{"id":59013,"date":"2023-09-19T19:49:27","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T23:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scoopmedia-develop.go-vip.net\/statescoop\/?p=59013"},"modified":"2023-09-19T19:49:28","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T23:49:28","slug":"boston-cio-tech-modernization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scoopmedia-develop.go-vip.net\/statescoop\/boston-cio-tech-modernization\/","title":{"rendered":"Small milestones key for IT modernization projects, says Boston CIO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Any life coach, therapist or physical trainer knows that unrealistic expectations are kryptonite to reaching long-term goals.\u00a0Santiago Garces, Boston’s chief information officer argued in an online event Tuesday that the same can be said about modernizing government IT systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Garces said, the key is managing expectations by setting short-term, easily achievable goals that place agencies on a journey to success, rather than set them on a path for obstacles and disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have been taking big, complex goals and trying to break them up into smaller increments,\u201d he said during the IT Modernization Summit<\/a> hosted by StateScoop and EdScoop. \u201cIn a two-week sprint, it’s short enough that almost anything \u2014 unless there’s a real emergency \u2014 can be done in about two weeks.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garces pointed to the changes Boston’s IT department has made with this strategy, such as the Office of Early Childhood<\/a> online portal, established by Mayor Michelle Wu to better connect families with young children to public resources for activities, food and health care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Garces noticed that his team kept running into the same obstacle while working on the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe realized we kept getting stuck having existential dread about what the point was about doing this platform,\u201d he said of the multiple departments collaborating on the project. \u201cThere’s so much uncertainty that we weren\u2019t able to tackle anything until we could at least put something in front of people that could produce meaningful reactions and data.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He suggested they start small by first building a prototype of the portal they wanted to create, then build the interface that would execute it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo in about three weeks, we were able to build a prototype of a platform that had programs offered by the city and by some third-party providers, display them in a web format,\u201d Garces said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old technology can be challenging to update, but he said that doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t worth the initial investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe tend to think that government is slow and that things are never going to change. But we know that, in fact, that’s far from the truth,\u201d he said. \u201cThere’s changes in financial reality, or leadership, there’s changes in the team \u2014 so the way that we’ve approached agility is by first acknowledging that it’s a journey.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston CIO Santiago Garces said updating legacy tech is sometimes best accomplished through a series of incremental steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":614,"featured_media":59058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_grayscale_images":true,"grayscale_contrast":0,"sponsored_content":false,"display_author_bio":true,"story_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[4676],"tags":[13703,23],"people":[24218],"special-report":[],"authors":[24250],"class_list":["post-59013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city","tag-digital-services","tag-innovation","people-santiago-garces","author-sophia-fox-sowell"],"yoast_head":"\nSmall milestones key for IT modernization 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