Continuous Improvement Transformation

• Introduction
  • Purpose
  • Targeted Stakeholders
  • Business Case
• Guiding Policy
  • Governance, Compliance, and Reporting
• Coherent set of actions
• Measuring the Strategy’s success
• Appendix B - Traceability Matrix

Introduction

Purpose

To provide Information and Technology Branch (IITB) with a strategy to transform into a high-performing organization through the continuous improvement of daily work. The strategy includes:

1. A guiding policy, which serves to clarify the application and alignment to the GC Digital Standards and the Directive on Service and Digital to transform IITB into a high-performing organization through the continuous improvement of daily work.
2. A coherent set of actions (an action plan), which serve to operationalize the continuous improvement transformation.

The intent behind this strategy is to communicate a decision by the Chief Information Officer (CIO) on a path forward (the Guiding Policy), and what investments are needed to operationalize that decision (the coherent set of actions).

Targeted Stakeholders

This strategy document is targeted to all stakeholders involved in the day-to-day operation of IITB. This includes both IITB and non-IITB stakeholders such as, but not limited to, Business Functions, Strategic and Service Policy Branch (SSPB), Chief Data Officer (CDO), Integrity Service Branch (ISB), Internal Audit Services Branch, and Shared-Services Canada (SSC). The list of stakeholders are listed in the Coherent set of actions and are expected to participate in the execution stage of this strategy necessary to operationalize the Guiding Policy.

The Guiding Policy, once operationalized, will target stakeholders to always be improving. All Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) personnel involved in the activities of IITB are expected to adhere to this policy.

Business Case

Moving to the digital age requires improving IT’s responsiveness and promoting a shared accountability with ESDC stakeholders on the use of technology.

The GC Digital Standards and the Directive on Service and Digital as well as the Digital Operations Strategic Plan: 2018-2022 set a direction for departments to focus on user needs, reuse existing business capabilities, use modern technologies, be agile, work in the open…

The benefits to the adoption of this Strategy are expected to reduce risk [^1], reduce technical debt over time, increase client satisfaction, and increase overall confidence in the department and its staff to support the needs of ESDC.

This strategy capitalizes on existing IT initiatives (such as the IITB Way Forward) to complement them, as well as supporting them with new activities (see Coherent set of actions).

This strategy’s goal is to clarify the application and alignment to the GC Digital Standards and the Directive on Service and Digital to transform IITB into a high-performing organization through the continuous improvement of daily work.

Guiding Policy

Governance, Compliance, and Reporting

IITB teams continuously work to improve their daily work to help IITB achieve the following:

• Westrum culture metric > 35
• Lead time for change [1-24] hours
• Deploy frequency [1-24] hours or on demand
• Time to restore service [1-24] hours
• Change failure rate < 15%

IITB teams seek to understand the current condition, set measurable targets for a future date and experiment with ways to achieve these targets until the future date is reached. When the results have been captured and new targets are set, they repeat the process.

IITB teams define metrics for their team and measure themselves against them. Metrics must be tied to the metrics of their direct report, from Team Leaders, to the CIO.

Coherent set of actions

Measuring the Strategy’s success

[Upcoming]

Appendix B - Traceability Matrix

The following traceability matrix is used to show alignment with various strategies, plans, and policy instruments already in progress.