network was created providing a forum for senior ministry buyers to bring forward issues and to collaborate on solutions. The assistant deputy minister is a member of the Information Technology Executive Leadership Council, thus recognizing the volume, value and complex-

ity of IT procurement, and also provides regular updates to the government’s Chief Administrative Officers Forum.

Engaging our vendor community was another hallmark of Vision 2012. Borrowing an idea from our colleagues in Nova Scotia, Ontario introduced Supply Ontario in 2009 to bring together vendors and buyers from all levels of government in a reverse trade show. Ontario has also partnered with the federal government and many local governments to conduct “how to do business with the Ontario government” seminars.

Vendors interested in doing business can also visit www.doingbusiness.gov.on.ca, and find our Three-Year Vendor of Record Outlook. This document tells the vendor community approximately when we will be in the marketplace to refresh or establish a Vendor of Record (VOR) arrangement. A tool to aggregate spend across the OPS, Ontario does more than $700 million in business annually through approximately 65 VOR arrangements.

Vendors were also asked to provide input on a number of specific strategies through White Papers and Requests for Information.

These requests have helped Ontario introduce standardized contract terms and conditions and implement significant changes in how we acquire consulting services.

All of these changes have left us wanting to do more. Last fall we started planning for our new strategic plan, Vision 2015. We know that cost-effective technology solutions that drive consistency and support business analytics will be a cornerstone of the plan. A focus on performance measurement and benchmarking will also provide ongoing insights for further improvement.

We are looking for continued process payoffs from our Six Sigma investment and will be introducing an e-learning strategy.

To help us focus the plan, we spent the fall talking to our own staff as well as our customers. This winter invitations were sent to more than 30 vendor associations asking them to tell us what is important to them.

Together, this input will focus our efforts for the next four years, proving once again that it is always an exciting time to be a procurement professional in the public sector.

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Feature Procurement

C.J. Ritchie is the assistant deputy minister for the Strategic Partnerships Division in B.C.’s Ministry of Labour, Citizens’ Services and Open Government.

Strategic approach to IM/IT contract renewal By the end of 2015, a significant portion of British Columbia’s strategic, high-value IM/IT contracts will come up for renewal.

The challenge for the government will be to ensure that it is getting the most value from these contracts now and into the future.

To meet the challenge, B.C. is planning to create a centrally managed Strategic Partnerships Office with a clear mandate to provide a centralized role in the negotiation and management of large strategic vendor relationships.

In the past, the government signed a number of strategic, high-value IM/IT contracts with individual contract commitments ranging from the tens of millions to over $1 billion. The portfolio of contracts exceeds $5.2 billion and includes multiple relationships with large global companies.

The scope of these contracts extends beyond any individual ministry and core government and includes a number of deals being accessed by broader public sector organizations across the province.

“We are seeing the perfect storm driving us to do things differently,” said Dave Nikolejsin, an associate deputy minister and the government’s chief information officer.

“This includes rising citizen expectations, demographic pressures, fiscal challenges, and an increasing service demand that is creating significant pressures in the system and an appetite for a new and innovative approach. For maybe the first time, there is a tolerance to not manage risk to zero if the strategic benefit can be proven.”

The government launched a review that examined its current negotiating environment to see how it could maximize and leverage these contracts into the future. The review found that contracts negotiated to date had achieved overall cost savings, operational efficiencies and increased service levels. These deals had also consolidated 12 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

the transformation and delivery of services in a new and complex environment with many stakeholders, and formalized the relationships with external service provides through Master Service Agreements.

But looking to the future, it found that improvements could be made to ensure the province continues to get the most value possible from strategic IM/IT contracts.

The new Strategic Partnerships Office will oversee a policy and governance framework that includes long-term strategic objectives, goals and desired outcomes, and evaluate the proposed contracts against them. Additionally, the Office will create, store and manage all portfolio reporting, and define the performance management system, performance measures and performance targets that would be used to evaluate deal results.

A key function of the office will be to build internal capacity within government to ensure that there is not a continued reliance on purchasing expertise outside of government. This capacity model is pre-

mised on a three-year staffing plan and will include developing and providing re-usable tools, training and development on procurement negotiation and contract management, and ensuring knowledge and data management practices are implemented.

To maximize this capacity building, prior to the start of negotiations, the office will work directly with ministry staff who will be managing the contract upon its negotiated conclusion. This could include the potential to second these staff into the office to enable the collaborative development of negotiating strategies, business cases and mandates. Staff would return to their respective ministries with increased competencies in strategic procurement.

The role of the office will also include ensuring negotiated contracts meet provincial objectives of value-for-money and the Treasury Board, Cabinet and Office of the Comptroller General objectives and requirements. As a central repository for this knowledge and information, the office will act as a hub, gathering requirements and using its structures and proposed government committees to ensure the province’s key objectives are met across all strategic deals.

As specific contracts come up for renewal, the office will work directly with the ministries involved to determine strategic objectives of the contract, the development of the business case, the development of the negotiating mandate, and the business review of the value of the deal at the end of the deal’s lifecycle.

In managing government’s multi-billion dollar IM/IT procurement process, it is anticipated that the creation of this Strategic Partnerships Office will deliver strategic value by ensuring effective, efficient and quality decisions and use of best practices across the lifecycle of procurements and resulting contracts. As a result, the government expects to achieve material improvements in the total benefits, both operational and strategic, for its expenditures on these strategic IM/IT contracts.

Dan Florizone is Saskatchewan’s

Procurement Feature

deputy minister of Health.

Integrated and lean The future of healthcare procurement Adoption of innovative procurement methods to improve healthcare has just begun in Saskatchewan. New ways to incorporate value into projects are not only maximizing the value of dollars invested but also are improving the experience of patients though increased quality of care and improved outcomes.

One message coming out of the Council of Federation meetings last January was that ongoing cooperation between provinces, territories and other stakeholders is required to ensure we have a fully functioning, equitable healthcare system that will thrive into the future.

While the premiers decided to focus efforts initially in three areas – scope of practice, clinical practice guidelines and human resources management – public servants have an opportunity to take an innovative and collaborative approach to health infrastructure development that can both maximize the value of the dollars invested and improve the quality and outcome of the patient experience.

Innovation through lean Health infrastructure (hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics, for example) is generally built for the long-term and must be flexible enough to meet both current and future needs of staff and patients. Value can be enhanced by adopting a culture of lean with respect to the delivery of care processes and to facility design.

Lean is the continuous pursuit of improvement to create value from the perspective of the customer (patient) by empowering employees to generate and implement innovative solutions. Lean embodies a number of tools, one of which is the project management and design approach 3P (production, preparation, process).

In healthcare, this can involve bringing together teams of physicians, staff and patient/family representatives who are tasked with designing a particular unit or floor. This approach not only garners

staff/patient buy-in and ownership, but also achieves a less wasteful, more efficient end product.

In Saskatchewan, we are taking a lean approach to the design of the Children’s Hospital and intend to embed this approach in all future projects. Through the use of the 3P methodology, improvements in the flow of patients, staff and supplies have been achieved. In addition, a significant reduction in space requirements (based on an initial schematic design using a traditional design approach) has also been achieved by improving flow and eliminating wasteful practices.

Innovation through IPD Value can also be enhanced by adopting cooperative procurement methods such as integrated project delivery (IPD). We are currently beginning work on our first IPD venture: the replacement of the Moose Jaw Union Hospital.

IPD requires project owners, consultants, patients, families and care providers to work together as a team through design to commissioning to increase value, maximize efficiency and reduce waste on a project. This differs from traditional procurement models where the various consultants touch the project at different points with limited user input rather than working through the project in a collaborative manner.

Another facet of IPD that differs from the traditional procurement method is the requirement for more planning and resources up front, a great benefit over traditional procurement methods. Waste through change orders and other means are

greatly reduced since contracting partners are involved in the planning and design of the project early on; differing expertise can pinpoint problems that may go unnoticed much later as the project proceeds.

Proven success Although procuring for IPD and lean expertise is a fairly new phenomenon in Saskatchewan, there have been multiple examples of success in terms of using these methods to improve patient outcomes and flow through projects at Sutter Health in California, ThedaCare in Wisconsin and others.

At ThedaCare, for example, a collaborative care unit was redesigned utilizing Lean. The unit has achieved zero medication reconciliation errors for the past four years. This not only impacts patient outcomes, but also better utilizes organizational resources (human resources and dollars invested) by reducing patient lengths of stay from 3.91 days to 2.51 days on average. Patient satisfaction also greatly improved from 68 percent pre-redesign to 95 percent in 2010 and the results have been sustained.

These achievements have been made possible by using lean methodologies and supporting a collaborative working model. Saskatchewan is hoping to achieve the same.

Although Saskatchewan is in the beginning stages of our lean and integrated project delivery journey in healthcare, the positive outcomes we have seen in other jurisdictions outweigh the risk of the unknown and the consequences of continuing with the status quo.

March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 13

Feature Procurement

Michael Asner is an independent consultant

specializing in public procurement (michael@ rfpmentor.com). Sharon Sheppard is a freelance writer and editor (sharons1963@me.com).

Leverage procurement to save money and reduce risk

Every year government executives, like executives everywhere, spend time setting strategic goals. Often these are lofty, pie in the sky aims like becoming the most energy efficient township in the province by 2017. Next come the objectives, like reducing kilowatt hour usage by government buildings by 10 percent this year.

All fine. All boring. The problem is that the economic machine that processes these objectives is operated by procurement, a function that often goes unnoticed at the strategic level. Like any small part that runs our cars, procurement is largely invisible. Governments assume it will always work and for the most part don’t think about it. Procurement is considered instrumental, not strategic.

It’s time to change that thinking and make 2012 the year that procurement is brought into the strategic framework.

Governments make procurement “strategic” by leveraging those areas that will increase efficiency, reduce risk, and help achieve other strategic objectives. Government executives need to ensure that they are getting the best value from the pro-

curement department. Three of the best ideas to ensure the most out of procurement are: using best and final offers; nonnumerical evaluation of cost; and risk as an evaluation factor.

The BAFO option Government agencies can ensure that procurement always structures the RFPs so that they can negotiate with the leading proponents and then request a best and final offer. BAFO is the one change in an RFP process that permits the agency to fine-tune the vendors’ proposals based on input from the evaluation team.

Few government bodies in Canada use BAFO, sometimes because they don’t know about it, sometimes because it’s new, and sometimes because senior management won’t support this approach.

None of these reasons warrant accepting a mediocre proposal that doesn’t quite fit the requirements and costs too much.

Non-numerical evaluation Cost is always an issue, whether one uses lifecycle costs or five-year costs. It’s always on the radar. Few agency executives and program managers ignore the importance of cost and how it is evaluated and scored.

Suppose the recommendation is to award the contract to Vendor A, who received a score of 80 and quoted a cost of $400,000.

It is a certainty that management will be interested in the second place vendor’s score and price. If it was Vendor C who received 75 points and quoted a cost of $300,000, then questions will be asked: Why did Vendor A get the contract? Why did we pay $100,000 more for a proposal that scored only five points higher? Are five points worth $100,000 in these times of budget

It’s time to change that thinking and make 2012 the year that procurement is brought into the strategic framework.

14 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

Procurement Feature shortfalls, program cuts and staff layoffs?

Can’t we revisit this decision?

There are many ways of evaluating cost.

The most popular is arithmetic, assigning all of the cost points to the lowest priced proposal and then assigning points to the other proposals on a pro-rata basis. People like numbers. They are easy to understand everyone knows that a grade of 85 percent is better than a grade of 80. Numbers add legitimacy to what can be an arbitrary process.

While the conversion of dollars-topoints is an arithmetic process, the weight assigned to this factor is not. It is arbitrary. There is no theory of costing or model of how cost contributes to success that requires an and agencythe to assign 10 persnow cent of 60 percent of thestorm available points to cost. It’s just that simple. The weight that an agency puts on cost is determined Maurice, Desk Agent, not by a theory or our

by Front an agreed upon isn’t exactly a huge fan of the snow. standard established by ISO, but by the And driving in the stuff? He dislikes thatorganization even more. But and one cold, culture of the thegrey dyDecember evening, our intrepid namics among the different stakeholders.

Maurice ventured out into one of the biggest storms season. in Cost can receive a weight of of 23thepercent What could have driven him to drive one agency and a weight of 64 in another. into this tempest? His sense of duty.

You is see,“wrong” one of our or guests had left Neither weight “misleadan important item behind. ing” or “determined by the facts.”

Maurice

There is one common approach to evaluating cost without using points and avoiding some of the common problems: 1. Determine the score for each proposal for the Technical and Management factors; 2. Calculate the cost of each proposal; 3. Analyze the difference in points and the difference in price to see which proposal is “best value”; and 4. Write a narrative discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal, “best value” and why the recommended proposal represents “best value.”

Adopting risk Many government entities such as cities or counties have risk managers who concern themselves with insurance issues related to known risks, such as a citizen being hit by a Knowing that avehicle. cab wouldn’t makedeal it with RFPs. government But few to the airport in time to reunite our Simply asking procurement guest with his property, Maurice tookto introduce as well as a frigid steering amatters, paragraph into RFPs demanding risk wheel, into his own hands. Arriving management information will markedly at the airport with mere minutes to spare, Maurice personally the improve the quality of handed information received item to our surprised, and extremely and the ability to evaluate the vendors and relieved, traveller. Proof once again that, even after you’ve left our their proposals.

Again, all hotel, of this helps supyou’re still a VIP. port other strategic goals and objectives.

Most agency RFPs could benefit from a large dose of risk management. Procurement shouldn’t simply be asking vendors to describe “their understanding of the project.” Rather, they should be asked to provide a three-page analysis of risks that identifies each risk, its source and the steps that can be taken by each stakeholder to eliminate or reduce it. The tasks should be included in the project plan and cost. And finally, agency RFPs should award points for the evaluation of the probability of success proposal, thus making risk one Wewith don’ta go home happy of the until evaluation factors or part of each you do. major evaluation factor.

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Leveraging procurement to save money and reduce risk requires that procurement “be in the room” when strategic issues are being discussed. Make procurement activity a strategic objective; it will help achieve the agency’s goals.

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March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 15

Feature Leadership

The changing dynamics of government partnership

In 2011, the Institute on Governance launched the Modern Makers of Canada Award to recognize a significant contribution to the shaping and modernizing of Canada leading into the 21st century.

The winners were Gordon Campbell, former premier of British Columbia, and Danny Williams, former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. When in office, both led transformational change and a renaissance in their public services. They spoke with editor-in-chief Toby Fyfe.

16 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

Leadership Feature What role does the public service play in helping governments manage complex issues such as globalization, the aging population, fiscal challenge and the like?

with different solutions and choices. I find there’s a tendency in the public service that the status quo is fine, they don’t want to rock the boat because their political masters may take offense to it and the elected officials may find that certain issues are controversial, they just don’t want to go there.

That, unfortunately, can stifle new and innovative ideas.

Do you worry that public servants are themselves partisan, say, from a previous administration?

Gordon Campbell: I think it has a critical role to play in a professional non-partisan way where it gives the political representatives advice without fear and then implements without favor; in other words, it follows the direction that has been made by the political leadership.

It’s our public life that defines us as Canadians and I think one of the really critical things is to recognize that the public sector is going to become one of the most important means of enabling us to improve the quality of life for Canadians and to build the kind of future that Canadians want in every province and every region of the country.

And I think we’re going to be in an era of partnership where the private sector, the public sector, the non-profit sector work together to accomplish common purposes and common objectives that are set at the political level. It’s going to be a very exciting time for people in the public sector.

Danny Williams: Well, first, it is very helpful if the public service provides background information, puts together as much as it can to give you good, solid background information from the best possible sources.

That’s very important. There’s also another important role and that’s to formulate opinions of their own that they can present

Williams: To be honest, I haven’t seen a lot of severe partnership in the public service. I think that public servants generally do their job to the best of their ability – the vast, vast majority of public servants do that. I’ve seen people who have been put there by other governments but certainly served our government very well. It’s an issue for some people but I wouldn’t be overly concerned about that.

There seems to be a view that big government is bad, that it’s impediment to growth, prosperity and innovation. Do you agree?

Campbell: For me, the role of government is that it enables us as citizens and communities to reach our objectives. It reminds us of what we have in common; it’s not a divisive force. Government should be the glue that holds us together around the values that we share as Canadians. So I think all of us have got to recognize that the changes that are going to take place in our world are not just changes for government, they’re changes for us as citizens, for how we deliver services.

Government should hold itself to account. I think governments are going to have to find ways to provide the public with the information they gather. There’s been a tendency to hold that information at the government level; what we have to do is open up and let citizens look at the different ways that we can accomplish our goals and solve our problems.

I really believe that, whether it’s how we deal with aging in our society, how we deal with healthcare, how we deal with education, how we deal with the environment, or how we deal with First Nations. All of

those things are going to require us to work in partnership. If we continue to follow the kind of fragmented, balkanized approach to the issues that confront us, we’re not going to be successful.

Williams: Big government is no different than big business, big corporations. Big operations can be effective if they’re productive and if they’re efficient. My preference is lean and mean. I prefer to have a very, very lean organization and then build it and grow as we start to get into other areas, whether it happens to be in business or in government.

The problem, of course, is when you take over a government, you inherit the previous hirings and the previous public service at whatever level and whatever size it is. So when you find that you want to get into new areas or create new departments or step into new policy initiatives, you have to hire to fill those new policy initiatives without a proper method of being able to go back through the old policies and the old programs and basically sift through and streamline government.

It’s very difficult to drill down into tens, if not hundreds of thousands of employees and make the right decision on every single employee. If you were a corporation and you were relatively lean and mean, well, then as you grow and as you need talent and expertise, you can hire and add it, but also at the same time assess the people that are already there to find out whether they’re in the proper roles and the proper functions. I would prefer a lean government. But just because it’s a big government, it doesn’t mean that it can’t produce – but it has to be efficient.

Is there a role for other sectors in feeding into the policy process?

Campbell: Absolutely. The question is to make that a more deliberate and more open process. We have to have processes that lead to decisions that lead to action.

One of the things that I think is going to be a challenge as we move into the 21st century is that time’s not on our side.

Every year that goes by is lost forever. If you’ve ever been in the hotel business, you know that if you don’t sell your rooms every night, you don’t get those nights back.

March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 17

Feature Leadership

Let me give you one example of what I think is smarter government. There’s not a province or territory in the country that doesn’t believe we have to be environmentally responsible as we approach the major projects that are in front of us. I don’t believe any elected representative doesn’t believe that we should be smart or think we shouldn’t take into consideration our environment.

So, it should be possible in an open democratic society like Canada to have one environmental process that’s based on sound science, that’s based on a thorough review of all the issues that are in front of us, and to prepare a thorough response to the mitigation of any challenges that may be faced.

If we keep on having two and three and four review processes, we’re actually creating substantial new risk for investments and we’re going to take away opportunities from Canadians.

We have to be willing to make institutional change in Canada without saying to ourselves, “We’ll lose all the advantages we have as Canadians.” I think we have to recognize that really those advantages come from us being smarter.

So we need to reduce overlap and duplication between the various levels of government?

Campbell: Yes. I worked for local government, regional government and provincial government. I always felt that we were elected by the same people. I think we always have to ask, “how do we help the other levels do their job?” as opposed to what sometimes has been the culture of Canada, which is to say, “please send more money,” as if there are different pockets that you’re taking money out of for civic or provincial or federal. We should really be saying, “How do we come together and accomplish our goals as Canadians?”

Why is it that citizens see the public service as inefficient and unable to achieve results? Is this just a perception and, if so, how can it be turned around?

18 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

that happens to be placating the opposition, the media, or nurturing your own party, your own elected officials, or dealing with the bureaucracy, which has a tendency to push back (and there’s nothing wrong with that if the push back is for the right reasons). It’s not easy to get that balance.

Sometimes the public service is inefficient and... nine times out of ten it’s because of politics...

— Campbell Williams: I think it’s red tape, it’s wait times, it’s the lag times and bureaucracy. It takes so long to get decisions through. For example, when the private sector goes into the government with a concept or a business venture, by the time they move up and they finally get to decision makers – senior public servants or elected officials – a long time has passed. They find that the process can be very, very frustrating.

And then, sometimes, you find that raw politics will go into the final decision and that’s just something that the private sector and business have a lot of difficulty accepting. If it makes economic or social sense for the right reasons, then they, in their minds, feel that it should happen. But sometimes there are political trade-offs. That’s the frustration that I found.

In the private sector, if you’re running your company, you hire a good team around you, and you put the best people that you can in place and then you run it to the best of your ability. I found in government it was two steps forward and one step back because you can’t devote a hundred percent of your time to running the government, you have to deal with the side issues, which are all important, whether

Campbell: Sometimes the public service is inefficient and sometimes it is unable to obtain results and nine times out of ten it’s because of politics, not because of the public servants. Politicians are there to be leaders of the public service, not to be managers of the public service. The deputy ministers are there to be leaders and managers.

David Cameron in the UK believes governments should get out of the delivery of services and basically enable the voluntary sector to do it. Do you see risks in that approach?

Williams: I think government can reach out. If we don’t have a specific level of expertise in government then there’s nothing wrong with going out and trying to hire the best in the country or the best in the world to give the government the advice that’s going to give the best results to the people at the end of the day.

Same for the volunteer sector. For example, in Newfoundland and Labrador, we did significant initiatives to involve the volunteer sector. In our province, 40 percent of our entire population is involved in volunteer work, which is quite significant.

So you need to bring these people into the tent and find ways to work with them.

As well, we also partnered between government, labor and business. And that was a partnership that I was involved in and it worked very, very well. We brought all the players around the table. Instead of entrenched positions and it being an antagonistic situation on all fronts, we were able to find solutions. Those are the kinds of things that need to happen. People tend to get very territorial, whether in govern-

Leadership Feature ment, labor or business and I think it’s important to bring them together.

Campbell: I don’t think it’s one or the other. My classic example in British Columbia is the public-private partnerships for major public projects. We have not had one public-private partnership that has been delivered over budget. We have had many public-private partnerships that have been delivered under budget and much faster than they would have if they had gone through the old procurement cycles, the old style of delivery.

So you have to ask, how do you maximize the strengths of the public sector and the formally defined public objectives that we set for ourselves, and the ingenuity, creativity, cost consciousness and direct accountability of the private sector? How do you do that in a way that maximizes public benefits? I would say all of the public-private partnerships we’ve done in British Columbia have been huge successes. They’ve created jobs; they’ve created better value. In fact, there are ways that you can deliver infrastructure far more cost-effectively than the traditional ways of doing it.

own companies, is say, “Look, where do we want to be in two years, three years, five years, ten years?” and then tried and worked during that period to get there.

Now, you can’t go too far out because the world is changing, developing daily, but by the same token I think you need to have a strategic plan.

Campbell: I know what the media has

said about my management style. This is what I think my management style is: I try and set goals and objectives and literally, every time I’ve run for office, I’ve had a clear agenda of what we were trying to accomplish. I’ve tried to be flexible on how we accomplish those things but I have not taken my eye off the ball. And frankly, I demand performance and if I don’t get performance, I look for ways that I can improve that performance.

From a municipal experience, how can we move the discussion of municipal dependence and sustainability to a new level?

Campbell: We have huge changes taking place and one of them is that our cities are going to play a completely different role. But the cities themselves have got to be willing to play a different role. It’s like the federal government and the provinces: if every problem we have is simply a call to the federal government to say, “please send more,” why do we need the provincial governments?

In British Columbia, we launched a major initiative in 2006 with regard to dealing with homelessness. In the cities where there was a real partnership, we made progress; in the cities where there was no real partnership, we didn’t get very far – we just kept on talking about the problem.

What’s your management style?

Williams: My management style is to set a plan. What I did in Newfoundland and Labrador, and what I’ve done with my March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 19

Feature Service delivery

Cody Dodd is a research analyst with

the Institute for Citizen-Centred Service.

Professionalizing service management For leaders, the biggest challenge to improving public sector service delivery is not just identifying citizens’ voices and needs.

Rather, it is embedding a citizen-centred service culture throughout an organization that is receptive to those needs.

Through the Institute for Citizen-Centred Service’s (ICCS) Certified Service Manager (CSM) program, many organizations are turning to certification and learning as a way to enable and support culture change and to enhance service excellence.

The CSM program is designed for public sector service managers and supervisors who are responsible for managing direct service delivery. It can help bring service transformations to life by assisting organizations to make transformations sustainable and develop capacity to meet future needs.

“Service is a profession. In government however, it is not. It is an administrative function. We need to go beyond this,” argues Richard Rochefort, a former director general from the Service Canada College and currently a vice president at the Canada School of Public Service.

The CSM program offers a consistent, professional standard for citizen-centred service delivery and has been developed with input from senior leaders across all orders of government. It is the first program in the world that professionalizes public sector service management.

Innovation and empirical research Four years in the making, the CSM program was built by the public sector for the public sector. Over that time, the Canadian public sector service delivery commu20 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

nity came together to develop a certification and learning program that draws on the experiences of service delivery innovators and champions.

These rich organizational experiences have been combined with a decade of empirical research such as the ICCS’s Citizens First and Taking Care of Business studies.

This has resulted in a collective body of knowledge about citizen-centred service delivery, specifically on how to build and sustain a service-focused culture.

The CSM Program is founded on the elements within this collective body of knowledge known as the Certified Service Manager Body of Knowledge (CSMBoK).

The CSM Program and the CSMBoK delve into topics such as service improvement, service access, service standards, service management and emerging trends in service delivery.

“If you believe service is a profession, then you realize you need a body of knowledge. You need to learn from others and sometimes change the way things are done,” says Rochefort.

Enabling a service culture According to David Szwarc, chief administrative officer at the Region of Peel, “learning, both on an organizational level and on an individual level, helped us understand what customers want and how best to deliver it. It is not about getting clients to fit our expectations, but the opposite. It is about promoting skills and

attitudes that help our services fit their expectations.”

Building a citizen-centred service culture requires that staff knowledge, skills and attitudes place the needs and expectations of citizens at the heart of all aspects of service.

This is a key component of service transformation. Canadian federal, provincial and territorial deputy ministers responsible for service delivery have identified that growing staff knowledge and enhancing capabilities require learning that is focused on citizen-centred service delivery. They also recognized that certification offers recognition of the service profession and helps build commitment to service excellence.

Deputy ministers and senior level managers in charge of service renewal and transformation across all orders of government have been supportive and instrumental to these efforts. This includes Service Canada, ServiceOntario, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador and ServiceBC. Drawing on the CSMBoK, the ICSS recently launched its first professional certification program, the Certified Service Manager (CSM Basic). Designed with flexibility in mind, organizations and individual public servants can develop a customized learning program based on their needs and existing skill and knowledge levels. The CSM Basic curriculum contains a series of seven courses that organizations may choose to have delivered or license.

“I am so excited about the work the ICCS has done. Here is your ticket to make a positive impact,” says Rochefort.

To learn more about the Certified Service Manager Program and its course offerings, visit www.iccs-isac.org/en/certification/ aboutprog.htm.

Val Nicholson is a communications

Service delivery Feature

consultant with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment.

New office helps navigate government services The Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment is in the midst of significant change, moving to support government-wide efforts to improve service to its clients as well as its own significant shift to a new approach to environmental regulation.

From the outside, one of the most visible signs of the change is the newly established Client Service Office (CSO). As a first point of contact, the new branch will guide clients, provide information and, in the process, help the ministry establish new benchmarks for service excellence.

The CSO was created in March 2010 as part of a reorganization to better position the ministry for its move to a results-based environmental management framework.

Results-based regulation puts the focus on environmental performance, not on rules.

The ministry, as regulator, decides what the required environmental outcomes should be and proponents are held accountable to achieve them. Built into the system is the flexibility to bring forward innovative solutions, resulting in better environmental protection.

Work is underway on a number of projects to support the new approach, including information technology enhancements, transformation of the ministry’s business processes, and legislative and regulatory changes. The CSO will support this new approach by assisting clients through streamlined application processes, helping to build their capacity to achieve compliance, and facilitating better access to needed information for both clients and ministry staff.

An online application and permissions system is currently in development, supported by state-of-the-art software to help connect the ministry staff who review and process applications. Once in place,

the system will make it easier for clients to submit applications and to track their progress through the approval process.

CSO director Kim Clark sees his team as an important part of this process.

“We are working, along with the rest of the ministry, toward a future state where all our clients feel satisfied with our services and supported as they journey through the regulatory process,” Clark said. “In the future, more and more of our interactions with clients will happen online, enhancing accessibility and efficiency, but it’s important to have a team of people to support clients through those exchanges.”

The Client Service Office has two sections, each with distinct roles. The Case Management Section will be the entry point for many ministry clients, in particular new clients, who are looking for various types of approvals and information. Staff will help clients navigate through regulatory processes and coordinate regulatory requirements, both within and outside the ministry. Section staff will also respond to inquiries from the public, other provincial government ministries, First Nations, Métis and industry.

The Registry Management Section processes licenses, leases and permits on Crown resource land. The section also handles the sale of Crown resource land and maintains a registry of all transactions. Together, the two sections will support the rest of the ministry as it becomes more client-focused.

There are challenges. The ministry is large and diverse, regulating everything from timber harvesting and hunting to

municipal waterworks and hazardous waste.

As well, the ministry’s staff is spread out in various locations across Saskatchewan, so providing integrated and seamless service to clients can sometimes be difficult. As a first point of contact and an ongoing source of advice and support, the CSO will help to guide clients and coordinate ministry services.

“The ministry has a great deal of specialized knowledge in many different areas. We can help clients figure out exactly who they need to talk to for the information they need,” Clark said. “We know that dealing with government can be a bit daunting, especially for new clients, and our goal is to provide support to help make the process more straightforward.”

The CSO is working to build its capacity to respond to public and stakeholder inquiries. The branch is developing a knowledge base for the entire ministry and establishing a system to keep the information current and accessible. As well, a new telephone system is being put into place to allow a widely dispersed staff to respond efficiently to public inquiries.

The CSO is also charged with defining and promoting leading practices for service delivery, not just within its ranks but also across the entire ministry. Clark is excited by the possibilities.

“We are a new branch, still getting established, but our team is coming together nicely,” he said. “Our goal is to help the ministry provide great service consistently – service that is accessible, timely and meets client needs.”

March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 21

Feature Communications

Alan Freeman is public servant in residence at

the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Previously, he served as ADM, Consultations and Communications, Finance Canada.

Communicating with the citizen journalist We are told that the Web is where it’s at when it comes to communicating with the public: Web 2.0, Twitter, social media, crowd sourcing. Government is struggling to figure out how not to be left behind yet stay relevant.

The days are gone when a government department could issue a news release, hope to get it picked up by a few major newspapers and broadcasters, and figure its work was done. With the fragmentation of the media and their audiences, it’s not enough to depend on traditional outlets to get the message out, especially to the millions of Canadians who never pick up a newspaper or watch the news.

One of the positive outcomes of this massive change has been the democratization of journalism. The old barriers to entry have been erased as thoroughly as the Berlin Wall was in 1989. In Syria, where a dictatorial regime has systematically repressed a free press and blocked access to the country to foreign correspondents, citizen journalists chronicle the revolt on the streets on a daily basis through intrepid reporting on the Internet.

But the elimination of these barriers has created a set of new problems and challenges. If anybody is a would-be journalist, who will protect the public from an onslaught of erroneous reports caused by sloppy practices, or worse still, the willful distortion of the truth by a malicious blogger or citizen journalist?

That situation came to the fore recently in a lawsuit in Oregon where Kevin Padrick, a lawyer acting as the trustee in a bankruptcy case, was accused by a blogger of enriching himself at the expense of creditors. In a series of over-the-top blog posts, Crystal Cox, a self-described investigative blogger, accused Padrick of bribery, tax fraud, money laundering and more.

Cox, who has produced more than 400 blogs over the past five years, has a long 22 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

history of singling out lawyers and business executives she disagrees with and accusing them of corruption. She typically hones in on her prey by creating a domain name and bombarding the web with allegations against them. Padrick, who had no history of wrongdoing and was praised by a committee of unsecured creditors in the case, saw his reputation destroyed online. “A woman whom I did not know, who had no connection to me or my company or with this case ... has turned my business life and personal life upside down,” he said.

Padrick sued for defamation. In court, Cox claimed protection under Oregon’s shield laws for journalists, designed to protect reporters from being forced to identify the sources of their stories. U.S. District Court Judge Marco Hernandez ruled that as a blogger, Cox couldn`t claim protection as a journalist because she had no professional qualifications, wasn`t affiliated to a recognized news outlet and showed no proof that she had adhered to basic journalistic standards like editing and fact checking.

The judge’s decision allowed the jury to award Padrick and his company $2.5-million in damages. Defenders of free speech have decried the ruling as a threat to free speech that depends on an outdated definition of what a journalist is and fails to take into account the new world of blogging and citizen journalism.

Yet the Web can’t be allowed to provide open season for people with grudges or deep-seated prejudices to slander and libel individuals at whim and without consequence. In Britain and in Quebec there have been proposals to regulate bloggers or “licence” professional journalists; these proposals are too draconian and could end up imposing limits on free speech and limiting the spread of benign forms of citizen journalism.

Any solution will have to depend in part on brave individuals like Padrick, who dare confront their online attackers in court.

But the dangers of the Web are not always so clear-cut. Often, the sins are ones of inattention and inaccuracy, rather than the obvious outrages of slander and libel.

But if you’re venturing further afield into the Wild West of individual bloggers, independent websites and online opinion, it gets more complicated not just for the reader but also for the public sector communicator who may be simply trying to get the message out. You have to remember that you’re often dealing with primary, raw material, unedited and unscrutinized.

It’s your job to compare, to weigh and filter the material using your own judgment and experience.

And remember, you can’t believe everything you read, especially online.

ICT Feature

Kelly McDonald is a manager in Deloitte’s

Systems Integration, Application Modernization and Technology, Media and Telecommunications consulting practice (kemcdonald@deloitte.ca).

What’s in your system?

Achieving

Integrated application modernization planning As the IT needs of an organization evolve, and existing systems age, it is critical to look at application modernization using an integrated approach that covers the complete breadth of applications and systems.

Starting with a portfolio view of applications is fundamental to the effective management of a modernization journey. The parallels between general IT portfolio management and integrated organizational modernization planning allow the application of best practice approaches to application modernization.

Understanding a department’s constellation of applications, where they add value or meet operational needs, allows risks, priorities, costs and interdependences to be identified. This leads to integrated planning where limited resources can be applied to the most effective projects.

For example, it may not make sense to embark on a large-scale application redesign for a system that delivers little value.

In other cases, small incremental projects designed to reduce application interdependencies can reduce the risk and complexity of follow-on replacements.

Awareness of other systems in use by the organization can provide valuable insight to important key strategic questions. Can existing platforms be leveraged to replace legacy systems? Is the organization moving to specific technology stacks and architectures? Do standards and guidelines exist?

Not only is the portfolio view a starting point for any modernization journey; its maturity, quality, completeness and alignment with organizational objectives will assist in determining the path forward.

The following six-step framework offers a starting point to applying portfolio management approaches to legacy application modernization:

1

Identify your portfolio of applications Starting with an inventory of the application landscape is a critical starting point: what applications does the organization currently support? Who supports them? And where are they? This is not only important to ongoing IT operations, budgeting and planning, but also acts as the foundation for modernization planning. A complete picture drives better decision making.

2

Determine business value tied to these applications Each application within the inventory should generate some form of value.

There are applications that support services delivered to clients and constituents.

Some are tied to internal processes and controls; others are mandated by legislative compliance. Understanding the value applications deliver and how they do so allows the most important systems to be targeted and the cost/benefit of future projects to be understood.

3

Ascertain legacy risk profile of these applications Not all applications present the same level of legacy risk. Certain applications have limited flexibility and cannot be easily changed; others will have become brittle.

Some will suffer from security vulnerabilities; others will lack the parts, people or expertise to be supported. These characteristics rather than the age of the system should be used to measure legacy risk.

4

Understand application interdependencies In an ideal world, every application would be a discrete entity that could be easily replaced without impact. Unfortunately old legacy systems are often the ones most em-

bedded into those around them. Like IT coral, new applications are layered and wrapped around the existing applications, making them difficult to replace. By understanding the interdependencies between legacy and other applications, it is possible to identity subsystems that are easiest to replace and those that will present a greater challenge.

This awareness allows smaller interim projects to be identified and interdependencies reduced before embarking on larger replacement projects. When it comes to estimating the cost of replacing an application, often integration activities represent the greatest risk and under-estimation of effort.

5

Prioritize applications requiring modernization The dimensions of business value, legacy risk, and application interdependencies form the basis of modernization planning activities. By identifying those applications delivering the highest business value with the greatest legacy risk, one can focus limited resources on projects that are expected to deliver the greatest benefit. The ideal outcome is a roadmap of a balanced set of large, lower risk projects complimented by smaller, higher risk activities designed to mitigate the risk of future projects.

6

Repeat As legislative mandates and program priorities change, so does the context that drives the prioritization of projects and activities.

As a result, this process should be performed on an ongoing basis (or at a minimum reviewed quarterly). This is part of the neverending reality of application modernization.

Approaching application modernization as set of integrated activities using mature application portfolio management tools is a powerful way to improve the outcomes of complex and often highly interrelated modernization projects.

March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 23

New Professionals

Carly Gasparini is a Masters of Public Service candidate at the University of Waterloo.

She is completing her internship as a policy intern at the City of Greater Sudbury.

Fitting P3s into public procurement In most democracies public procurement is expected to be fair, transparent and provide equal opportunity. “Old boys club” back room deals that might be more easily concealed in the private sector as “just business” are instead exposed as scandals in the public realm.

So what happens to public procurement processes when public organizations and private businesses work together to fund public projects? The growing popularity of public-private partnerships (P3s or PPPs) has added a new level of complexity to the future of public procurement.

Taxpayers will agree that politicians, and through them public servants, have a responsibility to ensure integrity and efficiency in allocating contracts and public money. It has always been a balancing act to ensure accountability and efficiency when granting public contracts. Yet in the last decade or so more often governments have turned to P3s to provide expensive infrastructure.

The Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships define these arrangements as “a cooperative venture between the public and private sectors, built on the expertise of each partner, which best meets clearly defined public needs through the appropriate allocation of resources, risks and rewards.”

P3s take on many different forms depending on the nature of the project, ranging from strait contracting out of a service or building development to complete privatization.

Proponents of P3s argue they effectively bring together the strengths of both sectors and provide much needed capital to finance government projects and services.

This creates opportunities to complete projects that would not otherwise be af24 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

fordable and at the same time transfers certain risks to the private sector.

However, there is a serious concern about how this mingling with the private sector affects the procurement process. It seems only reasonable for one to assume that with the transfer of risk there is a loss of control over the quality and cost of service delivery. The treasured transparency and accountability that taxpayers demand in public affairs is now clouded by the world of private business. And yet, the Canadian Council for P3s lists over 160 current or successfully completed PPP projects across Canada and the Government of Canada has developed a $1.3 billion fund available to provinces and municipalities to encourage the development of these relationships.

Despite its critics – and there are many – P3s are becoming a significant part of the public procurement process. Therefore, it becomes imperative to develop systems to ensure that this new form of procurement maintains the transparency, accountability and fairness of more traditional processes.

It is essential to be careful when choosing to enter into such an agreement. It is tempting for governments to jump at any new source of funding, but it is important to consider the needs of the community

not only when choosing to use a P3 but also when negotiating the structure of that agreement. To avoid possible negative outcomes, a detailed “value for money” analysis is required to assess whether the costs exceed the benefits.

Further, much has been learned from previous P3 projects across Canada that highlights the importance of the negotiation process. Issues that must be incorporated into such contracts include: • End-product ownership: this is especially true when a municipality pays the capital debt but does not own the buildings; • Maintenance of responsibilities: audits should be performed regularly to ensure proper upkeep of assets; • A long-term vision: P3s often involve big infrastructure projects that should not only serve immediate purposes but also plan for the future needs of growing communities; and • Agreement on the structure: while there are several structures that P3s have taken, the most popular by far is a designbuild-finance-operate approach, where the public sector retains ownership, or agrees to purchase the facility and land for the sum of $1 at the end of the fixed-term contract. The private sector is responsible for the rest. Choosing an appropriate structure may be the most crucial aspect of a successful agreement.

Public-private partnerships offer many communities a breadth of exciting possibilities yet have called into question traditional procurement processes. Can the same level of accountability be promised in these new contracts? The truth is that like any procurement, the transparency and integrity of the contract lies in the integrity of those entering into the agreement.

John Read provides procurement consulting services to public sector clients. He retired in 2007 after more than 35 years in the federal public service, including almost 15 in the PWGSC procurement arena, ending as senior director of acquisition policy and process.

Procurement

A patch with hopeful possibilities The federal government’s new Professional Services National Procurement Strategy, continuing the use of national master standing offers and supply arrangements, offers some hope that the government will get this important area of procurement right.

Recognizing that the existing system is overly complex, cumbersome and confusing, Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) is doing a patch job: with limits to what patches can achieve, it might have been better to rip it out and start again. The devil is in the details, and in many areas the strategy lacks specifics.

Many policy organizations have learned from sad experience that the best “onpaper” approach will fail if real life implementation does not meet expectations.

Still, what’s done is done, and we can see hope, albeit through continuing weaknesses.

Red tape continues. Buyers will have to justify using a standing offer to contract directly (up to $25,000) with a supplier without calling for bids. Using increasingly scarce government resources to justify complying with the Government Contracts Regulations is interesting. The regulations are clear: contracts under $25,000 can be awarded without calling for bids, because it is not cost-effective to do so. Why, then, will PWGSC require departments to spend time and money to “justify”?

Suppliers will have to report on a quarterly basis or risk suspension. Presumably this applies to suppliers that actually get contracts. Apparently a supplier that has demonstrated its abilities by “winning” a contract could be suspended for failing an administrative requirement?

The strategy relies heavily on a new automated system, the Centralized Professional Services System (CPSS), to be implemented “eventually.” Unfortunately, major system development processes all too often fail – too slow, too expensive, poor results. Excessive reliance on a system is risky. One wonders also whether CPSS development – and in fact this entire renewal effort – will survive government austerity measures.

Suppliers will apparently have to compete twice to provide the same services: once for standing offers, once for supply arrangements. Added to that inefficiency, access will continue to be limited, as getting listed for a supply arrangement or standing offer will not be a continuing process: the best that PWGSC offers is that the qualification period might be reduced to, for example, monthly. If CPSS is so good, why not continuous?

Qualification will continue to be based on generic criteria applicable across a government user base of 100 very different departments and agencies. This crude approach does not accept that what is good for one department may not be suitable for another.

The strategy maintains the use of per diem fees to “rank” standing offer holders.

Ranking and then selecting professional service providers based only on their daily rates ignores that results are not simply the product of per diem fee and level of effort (i.e., per diem rate times number of days). A less expensive contractor that takes longer to produce may easily cost more than a more expensive professional who produces faster and better.

Price may be what you pay – but value is what you get – and as the government strives to reduce expenditures surely overall value for money must assume increasing importance.

So, strong negatives – but also strong positives: there is hope.

Departments will be able to use standing offers on a direct/sole source basis. Rather than relying on centrally-set generic qualification criteria and inappropriate per diem rankings of suppliers, they will be able to quickly find suppliers that meet their particular requirements, and negotiate agreements based on real timelines, levels of effort and resulting total price. That is value – quickly and at low cost.

CPSS will improve data capture and reporting, removing that burden from suppliers and buyers alike. Can we hope that contracting data will be publicly available, for transparency?

Above all, PWGSC says it will improve all of the processes required for the effective use of supply arrangements: qualification requirements, standardization and training. If successful, even requirements less than $25,000 could be competed faster and at less cost to buyer and seller: more competition and more value, with little if any more effort than the current process.

Perhaps then PWGSC will be able to introduce an ongoing process, where suppliers qualify once to be listed (but not ranked) for both standing offers and supply arrangements. Professionals who choose to do so could even list their per diems, for those departments that seek generically qualified resources for fixed periods.

There is hope.

March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 25

The Leader’s Bookshelf

Harvey Schachter writes The Globe and Mail’s Managing Books and Monday Morning Manager columns.

He is a freelance writer specializing in management issues.

How do you trust?

Smart Trust Stephen M. R. Covey and Greg Link, with Rebecca Merrill Free Press, 296 pages, $29.99

In their look at well-performing government organizations around the world, The Three Pillars of Public Management, Ole Ingstrup and Paul Crookall identified trust as a crucial element for success. Trust is the lubricant that keeps relationships and organizations running smoothly.

But trust can be slippery, hard to get a handle on. We shouldn’t need a manual to be trustworthy – if we’re faking it, subordinates know – but in a networked world with today’s daily swirl and prevailing cynicism, trust can be complicated. Stephen M. R. Covey (author and the son of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People guru Stephen R. Covey) and Greg Link offer some assistance in their new book, Smart Trust.

Smart trust can be distinguished from blind trust. It follows the old Russian

26 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

proverb that U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously revived in his dealings with the Soviet Union, “Trust, but verify.” In our own lives, it means starting with a propensity to trust but also combining that with analysis to figure out how best to manage that trust.

Muhammad Yunus displayed smart trust when he established the Grameen Bank. He loaned money to people who nobody else would dream of giving money to. They were impoverished, generally female, with no collateral, no steady employment, and no verifiable credit history. He believed they would repay his loans, and indeed they did – the 98 percent payback rate was in fact higher than conventional loans at banks. But to be careful, he set up support groups for borrowers to encourage and help one another with their new businesses and loans.

He also helped them to create a self-policing system that would encourage responsible behaviour by the group members since all their reputations would be bound together by this network. Trust, but smart trust.

EBay is another example of smart trust. On the surface, the business premise is ludicrous. People from around the world, who have never met each other and are in different legal jurisdictions, are swapping goods, with money transfers handled, on faith, between them. It sounds like a mecca for con artists. But Pierre Omidyar, the site’s founder, had a belief that most people are basically good and can be trusted and the site has flourished. His team developed a strong set of transparency and feedback procedures

that help the traders to police the site – their site, in effect. And the company has instituted sophisticated measures to detect inappropriate behaviour, fraud, and attempts to hawk counterfeit goods.

Trust, but smart trust.

The authors say smart trust, at its essence, is judgment, a quality leaders are expected to have. It minimizes risks and optimizes possibilities. It requires overcoming our inherent distrust of others, instilled in us as youngsters by our parents’ warnings about strangers. “Although Stranger Danger may be a good thing to teach kids, it can become a large problem if it becomes the basic way we look at all relationships throughout our lives – if we allow a protective response to the five percent who can’t be trusted to drive the way we interact with the other 95 percent who we can. Stranger Danger can script us, at a young age, to be suspicious and distrusting,” Covey writes in one of the sidebars of the book where the authors give personal anecdotes.

The authors set out five actions that will help to make smart trust work for you: 1. Choose to believe in trust: belief is the foundation for getting results in any area of our life, and that applies in trust as well. Indeed, they note that what we believe is even stronger than what we know because belief drives our behaviour and our actions. “Deciding to believe in trust is a choice, the fundamental choice out of which all other Smart Trust actions flow,” they note.

In their work with high-trust individuals, teams and organizations around

the LeaDer’S BooKSheLF the world, they found three beliefs that animated trust. The first is that you and people you are dealing with must believe you are worthy of trust. That belief will often flow from situations where you forsake immediate benefit to act in a decent, honourable way. The second belief you must accept is that most people can be trusted. Successful high trust people don’t let the small minority who can’t be trusted define the vast majority who can.

The third essential belief is that extending trust is a better way to lead, because it inspires people to perform and generally will be reciprocated, ultimately leading to greater prosperity, energy and joy.

2. Start with self: beyond belief in trust, you must behave with trust. And that starts with your own actions. It will be easier for people to trust you if you are seen as honest, straightforward, dependable, and genuinely concerned about their welfare. Ask yourself whether your character and competence add up to a person or organization that others can trust.

They point to the emergence of Singapore as a powerhouse nation as an example. “Over the last several decades both its character (demonstrated by its low corruption and mentality of national service) and its competence (demonstrated by the way the country has reinvented itself while simultaneously increasing productivity and competitiveness) have made Singapore highly credible and giv-

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en its citizens and the world a country they can trust,” the authors state.

3. Declare your intent: charity starts at home, and so does trust. Declaring your intent at the start of situations such as negotiations is an accelerator of trust.

Let people know what you are seeking, and also be open so they can see you have no hidden agendas. Together, this will diminish suspicion.

The authors distinguish two elements to declaring intent. We must declare what we will do but also why we are doing it: “Sharing the why behind the what makes a profound difference in how others interpret our communication up front, as well as how they interpret our subsequent behaviour.”

As well, you must assume positive intent in others. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi says she learned this approach from her father, and it has been powerful. “When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away the anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don’t get defensive. You don’t scream. You are trying to understand and listen,” she says.

4. Do what you say you are going to do: if you don’t live up to your commitments, you will squander trust. In almost every nation, culture, religion and philosophy for effective living around the world, the

authors found “do what you say you are going to do” was an important value and significant measure of trust building. In essence, it’s a global standard, and so in a multicultural world, whether dealing with colleagues at home or folks in other countries, you want to avoid failing on this measure. “Delivering promised results – doing what you say you are going to do – generates trust faster than any other action. This is particularly true when circumstances make it difficult,” they add.

5. Lead in extending trust to others: most of us can remember a time when somebody extended trust in us, and how gratifying and empowering it was.

We need to do the same for others. Acting with such faith and trust unleashes human potential and multiplies performance. It engenders reciprocal trust.

“This action is more than choosing to believe. It’s choosing to act on that belief – to take the steps, to make the leap. The belief that it will pay off is what gives a person the courage and faith to do it. And it’s the job of a leader to go first,” they point out.

Government executives, of course, in an era of accountability and media gotchas have extra cause to worry when dealing with others. They must protect the government from rogues, and that can lead to blind distrust. But the book makes a strong case for applying the notion of smart trust where you can.

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March 2012 // Canadian Government executive / 27

Smart Trust

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Jeffrey Roy is associate professor in the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University (roy@dal.ca).

Governing Digitally

The power and peril of proximity

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One of the peculiarities of the 21st century is the correlation between virtualization and urbanization: more people online on the one hand, and more of the population living in cities on the other hand.

Such parallel trends are both perverse and logical at the same time. They are perverse given the inherent capacity of the Internet to transcend the limits of physicality.

Yet the logic stems from the largely market-driven paradigm of connectivity pursued by most countries, which reinforces the competitive advantages of larger urban dwellings over smaller cities and more rural and remote communities.

Consider the State of New York. In January, the governor pledged one billion dollars to attract businesses to the languishing city of Buffalo. By contrast, one month earlier, the City of New York announced it was spending a mere one hundred million dollars (and giving away a tiny East river island) in a multi-billion dollar partnership with a consortium of universities led by Cornell to develop a new city within a city, an island cluster of science and technology meant to one day rival California’s Silicon Valley as a magnet for students, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors.

That would be the Silicon Valley – repeatedly, over the years, declared “good as dead” due to high costs and congestion and the advent of globalization and low cost virtual networks. Today, Silicon Valley is home to Apple, Facebook and Google, to name but the most obvious. As one San Jose journalist quipped in “congratulating its new rival” on its own initiative: New York City can now

just be seen in the rear-view mirror.

This digital nexus between markets and urbanization is redefining North America much as it is gathering force on a global scale, albeit with a few notable exceptions. China’s construction “of a Rome every few weeks” (to quote Slate online) is a case in point, as is the current Smart Cities initiative sponsored by IBM that aims to promote a better embedding of digital technologies within increasingly dense patterns of urban living.

The few exceptions to this rule are to be found in small homogenous states such as Singapore and Scandinavia. While the latter countries share many aspects of Canada’s northern positioning, their smaller geographic confines permit more extensive transportation ties between large and small cities: near ubiquitous Internet access, in turn, helps facilitate rural development in areas that would otherwise be suffering a much steeper decline.

Perhaps the most relevant comparator for Canada is Australia and its recent decision to invest massively in a national broadband network for the country as a whole. While Australia has become much more urban in recent times, particularly along its eastern corridor, this public investment reflects an attempt to stem if not reverse the logic of competitive markets that would otherwise greatly augment the divide between urban and rural communities. Indeed, the National Broadband Network explicitly acknowledges and seeks to remedy the higher costs and lower access and usage rates for rural Australians, a dis-

paraging trait of this country as well.

It is unlikely that the Canadian government, which is looking to reduce expenditures, will follow a similar path, leaving it to provinces to address (or not) such realities on a more piecemeal basis. The challenge in doing so is the demographic and fiscal predominance of the largest cities and their perpetually escalating needs for transportation infrastructure (which in turn gives rise to the lens of “smarter” cities).

Here is where the absence of a more robust set of inter-governmental mechanisms with respect to digital infrastructure and online development takes its toll.

As I noted in last month’s column, the future of e-health depends on a concerted effort that includes national, provincial, local and regional authorities. A similar logic must prevail to close the pronounced gap between smaller and remote communities with natural resources and those without. While many provinces have established rural assistance programs of one sort or another, they merely compound the challenge by further segmenting such communities as isolated and disjointed from their urban cousins.

In an era of profound digital innovation coupled with ecological awareness, the interdependencies of urban and rural development must instead come to the forefront of developmental plans and investments – as well as new governance architectures that seek to nurture the traditional advantages of proximity while complementing them with a new rural potential that awaits meaningful articulation and attention.

March 2012 // Canadian Government Executive / 29

Opinion

David Zussman holds the Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa (dzussman@uOttawa.ca).

Setting boundaries for political advisors One of the most important developments in public administration and governance over the past 30 years has been the ascendancy of political advisors, referred to as exempt staff, to positions of influence in the decision-making apparatus of government. The changing role of advisors is attributable to the relationship that prime ministers want to establish with the public service after an election.

For example, in 1984, Brian Mulroney created the position of chief of staff to increase the influence of ministerial staff to provide a counterweight to the public service. In 1993, Jean Chrétien eliminated the chief of staff positions, appointed experienced administrators into ministers’ offices, dramatically downsized ministerial offices and directed his own staff and the exempt staff in ministers’ offices to work collaboratively with the public service in order to provide for two streams of advice.

The roles of exempt staff changed again in 2006 after the arrival of the newly merged Conservative party, which suspected that the public service harboured liberal values. As a consequence, they committed to rebalancing the influence of the public service, particularly in policymaking, by demanding that it be more responsive to the government’s needs.

While the profile of exempt staff clearly changes as a function of the government’s desires, there is clear evidence that the role of political advisors has dramatically increased in OECD countries as governments have become more ideological. The similarities of this development suggest that a more fundamental change in the governance structure of many countries is occurring under the umbrella of an in30 / Canadian Government Executive // March 2012

crease in emphasis on government service and performance.

In Canada’s Westminster system of government, the addition of political advisors to the decision-making process signals a fundamental restructuring of how government works. Under the emerging regime responsibilities are shifting away from the public service that once held a monopoly over policy advice and program delivery.

To add a further layer of complexity, the policy arena has also broadened and is now populated by think tanks and other independent organizations whose attention is now directed at political advisors who are becoming the nexus of policy debates and decisions.

According to a recently published OECD report on political advisors, this trend is taking place in most OECD member countries in order to facilitate the implementation of a government’s policy agenda and to increase the responsiveness of the public service. Given the growing importance of political advisors in the decision-making process, the OECD and others are beginning to raise serious questions given that advisors are usually exempted from any formal competitive processes when they are hired and their selection is contingent on a partisan attachment to the government in power.

In Canada, there is a clear division between exempt staff and public servants.

All public servants support their ministers through the deputy ministers in a well established and understood reporting regime. The exempt staff are hired by ministers and report directly to them, although there is frequent interaction between the public service and exempt staff. Exempt

staff can ask the public service for information and are expected to inform the public service of decisions taken by the minister whenever appropriate, but exempt staff cannot direct the public service.

These working “rules” are supposed to be monitored by ministers and deputy ministers and, when problems arise, they are expected to resolve them.

Despite these conventions there are a number of problems that undermine the confidence citizens can have in this arrangement. First, there is no control on the quality of exempt staff since job candidates do not go through a competitive selection process. Second, exempt staff are not formally accountable for their actions since they are not recognized within any formal reporting system in government.

And, third, there is no framework or written rules about their roles and responsibilities, especially in terms of their relations with their minister, deputy minister and the public service at large.

Given that the current role of exempt staff is likely to be a permanent one, there are two issues that the centre of government should address. First, there needs to be a publicly available description of the political jobs, with the standard description of roles, responsibilities, reporting arrangements, job criteria and compensation. Second, the government also needs to make the accountability framework explicit and public so that the boundaries of political advisor roles are known to all those who interact with them.

In this way, Canadians can be reassured that there will be better alignment in terms of the responsibilities and accountabilities of all decision makers.

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Possibilities Are you Protected? How Location Based Services Bring a New Wave of Privacy Concerns.

By John Weigelt Canada is one of the most technologically savvy countries in the world, populated by great thinkers, inventors and entrepreneurs. As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, each day we realize more and more how it has the ability to impact every facet of our day-to-day lives.

We know that Canadians crave access to cutting-edge tech that will improve how we live, work and play. But while embracing the opportunity and excitement that those innovations bring, it is so important that protecting privacy continues to be top-of-mind for everyone.

A recent Microsoft global survey tells us that although a large number of Canadians see the benefits of using LBS, they are concerned about their privacy and are eager for more control.

The prevalence of location based services (LBS) is a perfect example of an exciting group of tools that have incredible potential. What is LBS? These are the services and applications that pinpoint our location so that we can receive directions to help us navigate, quickly tell us the closest location of our favourite coffee shop, or even let us see on a map where all of our friends are located at any given hour. At the same time, these services can permit service providers to track, analyze and share users’ movements and this raises concerns with some Canadians.

The survey, conducted in December 2010, shared that 64 per cent of total respondents are specifically concerned with controlling which organizations have access to their location, 82 per cent are concerned about having their information or identity stolen, and 76 per cent are concerned about losing their privacy in general.

LBS aren’t inherently dangerous on their own, but it is important to think about the layers of information they leave online. Canadians need to be empowered with the knowledge to customize their privacy settings on their

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phones, social networking sites, and the applications they use. LBS products should include customer notification and consent procedures, strong data security elements, and user-friendly, understandable privacy controls.

At Microsoft, we know privacy is important to our customers – as it should be – and we believe this means that Canada’s lead technological innovators, governments, privacy thought leaders and law enforcement agencies should continue to work collaboratively and proactively together to do everything we can to protect Canadians’ privacy and alleviate their concerns, while still giving them access to the best technology on the market.

Collectively, we must not only make a commitment to continue to develop innovative methods and technologies that provide strong security, but also pledge to educate Canadians about how to help protect themselves when they use these new innovations. If we do this, Canada will continue on the path of developing not only a thriving digital economy, but one that is safe, secure and reliable for all citizens.

We must pledge to educate Canadians about how to protect themselves when they use these new innovations.

As the National Technology Officer for Microsoft Canada, John Weigelt is responsible for driving Microsoft Canada’s strategic policy and technology efforts. Mr. Weigelt is the lead public advocate within the company on key issues such as the development of national technology policy and the use of technology by the private and public sectors. This includes leading Canadian outreach for economic development, innovation, environmental sustainability, accessibility, privacy and security. Mr. Weigelt is also responsible for the development and implementation of strategies which strengthen the Microsoft’s relationships with the Canadian technology industry at large.

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