“Few federal agencies undergo digital transformation on as large a scale as VA. It’s the largest health care integrated network, the largest civilian department, the largest federal IT organization and the largest national cemetery administrator in the country.
Daniel McCune, acting associate deputy assistant secretary for enterprise program management in VA’s Office of Information and Technology, said digital transformation for his agency is akin to steering a ship: ‘It takes a while for that ship to start moving … once that ship starts to turn, it turns and it’s really hard to stop.’
Some mistakes VA has made in its digital transformation journey included a fractured budget, using inappropriate metrics and siloed teams that did not align with business customers. He said much of the knowledge gained from customer discussions is lost when the development team passes an architectural design to the operations side, and it takes a while to recover all the background knowledge when teams reorganize frequently…”
“To fix this, VA switched from ‘project’ teams to ‘product’ teams, who are responsible for that product from beginning to end, McCune said. An example is the G.I. Bill, which now uses eight teams on a single product line overseen by a product line manager…” Read the full article here.
Source: OPM, VA recount digital transformation hits and misses – By Amelia Brust, August 11, 2021. Federal News Network.
