Government Operations Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Then am I wrong in this assumption that it can't be used for large projects of procurement of physical product? For example, you had said that the United States, the U.K., and Estonia are examples. The U.K. just did a major renovation of its government buildings.

[Dan Murphy]

Yes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

They did it in a third of the time and at a third of the cost. Anybody who has seen them knows they're huge.

Would they have used an agile protocol in terms of moving it forward? If so, how did they start? Where would you start, and how far ahead would you start before you got to where the shovels show up or whatever has to happen physically?

[Dan Murphy]

I can't say about that project particularly, but generally the shovel shows up pretty close to the beginning.

If I were doing a departmental-wide transformation, there would be a 90-day period where we would have the planning stuff set up. After that, we would start implementing, but very small projects that are designed to create value around program delivery.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'll stop you there. I know we're going to probably get to continue this line.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll go to Madam Ratansi now, please.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you very much.

I come from the consulting environment. When we did project management, there were so many iterations. There were flavours of the day that then moved on. Agile is not a flavour of the day, I hope.

[Dan Murphy]

It's not.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You've been through the private and public sector, and there is a total difference in the mindset. In the private sector, you are encouraged to take risks, and you are rewarded or fired for risk-taking. Has anybody been fired for the fiascos of SSC or Phoenix?

[Dan Murphy]

I don't think so.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Good. Okay. That's okay.

The reason I ask you this is that the public sector is risk-averse.

[Dan Murphy]

Yes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Being risk-averse, they are there for the long term. Their political masters come and go, so they are the most consistent ones, and they know how to manage themselves. Within that environment, within that hierarchical structure, how do you see agile meeting the needs of the government? In what area, for example, was SSC weak in its planning? Was it in its planning process, was it in its scope, or was it in its quality? When you do not plan properly, the process does not happen, and then everybody says, “I'll run away from this.” Deputy ministers change or whatever happens. How do we, as politicians who take responsibility for all the fiascos that take place, mitigate the risk?

[Dan Murphy]

As I mentioned to Francis, the structure of SSC—the way it is now and the way it was when it started—is not conducive to creating something new, a new shared service. The structure of the organization is combative. I think it's very difficult for them to do that, because they have so many different manufacturing centres that have their own way of doing business. They're trying to merge that, but that's a huge project in itself.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Say there was a new project coming forth. How would you advise government, within the environment you've already been in, within the hierarchy you have been in, to use a methodology like agile to mitigate their risks?

[Dan Murphy]

Get outside of the hierarchy.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

How? I mean, that's the bureaucracy that works.

[Dan Murphy]

Again, what is the purpose of policy? A policy's purpose is to create some value for citizens.

I'll ask you right up front, does current policy create that, or does current policy get in the way of that? If I have a policy that tells exactly how to do something in extreme detail, it just becomes a process in the government, which means I have to spend a whole bunch more time following the process and creating a big plan, because I have to create a plan before I do anything.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

But the policy is created. I've been through RFP processes in the provincial government. The 200-page RFP was created because the bureaucracy did not want anything to fall on its face because it would be a risk, so they would mitigate it by saying “A, B, C”, and being very prescriptive. How do you change that mindset?

[Dan Murphy]

What the U.K. did was they had gates, but the gates proved that they were following an agile approach, so the gates did not say, at the end of gate one, “I want you to have a great big document.” It said, at the end of gate one, “I want you to have implemented it with 10 people, tested, and validated.”

The project methodology says, “I want empirical data. I don't want an analysis paralysis. I don't want to follow process, I want to create value.” Today the processes in government are not creating value for us.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I'm coming back to SSC, because there are lessons to be learned. What would you have advised somebody starting SSC on what their scope should be?

[Dan Murphy]

Their scope could stay the same as it is. However, I would say that you need to start with a brand new organization that isn't a merger of 43 existing ones. You need to start with SSC 2.0, and you don't need a huge bureaucracy for that. I would start with 10 people. I would start with a JTF2. You have 10 guys, highly trained. They have a very specific mission, and they accomplish it.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

What would your timing be? You know in government—

[Dan Murphy]

Again, you're asking questions that I would call the “traditional approach” questions. I would say you put the team together, you visit them every 90 days, and you ask them what progress they're making toward their goal. Instead of telling them to make the goal in 90 days, you come back and ask them what they've done, what progress they're making towards their goal.

That's why this is a two-day course.