Government Operations committee  It certainly could be. GENS will have a number of business plans. There are 124 networks across many departments, and they won't necessarily all migrate at once. In fact, it would not be advisable for them to migrate all at once. If two or three departments decide to migrate toge

Government Operations committee  I'm sorry. Who developed these tools?

Government Operations committee  I'll ask Val to answer that question.

Government Operations committee  I believe that business plans are being prepared, but they are not necessarily finalized. The procurement is not finalized, either. Over the next year or two, we would expect to see an overall plan, together with individual plans. These would reflect departmental migrations from

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, that's a very good question. Absolutely, we do discuss with industry through a number of forums, and independent of a specific project or any procurement activity, we are in touch with the industry on our general orientations, on their opinions on new technologies, a

Government Operations committee  I'm sorry, just to be clear, are you saying towards a more bundled...?

Government Operations committee  Well, certainly the Auditor General's recommendations in 2006 were that we should move towards smaller projects, and therefore smaller contracts by association. Other industry research from the Standish Group and many other project management advisory boards certainly stresses th

Government Operations committee  Mainly by attending meetings of what is called, in English, a steering committee or advisory committee, to which we are periodically invited, as managers. The project managers do regular follow-up. If necessary, we request documents or additional support. If we think there is a r

Government Operations committee  I won't pre-empt my colleagues from Public Works and Government Services Canada, but GENS, as I understand it, is not yet a project. It is currently being discussed as a supply arrangement for the provision of services and facilities to a number of government departments in the a

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. For the independent review program, there was an important project in the waste water management program. I am going to let Ms. Wutti explain that case, because she is very familiar with it.

Government Operations committee  For example, when a department presents a submission to Treasury Board, in particular to get approval for a project that exceeds the limit allocated to its authorities, we can review the submission, and if we think the project involves somewhat higher-risk elements, we can decide

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, that's an excellent suggestion. Yes, we have a template and we'd be more than happy to submit it. Absolutely.

Government Operations committee  We are aware of the size of the investments, but a distinction also has to be made between the start-up costs and regular operating costs. At present we have this service and we are constantly working to reduce costs and find better solutions.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, the question is what measures have been taken by Treasury Board to ensure sound management of projects and ensure better returns...

Government Operations committee  As I said, our strategy consists mainly of this: we have improved or updated our project management policy so that it better reflects what are called best management practices for project management. This is based on various strategies, including preliminary studies, but mainly o