gtr dec/jan 2012
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Government Technology Review holds a mirror up to public sector use of IT. Readers are offered the chance to learn from their peers’ experiences wielding technology to deliver services. Editorial coverage includes interviews with key government ministers, industry experts, CIO’s, heads of industry associations and industry “thought leaders”. The magazine is written by award-winning, veteran IT journalists.TRANSCRIPT
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COVER STORY BIG DATAIT’s current big buzzword is Big Data, a catchall term
applied to the analysis of data to fi nd non-obvious insights. We explore the concept and ask if Big Data is more than
just this year’s jargon for old ideas like business intelligence.
THE NEW GOVTECHREVIEW.COM.AUGTR has relaunched our website, which now features daily news and opinion. Check out a preview of the new site here.
THE STATE OF THE CLOUDThree experts debate the state of the cloud, covering issues about its readiness for government usage and how to assess the risks of making a cloud commitment.
INTRODUCTION4 Editor’s letter
8 Ovum commentary
FEATURES20 Airservices Australia fl ies through data
Airservices Australia has built a data warehouse to link 85 different sources of information into a new decision-making system that might just help your next fl ight land on time.
24 What went wrong in Victoria?
Victoria’s Ombundsman delivered a damming verdict on the State’s ability to execute IT projects. We look at what went wrong, why projects crashed and how you can avoid similar failures.
28 Social media success
Victoria’s Better Health Channel, The City of Sydney and the Victorian Department of Justice explain how they have made a success of social media.
40 Inside Out
Editor Simon Sharwood recalls a decade-old conversation in which he heard a proposal for a technology-led solution for a problem that has recently made news all over again.
SPECIAL FEATURES
2 32
The new GTR website
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
When big events or policy changes happen, we’ll talk to the people that matter to analyse the news so that you can understand it better. In this case, we investigated the announcement that federal government agencies will be limited to three IT supplier panels. We spoke to industry groups, vendors, the IT Supplier Advocate and AGIMO and came away with the story that this new initiative has no savings target!
PROJECT PROFILES
As big projects evolve, GTR will check in with key personnel to learn about their progress. You’ll be able to see the expression of policy through technology unfold in front of you!
WORLD NEWS
When governments around the world innovate or make big policy decisions, GTR will bring you timely news of their efforts. In this case we learned about a fascinating social media stoush between a public transport authority and its workers that resulted in an online rat-spotting competition.
APPOINTMENTS AND INDUSTRY NEWS
If we hear the sound of a desk being cleaned out or learn of a vendor changing the way it addresses the public sector, we’ll be there to bring you the update.
OPINION
The new GTR website will feature daily doses of authoritative commentary about technology and its role in the public sector. You’ll read ideas and analysis from your peers in the public sector, plus opinion from analysts and vendors.
GTR’s website will relaunch soon, complete with daily updates! We talk you through the site’s new features.
CASE STUDIES
GTR’s lengthy profi les of important and innovative private sector IT projects will regularly appear on our site. The case study links appear on every page so insights into the experiences of your peers is never far away.
SOCIAL MEDIA
All GTR stories will be posted to our Twitter feed (@GovTechreview) and to our Facebook page (Search for “Government Technology Review”). There’s also an RSS feed for those of you who like to consume news that way.
GTR TV
We’ll bring you the best presentations from GTR’s events, plus outstanding examples of government video online. We’ve already posted the Victorian Department of Justice’s internationally-acclaimed social media policy for your viewing pleasure.
E-NEWSLETTER
We’d love you to visit the new site every day, but fi gure you may be a little busy. So why not sign up for our e-newsletter? We’ll send a weekly digest of our best stories to keep you up to date.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Why not subscribe to GTR magazine? You’ll fi nd our subscription form here.
4 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012
EDITOR
Simon Sharwood
Tel: 02 8923 8017
NATIONAL SALES MANAGER
Peter Ratcliff
Tel: 02 8923 8016
NATIONAL SALES & MARKETING
MANAGER – CONFERENCE & EVENTS
Chris Rodrigues
Tel: 02 8923 8002
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Russell Montgomery
Tel: 02 8923 8025
DESIGN & PRODUCTION
Annette Epifanidis, Tim Hartridge, Monica Lawrie, Odette Boulton
NEW ZEALAND REPRESENTATIVE
Debbie Bishop
General Manager, Hawkhurst Media Services Limited
Tel: +64 9 589 1054
DDI: +64 9 571 9494
Mobile: +64 021 340 360
CONTRIBUTORS
Andrea O’Driscoll, Rex Pannell
SYDNEY OFFICE
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Phone: 03 8534 5000 Fax: 03 9530 8911
Government Technology Review is published by CommStratABN 31 008 434 802
www.commstrat.com.au
All material in Government Technology Review is copyright. Reproduction in whole or in part is not allowed without written permission from the Publisher.
To arrange delivery of Government Technology Review email: [email protected]
W hen we launched GTR back in 2010, we felt there
was a niche in the market for a magazine that shared
experiences about technology powering government
services. Th at belief remains steadfast today, because
almost every government service we encounter – either as citizens or when
compiling the magazine – relies on technology.
We feel we’ve done alright in our eff orts to meet the brief we created for
ourselves, but we also felt that as a bi-monthly magazine we did a poor job
of delivering news.
Th at’s why we’ve redesigned and relaunched our website –
www.govtechreview.com.au – and started a daily news service.
Th ere are lots of sources of IT news out there and we don’t think we
can always match them in terms of breaking stories. But we know we can
bring you a more focussed news service, in which news from and about
government are concentrated and aggregated on a single site.
Some of that news will come from around the world, because we see so
many interesting initiatives around the world that it makes sense to bring
them to you as part of our aggregation service.
We’re also going to bring you plenty of opinion. We’re lining up a
formidable team of writers from the highest echelons of vendor-land,
research institutions and your peers from all three tiers of government (If
you’d like to share your voice let us know at [email protected]).
Please let me know what you think of the new site. And if you’re feeling
bold, don’t hesitate to send us inside gossip!
Simon Sharwood, Editor
When a major automobile club wanted to find better ways to connect with their members...We helped shift their business into a higher gear.
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For more information visit NEC.com.au/UC
6 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/20126 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011
The Department of Human Services (DHS)
is closing in on major milestones in the
project to integrate systems from its
component agencies.
DHS comprises Centrelink, Medicare, the
Child Support Agency and the Commonwealth
Rehabilitation Service, all previously
independent agencies but now operating as
a single Department. One of the reasons for
forming the new entity was to realise savings
in IT, which meant not renewing outsourcing
deals in operation at some of DHS’ component
agencies. As the outsourcing deals expire
DHS is taking responsibility for more and more
systems, but along the way came to realise that
it did not possess the tools or understanding to
create the necessary compliance reports.
“We are picking up unfamiliar workloads,”
says Nigel Cox, DHS’ Operations Director,
Security IT Services. “There is no knowledge
of the outsourced systems and how they are
monitored. The knowledge is there but it is in
the private sector and it is knowledge about
compliance with contracts, not knowledge
about security compliance.” That important
but subtle shift in point of view about what
constitutes compliance means DHS has to
ensure its team can understand potentially-
relevant minutiae that could represent
compliance concerns in its newly-enlarged fl eet
of systems.
“The main outcome we want is to produce
a set of reports so that when the Australian
National Audit Offi ce (ANAO) calls, we can
show them we control the environment,” Cox
says. “I can do that now for the Centrelink
environment but I don’t want to give ANAO a
blank stare when they ask about Medicare.
We need the same reporting rigour for
unfamiliar workloads.”
Centrelink’s strong compliance culture
has come about because of the longevity of
some staff.
“We have lots of people with grey hair who
know our systems and have good knowledge
of our applications,” Cox says. But the ranks
of those veterans are thinning and new hires
have little mainframe experience. Staff across
DHS unfamiliar with its systems also lack the
perspective to understand whether certain
events represent compliance incidents.
“The problem we have is that people see
the logs and think everything is bad,” Cox says,
as an event that looks anomalous or a threat to
security to the untrained eye can be a normal-
if-quirky part of doing business.“Some of our
team are fairly young. They know Windows
and UNIX but not what is right and wrong in
the mainframe world, so we want a framework
so that someone who understands modern
operating systems can apply the same level of
understanding to the mainframes.”
DHS has therefore acquired CA
Technologies’s Compliance Manager software
to help automate compliance testing and
reduce the chance of false positives being
‘detected’ by inexperienced staff.
“Using a modern compliance reporting
suite you can start to teach it patterns,” Cox
explains. “The things we look out for are
changes to confi guration and environments.
Then we can see whether a change has been
through a testing process, whether it is an
authorised change and if security controls are
being changed.”
“In the appropriate context that change
could be okay, but we want to fi nd those
patterns, eliminate the false positives and
automate the process.”
That effort is progressing well, with the
new software implemented across most
old Centrelink systems. By the end of 2012
the software will also cover Medicare’s
infrastructure.
The project has even won an award –
CA Technologies decreed DHS’ compliance
work represented the project displaying the
most visionary use of its mainframe products
for 2011.
“The award was about the business case
we put up to buy the product, which had a lot
of alignment with other business objectives
and security management infrastructure,”
Cox says. “It’s all tied to having a road map
that we can link these things to so we can
justify the investment.”
Human services readies compliance suiteStory by Simon Sharwood
“I DON’T WANT TO GIVE ANAO A BLANK STARE WHEN THEY ASK ABOUT MEDICARE.”
GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012 | 7
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Fifty full buses of IT professionals required by June 2012 to fulfi l employers’ demands
SPONSORED CONTENT
AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYERS will fi nd it increasingly
diffi cult to fi nd skilled IT professionals to meet their
growing demands in the coming months.
According to the latest Candle Skills Index,
utilising a forecasting model developed by our
research partner KPMG Econtech, there will be a
shortage of 1,200 IT professionals by June 2012. In
other words, Australia will need 50 fully loaded buses
fi lled with IT talent to meet employers’ demands.
Whilst permanent hiring has gone off the
boil in the last quarter of 2011, IT contracting is
performing quite well, this trend is likely to continue
in at least the fi rst three months of 2012 said Linda
Trevor, Executive General Manager at Candle.
However, as the economy should fi rm in coming
months and uncertainty about the global economy
abates, contractors will become too expensive and
there should be a push towards hiring permanent staff.
Ms Trevor said continued demand from
major private and public projects would
increase competition in the marketplace for
prospective employers and force many to move
from contractors to permanent as wage salary
demands increase.
“We are very close to the optimum supply of
Computing Professionals and competition is going
to increase wage demands. Employers will need to
manage the changing job climate and plan ahead,”
Australian employers adopting a ‘wait-and-see’
approach to recruitment could be doing themselves
more harm than good with skilled IT professionals
being lured offshore by immediate and lucrative job
opportunities, primarily the Asia-Pacifi c.
This could be further exacerbated by the
changes to LAFHA (Living Away From Home
Allowance) coming into effect July 1, effectively
reducing the take home pay of some IT
professionals, making places like Singapore and
Hong Kong increasingly attractive due to its low
tax rates.
Having refi ned our sourcing strategy for over
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8 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012
Consumerisation of IT is one
of those subjects that creates
passionate discussion any time it
is raised.
The case for consumerisation is a strong
one. Australians already carry formidable
computing capacity in their mobile phones.
Cloud computing is already offering commodity
services, sometimes directly to business
managers. Why then can’t IT be considered
as just another commodity service, just like
electricity, water and building services?
There is also a strong opposing point of
view. Today’s IT budgets are significant, and
consumerisation just adds more complexity to
already complex systems. No other part of the
business would allow large amounts of money
to be spent by just “letting a thousand flowers
bloom”. Indeed a number of recent government
audit reports have looked into high profile IT
project failures, and have recommended greater
senior executive attention and more stringent IT
governance. The bottom line is that IT services
are not easy to deliver. If it were easy then we
would not have so many project failures.
Much of today’s discussion has its roots in
a landmark Harvard Business Review article
written in May 2003 by Nicolas Carr, called
“IT Doesn’t Matter”. The article caused quite
a storm, with claims and counter claims from
industry heavyweights. In his article, and
later book, Carr argued that IT had become
a ubiquitous utility. Eventually, this ubiquity
would itself limit the capacity of IT to continue
to deliver any real competitive advantage for
their organisation. Carr noted IT had already
become an “infrastructural technology” and part
of the DNA of every organisation. IT had run
out of its transformative ability and had become
an expensive commodity.
Carr noted there was still potential for
unique IT developments from time to time.
These, he called “proprietary technologies”.
However, he argued these will quickly morph
to become legacy systems, or commodity based
“infrastructural technology”. This is due to the
rapid and widespread adoption of technology and
the trend toward standardisation.
Innovation beats commodificationWhile Carr’s arguments are persuasive, it is
important to note his predictions happened almost
nine years ago, and so far the value of his ideas has
been patchy at best. Indeed since 2003, a number
of IT companies have become highly successful by
ignoring much of Carr’s advice. These companies
bet their future on taking a more innovative IT path
to business success.
Such companies include:
on to deliver iconic technology innovation;
public companies in 2004 and went on to be
highly successful in the emerging cloud market;
2005 and has grown to be a household name.
The flaw in Carr’s argument was that he
treated IT as a single homogenous activity and
underestimated the amount of change still to come.
He failed to see that IT enabled innovation
would continue, not only within IT but also within
the business and wider community. This has created
an ecosystem of IT-enabled change that leaders
cannot ignore. For example, a number of Australian
companies and government agencies are now
leveraging the widespread uptake of smartphones in
the broader community and creating new services
using mobile apps and collaboration tools.
production as a way of rethinking government
service delivery. Using this approach, some parts
of a government service might be sourced from the
not-for-profit sector or from wider community
leveraging their technical capabilities.
The challenge for modern leaders is to
manage this balancing act between innovation
and consolidation.
An alternative to Carr’s model might be
to think of IT, not as a single homogenous
commodity, but as a statistical normal
distribution. Innovative services are at one end
of the curve, while outdated systems are at the
other. In the middle, and on either side of centre,
are contemporary/emerging technologies, and
legacy/commodity systems. The big challenge is
to deliver a balanced strategy, acknowledging the
realities of a multifaceted environment, namely:
innovation,
technologies;
commodity technologies;
by internal pressures to cut costs, or have big
workforces trained in a particular technology.
These frequently conspire to position IT as the
blocker to a technically-enabled workforce. The
unfortunate consequence is to just reinforce
Carr’s commodity predictions about IT.
By
“No other part of the business would allow large amounts of money to be spent by just ‘letting a thousand flowers bloom”.
WILL CONSUMERISATIONmake IT irrelevant?
10 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012
PANEL CHANGES WIN CAUTIOUS RECEPTION
Story by SIMON SHARWOOD
GTR HAS LEARNED THAT THE DECISION TO LIMIT EACH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
AGENCY TO THREE IT SUPPLIER PANELS HAS NO SAVINGS TARGET.
Special Minister of State Gary Gray’s
December 2011 decision to limit
each federal government agency to
three IT supplier panels has won
cautious support from industry groups and
Australian IT concerns.
Developed after extensive consultation,
the new arrangements “will halve the number
of IT services panels currently operating across
the Australian Government” and “reduce the
administrative overheads incurred by agencies
in establishing their own panels” according
to a statement from Gray. Th e policy includes
a “piggybacking” provision that means a
supplier that wins a place on any panel will be
authorised to sell to all government agencies, an
arrangement Gray said should excite industry
as it will reduce the amount of time and eff ort it
puts into winning places on multiple panels.
Gray’s statement about the change was
brief. AGIMO added some information
in a blog post (http://agimo.govspace.gov.
au/2011/12/12/portfolio-panels-for-it-
services-policy) by First Assistant Secretary
John Sheridan.
That post left many questions unanswered,
including how much the federal government
hopes to save. The answer, provided to GTR
by the Department of Finance’s
communications team and attributed to
Sheridan, is that the initiative has no savings
target. “The key objective of this policy is to
optimise the number of IT Services panels f
or Government,” Sheridan’s email to GTR
said. “Savings are an expected outcome for
both government and industry but have not
been quantified.”
Sheridan also explained that AGIMO
expects agencies will work together to ensure
they create panels that meet their business needs
without creating catch-all panels that mean one
agency need never rely on another’s panel. “[Th e
Department of ] Finance will develop a matrix of
IT Services panels to help agencies locate the ideal
panel for their needs,” Sheridan explained.
Th e Department will also develop what
Sheridan called “an ICT multi-use-list (MUL)”
which will “provide a responsive procurement
tool that can supplement the IT Services panels
by including emerging technologies and emerging
vendors in short time frames.” Th at workaround is
expected to help smaller and emerging IT vendors
to work with government, and Sheridan said the
new policy should mean “SMEs will benefi t from
the new policy as it will reduce the number of
panels for which they will have to tender while
increasing their access to government business.”
ReactionReaction to the change was diverse. “We
have not heard any issues from members on
this, but time of year may be an issue,” said
Australian Information Industry Association
(AIIA) Chief Executive Officer Suzanne
Campbell, who GTR contacted in late 2011.
Overall, Campbell declared herself
satisfied with the new arrangement.
“The AIIA participated in all the
lengthy consultations leading up to this
announcement, and the ability for SMEs to
access the government market was one of our
key concerns,” she said. “From an efficiency
perspective, I’d have to say that reducing the
number from the current 120 to maximum of
three per portfolio has some appeal and AIIA
News
“Implementation of the new regime will possibly be the only way of telling whether three panels per portfolio agency is a help or a hindrance.” Suzanne Campbell, AIIA CEO,
GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012 | 11
originally agreed there were too many panels
but warned that implementation will be key.”
“Implementation of the new regime will
possibly be the only way of telling whether
three panels per portfolio agency is a help or a
hindrance; in the meantime current panels run
their course. “Finally, we are pleased there are
no fees to join the panels, we fought against in
preliminary drafts.”
IT Supplier Advocate Don Easter was also
consulted on the new arrangements and told
GTR the commonality of contract terms and
conditions across agencies will be of benefi t to
small Australian IT companies. Easter, who
was consulted during development of the new
policy, also said he has forcefully put the case that
tenders issued under the new arrangements must
continue to off er smaller vendors the chance to
pitch for niche work rather than being required
to pitch for an entire tender.
Cameron Brookes, Managing Director
of mid-sized IT services provider Kiandra IT,
welcomed the new panel policy.
“The government’s decision to reduce the
number of IT services panels appears to be a
good move and one we’re supportive of,” he told
GTR. “As a long term provider of solutions to
the Victorian Government we have found being
a member of one panel - Whole of Victorian
Government eServices Panel – very beneficial
for us. This is also the case in WA where we
sit on the Western Australian Government’s
Information and Communications Technology
Common Use Agreement 14008.”
“As we expand our presence in the Federal
arena, the compliance costs associated with
applying to sit on multiple panels is prohibitive.
The concept of panel consolidation from our
perspective has all the appearances of a good
thing, as it expands our company’s visibility to
opportunities, and reduces the effort and cost
involved to maintain this visibility.”
But Andrew Mitchell of IT consultancy
Transpire had some concerns about the new
arrangements. “I think from a macro level it
makes the appointment to any one of those
panels more important to an individual
supplier because it reduces the scope of
those panels,” he said. “That makes it far
more critical to get onto any panel. From the
perspective of having all your eggs in fewer
baskets it is a worse thing.”
“I think it also reduces the likelihood of a new
panel coming up for tender. Th at makes each bid
for a panel more important.”
Mitchell did welcome the fact that he now has
fewer panels to pitch for, which means less work.
“From a supplier’s perspective it will reduce the
overall eff ort and workload,” he said.
But he also feels agencies could circumvent
the new rules with very broad panels. “Th ere was a
government panel for ICT services that went out
and there were 19 discrete types of services listed,”
he said. “I think that shows it is diffi cult to cover the
ground.” Th e result, he fears, could be less rigorous
vetting by agencies of vendors on their panels.
Mitchell also fears that the “piggybacking”
provisions may not often be applied.
“I haven’t had a piggybacking experience but I
hear it does happen when people cannot bring in a
skill set from an existing panel.”
“My experience is that organisations usually
favour vendors from their own panels. Th ere is a big
air gap between using your own suppliers and using
someone else’s.”
“There was a government panel for ICT services that went out and there were 19 discrete types of services listed.”Andrew Mitchell, Transpire