Information technology practitioners have an array of new and emerging technologies with which to build the next generation of digital government. If all it took were these tools, the task would be
simpler than it is in reality.

Modernization is eminently doable, but it takes more than technology alone.  First is a revision of processes and approaches to applications development and deployment. The agile, sprint-by-sprint approach, against the backdrop of a longer-term vision, has proven more effective than “grand design” approaches, marked by big “waterfall” coding projects, to which too many federal executives still default in their thinking. The above-mentioned new technologies — cloud computing and software for abstracting legacy systems so their data becomes reusable — enable the agile approach.

The second accompaniment to new technology is people. The President’s Management Agenda specifically calls for reskilling the federal workforce to better support modernization and digital transformation. But savvy IT leaders already knew that was the case.

In this exclusive executive briefing, the following federal and industry executives exchange approaches on how to execute modernization incrementally while bringing the federal workforce along:

• Catherine Aucella, Deputy Director, Directorate of Capabilities, National Security Agency
• Douglas Averill, Global Business Line Leader, Public Sector, Pega
• Shawn Hughes, Director, Enterprise Network Modernization Program, Department of Homeland Security
• Josh Reiter, Director, Cyber Workforce Policy & Planning, Navy
• Param Soni, Cloud Program Manager, Department of Labor
• Cindi Stuebner, Director, Defense Business Line, Pega