Information Management in the Government of Canada: The Vision
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Foreword
This document, The Vision, is the second of the two primary deliverables of the Vision Phase of strategic design and planning for the Government of Canada (GC) Information Management (IM) Program Transformation Initiative. It answers the question: “Where do we want to go with IM tomorrow?” It is the logical follow-on to The Business Problem Assessment (BPA) for IM in the GC, the first primary deliverable of the Vision Phase, which answers the question: “What is wrong with IM today?” The Vision proposes improvements to address the root causes of business problems as identified in the BPA. However, beyond just identifying what needs to change to solve current problems, The Vision defines what an IM Program must do to support the GC in the achievement of new and better outcomes for Canadians.
Many ideas have been proposed for taking IM forward, some of which are being implemented, to varying degrees, in the GC today. But these improvements are being pursued without the benefit of an overarching framework for an enterprise IM capability. This document is the first step in designing a coherent IM Program that will realize the business services necessary to meet the IM needs of all GC programs, both internal and public. This includes the special needs of “top of government” executive and integrated service delivery programs. It articulates the outcomes of the IM Program and describes activities and key innovations—new or improved ways of doing IM—that must be put in place to achieve those outcomes. The Vision conveys a compelling and actionable description of the target state for IM. Its aim is to provide stakeholders in the transformation of IM with a common picture of the future that they can work together to build. These stakeholders include the IM Program’s clients, providers to the IM Program, like HR and IT, and the IM community itself.
This draft is being circulated for the purposes of further input and comment by the federal stakeholder community prior to endorsement by the IM Program’s governing body, the Information Management Committee (IMC), following which it will go for approval to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Canada.
During the Start Up and Vision Phases, more than 20 workshops and working sessions with participants from 14 departments and agencies were held to gather input and conduct analysis for the two Vision Phase primary deliverables. Over 100 individuals representing IM and its clients participated in this work (see Appendix A: Acknowledgement). Subsequent phases of the IM Program Transformation Initiative will continue to rely on, and indeed expand this participation.
When all phases are completed, the GC will have, for the first time, a government-wide strategic design and plan for an IM Program—a program that will enable it to treat information in much the same way as it treats other strategic assets critical to its business success such as human and financial resources.
At the conclusion of the Vision Phase its two deliverables – The Business Problem Assessment and The Vision – will be approved as the basis for developing a transformation strategy, business design, business case and master plan for realizing the IM Program vision. This does not mean that the Vision Phase deliverables will be “frozen.” The scope of the collaboration will expand through subsequent phases, as more stakeholders have the opportunity to participate. Their perspectives will be reflected in all deliverables, which makes the deliverables “living documents.” Depending on what occurs in the collaborative work, new versions of all the deliverables may well be published at the end of each phase.
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