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Technology alone doesn't deliver transformation.
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We have to go back to 30 years ago and recognize that we couldn't anticipate that.
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We will have to do it piece by piece.
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It sounds like what digital government's supposed to do.
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It's managing resistance, huh?
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Because we were changing their way of working from analog to digital.
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Welcome to the Functional Government Podcast.
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Transport Canada's marine safety and security is responsible for everything from vessel inspection to certifying seafarers who drive those vessels.
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It's the reason the ship bringing your Amazon order across the Pacific won't sink in Canadian waters, and that the captain knows how to steer it.
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But until recently, doing that job often meant drowning in paperwork, tens of thousands of physical files stacking up in a building, inspectors who needed 20 different logins to do their work, systems that don't talk to each other because they were never designed to.
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Fortunately, we're fixing these problems.
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Lucy Belgeron is the director of service modernization and data for marine safety and security at Transport Canada.
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She's been quietly leading a successful modernization in the federal government, not by building some flashy portal, but like going back to basics, understand and fix the process, then add data, and then only then build the digital service atop it.
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And it's working.
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On this episode of the Functional Government Podcast, we're going to find out how.
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Hi, Lucy.
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How are you?
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I'm fine.
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How are you, Alice Sir?
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I'm great.
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Thank you so much for being here.
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Entre autres, plutôt francophone.
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Alors en espérant que tout se passe bien aujourd'hui.
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So for listeners who don't think about boats and vessels much, what does Transport Canada Marine Safety and Security actually do?
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Well, our mandate is quite comprehensive.
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So essentially, we develop and enforce marine safety and security regulations, uh the laws, and also the international conventions.
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So that are established by the International Maritime Organization.
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But more concretely, if we look at it from an operational point of view, we register and inspect vessels, we certify seafarers, we monitor pollution, we approve and assess uh compliance for ports and marine facilities security plans.
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And in case of marine incidents, we are making sure that all the regulatory framework is sustained.
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So everything we do is really about ensuring a safe and secure transportation system.
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Wow.
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And uh it's just part of Transport Canada, right?
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Absolutely.
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Transport Canada is much bigger than just boats.
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What else does Transport Canada handle?
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Well, of course, uh the mode uh where I'm working with is marine safety and security, but there's also other modes of transportation where they also have uh laws and regulation and international conventions such as uh civil aviation, rail, and all the uh the road and uh safety uh mode.
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So Transport Canada does a lot of different things, specifically within marine safety and security.
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What would happen if your systems didn't work?
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Well, my job is to make sure that this is not happening.
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So we have to keep pace with the rapidly changing and evolving technology, basically on a day-to-day basis.
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So this is why I'm looking at improving our systems.
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So, of course, like any other responsible organization, we have a business continuity plan in place, which ensures that all critical systems and people who are working in those uh areas will have a plan to ensure that our marine operations are still continuing in the case of an incident.
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And this, of course, is to make sure that we have a safe and secure transportation system.
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So this is what is driving us on any plan.
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Yeah, it seems to me like there's some government services where if it doesn't work for a day, it's like, okay, I'll do it tomorrow.
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If you can't land the airplane, that's like that's a problem that's gotta get fixed.
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So I imagine that many of your systems have a much higher like standard for reliability and availability and redundancy than you would expect in a lot of other parts of government.
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So the technology sounds pretty tough there.
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I want to talk about technology a little bit.
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As part of my research into the state of Canada's systems, I talked about how many logins there are in government.
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There's 270 different websites.
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One of our earlier guests, Lisa Fast, actually designed the webpage that has links to all these different sites.
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60 different logins, 30 different departments.
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And it's not unusual for a citizen to have to access many different sites just to change their address as they move, which means they're keeping track of multiple passwords.
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And when I learned this, it sounded pretty bad, but maybe we should feel even worse for public servants.
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I've heard that a single marine inspector at Transport Canada might need 20 different logins to do their job, each with different copies of the same data.
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Is that true?
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Yes, Alistair, that's true, and it's our reality, unfortunately.
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So and and it shows why modernization and more specifically digitization is so important.
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So in Marine, right now, each program has its own system.
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So it means that, yes, different login for each of them.
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So through modernization, uh our goal is really to come up with fewer logins for sure, less duplication, more time focused on the real inspection services uh that we have.
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So of course it's a challenge because we are currently dealing with more than 50 legacy systems that are not talking to each other.
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So that's our reality.
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You are you are absolutely right.
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It's uh it's difficult to work in that kind of legacy environment right now.
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But with modernization, uh, I think we uh we are in a good position to start replacing those old systems with new ones.
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But the challenge is also the fact that we cannot just replace an old system by a new one.
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We will have to do it piece by piece.
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So as soon as we are decommissioning some functionality of a legacy system and building new applications, so this is where we will find finally some light at the end of the tunnel in many, many years, but it's a building block type of approach.
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Yeah, I mean you can't just turn off the ports for a few days while you install the new software, right?
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Absolutely not.
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Can you tell me a little about like these decisions to have many separate systems with different logins, made sense at the time.
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Like the people that did this were making a sensible decision.
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Can you explain how that happened?
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Well, Marine Safety and Security is a long-standing organization.
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Like the Canadian Passport story you shared with us in the previous podcast.
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So, for example, one of our service, such as the uh vessel registry, have rules that go back many, many years.
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So, 30 years ago, each program developed their own tool to meet their own business needs, reflecting their organizational uh structure and sometimes and also the regulations that they are responsible for.
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So this resulted in dozens and dozens of systems that basically accomplish different goals, but also replicate features, data, and processes.
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So today we have inherited a patchwork of separate systems that are not talking to each other.
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And as a result, yes, we have multiplied the access point for our inspectors, for example.
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So that's the legacy challenge uh we are trying to solve now through modernization.
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So hoping that we will be successful in harmonizing processes, consolidating our data, building shared components as well.
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It's another approach that we are looking at.
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And as a result, we will have a strong foundation which will enable transformation.
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So I guess 30 years ago, it made a lot of sense to like buy a turnkey system for each service or program, right?
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You didn't want a vendor to sell you half of something.
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Like, no, no, give me a thing that works.
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Give me the computer, the operating system, the application.
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This is what it's for.
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But nobody expected the citizen to be accessing their data directly.
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Like we had this idea that you would pick up the phone and call someone who was sitting in front of a computer, or that you would go to a Service Canada kiosk and do something there.
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Nobody envisioned this world where every single Canadian or almost every Canadian is walking around with a device in their pocket that can connect to computers.
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And they also didn't really expect government employees to need a single set of data or to work across systems.
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Like these are things that seem obvious today, but we have to go back to 30 years ago and recognize that we couldn't anticipate that.
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Nobody 30 years ago knew what this world would look like with phones in our pockets and employees working across a citizen's entire portfolios.
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When did Transport Canada start to realize that this approach had become a a liability?
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So uh I would say that in 2019, for the first time we were successful in getting funding, and we decided to launch two major modernization initiatives.
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So, and this is where we saw okay, maybe that's our chance, that's an opportunity to do things differently.
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So the two initiatives that got funding was the vessel registration and the certification services for seafarers.
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So you talk a bit about the uh the three-phase approach that we have in place.
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We'll talk more later, which means that we start with uh the process and then the data, and later on we are looking at digitization of the interaction with external stakeholders.
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So when we start with the first uh phase, which is the analysis of the business processes, both teams realized that basically they had the same needs.
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They needed to digitize the management of the workload, and they also needed to manage the documents that are submitted by the to the program.
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So it was making no sense that we had two teams building the same tool at the same time.
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So we decided in in uh to split the work between each team.
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So one would take the responsibility of designing and building the workload management application and based more on the common components approach.
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And then the other one would do the same thing, building a common component that is scalable for the document management type of application.
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So you got each you split it up into two teams.
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I have to do that.
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One was dealing with the workload for the software, and the other one was dealing with the the actual management of the documents in that workload.
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Exactly.
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So it took two years to develop both because we developed it from scratch.
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And then two years later in 2021, each team basically were you interchange their component and then they scale it to their specificity of their services, and we were able to work with the same tool essentially, but we had we have adapted it to their business uh profile.
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So if I understand this correctly, it's like saying you and I are gonna build a house and we both need plumbing and we both need electricity.
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So we decide that I'm gonna make my house electric and you're gonna plumb you do the plumbing on your house.
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And then when we've got them working, we go, hey, here's how to plumb a house, here's how to make it electric.
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And now we both have plumbing and electricity in half the time it would have taken if we'd both had to invent it ourselves.
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Plus, the plumbing and electricity is standardized.
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So like I can fix your plumbing, you can fix my plumbing.
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If you make your plumbing better, mine gets better too.
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Is that a fair analogy?
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Yes, we can take this uh because the foundation basically is the same.
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It's just a question of deciding, okay, what what color will be the the fixture or what or the type of uh I don't know that the the the different uh sis electric systems and so on, like you said.
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But of course it it was a sort some sort of a risk because we knew that in doing this it would take longer to deliver.
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But in the long run, it would accelerate our broader transformation effort in marine safety and security because in having those common components that are built to meet a certain business capabilities, then we knew that any other marine services ready for transformation will have to just onboard on this new common component instead of building from scratch again in again.
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Okay, so first benefit, if I want to build a third house, I already know how to do the plumbing and the electricity.
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Second benefit, if I want to build a heating system, now I can install heating in all the houses.
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Third benefit, everyone can buy the same lamp and it'll just work with the electrical system.
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So this is kind of the standardized components that you're talking about.
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Yeah, it's like a plug and plate.
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It's like the building block approach.
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I have a component, so to meet a certain business capability, and then I'm taking it, I'm tailoring it to my specific needs, and then I can also through an API use another one that will do, let's say, document management, and then I can use another one through an API, which is issuing electronic certificates, for example.
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So in this way has many services and marine safety and security as the same type of process in place.
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We are all doing basically the same thing.
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So we are managing service requests, we are managing documents submitted by clients, we are issuing certificates, we are inspecting.
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So it's all the same.
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So why designing and building the same component many, many times for a specific program instead?
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Like look at this in a more holistic way and build a product that fits the needs of a business capability instead.
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Sure.
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And modern software is made out of building blocks like this, right?
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When I make a website, I might embed a Google form, I might add Stripe for payment, I might include some third-party video player in the web page instead of building all those things from scratch.
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So these kinds of common components are like reusable pieces for invoicing or payment or competency verification.
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And I've heard that in the government of Canada, there are some common components such as forms and notify, which are standards that you can use to build on.
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Have those caught on within government departments?
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Absolutely.
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So yes, we are leveraging the common components built by the Canadian Digital Service.
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So they have the G what they call the GC Notify and also the GC Forms components.
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So instead of reinventing the wheel, we use those components.
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And again, as a plug and play or Lego type of building block, we are just using those components to add it to our end-to-end process.
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We had a speaker, David Eves, who wrote something recently about, you know, commodity components are the key to digital sovereignty.
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This idea that if you have your own stack of these components, it's really important for building government acts.
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I want to pivot back to something a little related to this.
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In 2017, there was this thing called the Service Fees Act, which basically said that every fee that a department charges must be publicly listed, along with the service standards, which say things like if you pay us for this service, we'll do this thing within this many days.
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And importantly for this discussion, the department also has to report on how often it hit or missed those standards and sometimes pay for missing them.
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Most government departments are funded by taxes, not fees, so there's less of a connection between what the citizen gets and whether the department gets its budget.
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But for Transport Canada, many of the fees, the things you do charge fees, right?
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Like many of the things that you charge for, like a permit for driving a boat, for example, you have to charge a fee.
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And as a result, you have to track processing times to measure your performance, you have to track your costs to justify the fees, and you have to issue refunds.
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As a department that collects fees from its citizens, you probably have to report more about what your services are doing.
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So across all your services, did you build common components that made it possible to do this kind of collection?
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Yes, absolutely.
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The department built a common component of what we call the cost recovery service management solution.
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Essentially, is to meet the requirements under the Service Fees Act in terms of reporting on program cost, program revenue, performance of our service standards.
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And also there's a piece under the Service Fees Act which talk about the remission policy, essentially.
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So what that means is if we are missing a service standard, we will have to remit a portion of the fee paid by the client to the client, essentially.
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So just so I I'm clear, for a fee, government departments have to refund you if they don't deliver the service they said they would in the time they said they would.
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Correct.
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So this is what we call the remission policy attached to the Service Fees Act.
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So we have to remit a portion of the fee paid by the client if we are not meeting our service standards.
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But this has to be tracked and reported on an annual basis to Parliament through a fee report that is tabled annually.
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And then from there we need to track those data with regard to our cost recovery services or all the services with fees.
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That's an obligation that we have.
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And for for doing so, there's a common component, yes, that was developed by our group here in Service and Digital to do to perform those specific functions.
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And again, it's a it's a common capability that uh any service with fees in Transport Canada can use and plug and play to, in my case, the workload management application that we build up front because it will feed.
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So it's part of the end-to-end process essentially.
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When I'm getting a request for delivering a service, if if there's a fee associated to this service, I will have to plug with the cost recovery service management solution uh up to the invoicing of the service, but also the reporting to parliament.
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Wow.
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So if if you didn't have this service in place, then humans would have to track all this data, and that's a lot of extra work, right?
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So having software do it makes more sense.
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But instead of just getting each service that you offer to have its own tracking, you said to each service, if you use this component, we will automatically track everything from the moment the service is requested to the moment it's delivered, how much we charge, and all that kind of stuff.
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And then your system just rolls that up at the end of the year and puts it into a document to parliament that makes you accountable to the citizens who use the service.
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Exactly.
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That sounds amazing.
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It is amazing.
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So uh our team in IT did amazing work in developing this component.
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And the beauty of this is it's all automated.
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So as soon as I have the data into my workload management application, so I can feed the cost recovery service management solution right away, and all those calculations and tracking of spent on doing XYZ help me assess well uh reporting on the program cost, for example.
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And then since I I am invoicing my clients or collecting the fees up front, I can have right away the revenue generated by this service.
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And then boom, it's uh move into a platform that is uh also has the capacity the ability to report back to Parliament and prepare this uh beautiful report uh for our uh taxpayers.
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And it sounds like, you know, this is the government says you must report this once a year.
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But if I understand your technology, in theory, you can just go at any time if you had the right query.
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You could just go say, How did we do today?
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Or, you know, you can you can get more granular because you've collected the data in a proper structured way.
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Yes, it's true.
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So uh we can have the information in real time.
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So this is why it's a management tool as well.
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So we can create Power BI reports for on a monthly basis to see progress made.
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Are we on track to meet our service standards?
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That's information that is useful for management as well to make to make some correction in the delivery of the service if needed.
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So uh of course we have uh this information at our finger uh tips right now.
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So it's a huge improvement.
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I mean, I don't want to sound too excited, but it sounds like what digital government's supposed to do.
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Let me ask you one more question about the motivations of why you changed, because obviously simplifying these systems was important, complying with the act so you could collect fees was important.
00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:38.960
I guess digital services are also more efficient, not just in collecting stuff, but simply like digitizing things.
00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:45.759
You mentioned 60,000 physical files stacking up in a building that you told me about before.
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:52.160
Can you tell me what it feels like to have 60,000 files in a building and what that does to your will to modernize things?
00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:55.279
Well, I'm seeing this as an opportunity, actually.
00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:59.680
So uh of course, we had some issue with the infrastructure.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:01.680
Of the building at some point.
00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:04.960
There was no room anymore to stack more files.
00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:07.680
So it's a physical building full of documents.
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:08.079
Exactly.
00:22:08.319 --> 00:22:10.400
And it was just literally the building is full.
00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:18.880
The floor was too heavy with all those files, so the building infrastructure was unable to support it anymore.
00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:32.720
Which means that we were we were looking for another floor or even another area, another room to store all the medical files that we had accumulated over the years.
00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:41.279
But the beauty of it is at the same time we got the funding, as I mentioned earlier, to modernize the Seafarer services.
00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:58.400
And this is where we start our journey of modernizing all those paper-based processes, which means that we had to take one by one those 60,000 files, scan it, and move it into our workload management application.
00:22:58.559 --> 00:23:12.160
So it's it's incredible all the work that was done over time because uh we are not imaginating so that kind of effort that is required to digitize.
00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:14.160
But again, it's our reality.
00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:17.359
It's not like you said, building a flashy portal.
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:24.960
It's really get rid of the paper base and make sure that our staff can work in a digital environment.
00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:27.359
And it's starting by scanning files.
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:29.359
Yeah, it does seem to be the boring stuff.
00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:32.799
Like Lisa Fast talked about she spent six months getting the form right.
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:35.200
But these boring things can have tremendous impact.
00:23:35.279 --> 00:23:43.759
But you know, when you go from I need another floor because the the floor is about to collapse from the weight to oh, you can have the floor back, it's all digital now.
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:45.839
Um Yeah, now it's empty.
00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:48.720
What's it like to scan 60,000 files?
00:23:49.039 --> 00:24:03.519
Well, it's well, at the beginning, and when you start a transformation process, so I remember when we start this one, so I was entering in the room and there was piles of files on desk with post-its right up on top of it.
00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:16.000
It was okay, that's the pile for uh that we just received, that's the pile for approval, that's the pile for incomplete files that we need to do some back and forth with the client, and so on.
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:18.720
There was files all over the place in the room.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:25.279
So, and then on top of that, we have the vertical cabinet with all the medical files, the 60,000.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:37.680
So it was quite overwhelming at the beginning, but we said since we start by the big by the beginning with the UX designers, we look at process step by step.
00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:40.559
Okay, so it was all on post-it, easy.
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:43.599
So, but now where are the duplications?
00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:47.119
Is there approvals that are not necessary anymore?
00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:54.000
Is there any way where we can simplify the process to better align with a digital environment?
00:24:54.160 --> 00:25:05.839
So all those questions and pain points were identified at that at that time to come up with a recommendation of a simplified process for digitization.
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:47.920
And this is where we build the famous workload management application, where it was necessary if we wanted to move the scanned files into a system, we needed that because as soon as you have a CFARE who apply for a medical uh certificate, we took the opportunity to pull the files from the uh physical cabinet, scan it, included in the workload management application with the service request uh of the CFAR, and then boom, slowly it took two years to scan all the 60,000 files, but we did we did it based on each request coming in.
00:25:48.079 --> 00:25:51.200
So, because you cannot boil the ocean all at the same time.
00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:58.559
So we took it one by one, and finally at the end uh uh of the journey, we were able to be fully digital.
00:25:59.039 --> 00:26:03.279
I love that I got someone from the Marine Division telling me we can't boil the ocean, that seems perfect.
00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:12.319
So if I'm clear here, you went in there and looked at the post-it notes and the process, and you recognized, oh, there's a process here called the form is incomplete.
00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:17.440
I have to talk to someone, or there's a process here that says this has to be renewed or this has expired or whatever.
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:23.680
And you looked at the whole process and you said, what things in this process don't make sense in the digital world anymore?
00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:26.960
Like, okay, there's a physical signature here, how do we change that?
00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:28.240
Or like what needs to be changed, right?
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:29.680
So you have the process, right?
00:26:29.920 --> 00:26:32.319
Because you may already know what the process is or whatever.
00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:35.359
Then you go, okay, now we have this new process.
00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.119
You didn't just stop and scan 60,000 files.
00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:48.160
You went, I'm going to come up with a way of migrating from the analog world to the digital world that doesn't necessarily create more work.
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:54.079
It's just that the next time I need to touch a physical thing, that's when I will enter it into the digital thing.
00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:57.680
Instead of kind of having everybody come in on weekends until you've scanned everything.
00:26:57.759 --> 00:26:57.839
Right.
00:26:58.079 --> 00:26:58.319
Correct.
00:26:58.480 --> 00:26:58.640
Correct.
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:04.079
So even part of the process is the process for gradually migrating from analog to digital.
00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:07.440
And at the end of two years, you've kind of gone through all the files at least once.
00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:09.759
And so now you'd incorporated them, right?
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:11.039
Yeah, that's correct.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:19.680
Because also given the fact that we had 60,000 files, we have some C Fairs in there that was probably 120 years old.
00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:20.240
Wow.
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:22.720
So why scanning those files?
00:27:23.039 --> 00:27:23.519
What happened?
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:28.480
I mean, you've got these historical records that sound like they should be in a museum, but they're just sitting in a warehouse.
00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:29.680
Exactly.
00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:37.839
So it becomes like more uh archives than physical files that are necessary to deliver a service as of today.
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:47.119
This is why we decided, okay, as soon as we uh we are adding a request, we will do the search of the physical file and then digitize everything.
00:27:47.279 --> 00:27:51.359
Otherwise, we wouldn't we are probably today still scanning files.
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:57.759
So at the end of it, you can kind of look around and all the files you have left are like retired mariners and retired seafarers.
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:05.279
We dispose of them in a secure way because there's uh, as you know, life a lifespan of those files.
00:28:05.359 --> 00:28:13.359
Yeah and but uh there's a what there was a lot of uh files in there uh that were not relevant anymore.
00:28:13.759 --> 00:28:17.119
Wow, I didn't know this was gonna be like a maritime history session, but this is fascinating.
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:21.039
Okay, so you mentioned earlier process, then data, then implementation.
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:26.160
I think I understand you start with the process because you've got to understand how to modify it for digital.
00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:32.559
Then you start with the data because the data happens in the context of the process, and then you start with the actual implementation.
00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:34.400
What happens if you do those in the wrong order?
00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:35.920
Well, wrong order.
00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:40.319
It's really any group can decide which order they would like to take.
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:43.440
So in our case, we built a strategy.
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:53.039
I set the vision for marine safety and security, and we decided that it was making better sense for us to digitize processes first.
00:28:53.440 --> 00:28:56.000
Because let's say I'm starting the opposite.
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:58.559
I'm starting with building a flashy portal.
00:28:58.720 --> 00:29:05.680
So your client will submit their files electronically through my portal, but what happened in on my side?
00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:15.200
I will print the files, I will probably put it in a f in a cabinet somewhere, and then I will do my processing all manual.
00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:18.079
So we said that doesn't make any sense.
00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:20.880
We need to equip our staff first.
00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:36.640
We need to improve our digital literacy in working in a digital environment, and this also is taking a lot of time, and this is why we have the change manager working very closely with those teams to help those people.
00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:43.920
Well, they it's managing resistance because we were changing their way of working from analog to digital.
00:29:44.079 --> 00:29:56.319
So that being said, uh we prefer we prefer the approach of equipping our staff to work in a digital environment and then look at the data, as I mentioned.
00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:06.079
Once we have those tools in place, we are able to extract information from the workload management application, but also from the other systems.
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:18.400
And before using it for, let's say, uh an online platform or even just visualization type of products, we have to make sure that we trust those data as well.
00:30:18.559 --> 00:30:25.039
And we trust the infrastructure that we have built with all the cybersecurity uh requirements and so on.
00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:28.480
So there's a this is why data is second.
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:33.680
So as soon as we are in a position to to produce data, we want to trust them.
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:36.960
So we need to make sure that we understand what they are.
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:43.279
So we built a dictionary, like uh uh the La Rosse dictionary or Le Petit Robert.
00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:47.599
We have to define each of those data to understand it.
00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:50.960
And then also data is is an asset, right?
00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:55.279
It's not specific to the a program uh needs necessarily.
00:30:55.359 --> 00:31:03.359
So it has to be available and accessible to any program in Transport Canada in need of this information to do their own work.
00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:11.119
So, which means that we move all the data into a centralized repository that we call the sort of data lake.
00:31:11.279 --> 00:31:29.119
And this is where we are uh able to manipulate or transform the data to produce algorithm, a Power BI report, uh some application or whatever you want, or even uh AI, uh artificial intelligence.
00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:31.759
So, like uh let's say a chat bot.
00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:37.519
So, but if I have no trust in my data, I will be facing garbage in, garbage out.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:50.079
And just so people understand about the the shared stuff, if I know who the seafarer is and their medical history, and then there's the boat coming into a port, I might want to link to here comes the boat, and this is the guy steering it.
00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:58.079
So I now connect two things that were different records, but they're much more valuable when they're together because you can pick the health of the guy steering the boat, for example.
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:00.720
Um it sounds pretty esoteric.
00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:06.160
And before I get further, I want to point out that the term data lake is actually a term from data science.
00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:10.400
It's not the transport candidates naming data structures after itself, right?
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:11.839
From the marine world.
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:12.079
Yeah.
00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:12.640
Yeah.
00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:14.400
Just not everything's marine world.
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:18.000
Data lake was a data scientist thing, not a transport canada thing.
00:32:18.079 --> 00:32:19.279
You're happy to be using the lake.
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:19.759
Okay.
00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:21.599
Let's make this concrete.
00:32:21.680 --> 00:32:24.720
Give me a concrete example, something like vessel registration.
00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:28.319
How did you transform a process like that with this approach?
00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:33.599
Remember that I mentioned the piles of uh files in the room and so on.
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:38.400
So the first thing we are doing, so we set up a uh a multidisciplinary team.
00:32:38.559 --> 00:32:51.920
So maybe our family, the audience will be familiar uh with a scrum team essentially, uh including uh developers, a product owner, a technical advisor, maybe a specialist in data.
00:32:52.160 --> 00:33:04.400
But on top of that, in marine safety and security, we decided to add two other roles to that team, which is the UX designer and researcher as well as a change manager.
00:33:04.559 --> 00:33:14.240
And that's the the first time I'm not really aware of any other group doing that, having a change manager at the table with the developers.
00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:15.759
So that's the first step.
00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:28.799
And then, as mentioned, based our on our vision, which is the three-step approach, we have we start with the process first, second is the data, and third, we are developing the uh the tools.
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:48.240
So, what's that mean is in the case of the marine medical unit, we start reviewing all the processes with the UX researchers to identify where were our pain points duplication in our processes in order to first introduce the workload management application.
00:33:48.640 --> 00:34:02.559
And from there, once the staff with the support of the change manager is used to work with the new workload management application, we are in a position now to extract data from it.
00:34:02.720 --> 00:34:08.880
And the data we are extra extracting from the workload management application is twofold.
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:15.360
The first one is will help the program better understand the performance of the program itself.
00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:19.599
So for decision making, it's uh absolutely helpful.
00:34:19.679 --> 00:34:49.440
And the second thing is also the fact that the the workload management application provides us the ability to see the process and phases, which means that I can collect data on each phase of the process, and this allows me to see where are the bottlenecks in my process, which means that if I have, let's say, uh 3,000 files uh stacked on at the approval level, maybe have a problem with my approval process.
00:34:49.519 --> 00:35:09.199
So may uh so I will nail down and dig a little bit further with the UX researcher, understand what's exactly the problem over there, and put the resources accordingly, maybe adjust my roadmap accordingly and focus really on that specific bottleneck to bring some more efficiency uh in my process.
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:16.639
So this comes back to what what Lisa Fast was saying, that like you can't know what the world is like when you start trying to fix it.
00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:22.320
And so the only thing you can do is get information very quickly to learn what the next big priority is.
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:27.039
With passports, it turns out it was the form, and they went down that problem, and then it was like what documents to bring.
00:35:27.280 --> 00:35:29.440
In your case, you're like, okay, I go look at the process.
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:33.280
It turns out it's a bottleneck at the approval, so I should change my priorities there.
00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:53.760
That seems in very stark contrast to the kind of waterfall planning model where people go, this is what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna give you the full five-year plan when I start, as opposed to your case where you're like, I know what my goal is, but I'm gonna use the data I'm collecting during the process to change my priorities and my project plan to make sure it works properly.
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:54.800
Yes, exactly.
00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:02.239
It's sometimes the um the analogy could be uh when you do renovation, you open a wall and oops, there's a pipe.
00:36:02.559 --> 00:36:05.440
So it's same, it's the same thing in transformation.
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:15.360
So in this case, we realize that there was a bottleneck there, but when we dig a little bit further, we realize, oops, that's a regulatory change that will be required.
00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:22.559
And this could take two, three years to happen because we have to go through the gazetteing process and so on.
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:36.239
So sometimes we are underestimating the time it could take because we are finding some little things like this throughout the delivery of our transformation project.
00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:38.079
So we have to be patient.
00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:38.960
Yeah.
00:36:39.199 --> 00:36:47.760
Um, so what things can a marine inspector or a boat owner or a seafarer do today that they couldn't do five years ago when you started on this project?
00:36:48.079 --> 00:36:50.480
Well, a lot of things has changed in five years.
00:36:50.639 --> 00:36:54.960
Today, since let's we started this journey in 2019.
00:36:55.039 --> 00:37:01.199
Uh since then, we have the cargo inspection program that now is fully digital from end to end.
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:14.400
So inspectors are uh managing the service request for inspection up to the payment of fee and the delivery of the certificates all online, all digital.
00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:27.599
Uh vessel owners can now uh receive their registration and insurance certificates electronically because we have a common component that supports that specific uh common capability.
00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:33.360
Uh, we have also the Canadian voters who have the Pleasure Craft Operator card.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:43.199
Uh they can use our online tool to search for a course provider if they have losed their card or need a replacement.
00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:53.760
So uh on the marine medical side of the house, we have now the marine medical examiners who are able to submit their medical reports on seafare to through an online portal.
00:37:53.920 --> 00:37:56.000
This uh was not possible in the past.
00:37:56.159 --> 00:37:57.599
And I can continue now.
00:37:57.679 --> 00:38:01.920
But all those changes mean that we can provide the service faster.
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:05.840
We have less paperwork to deal with, uh for sure.
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:13.840
And it's more time for our inspector and staff to really focus on what matter the most, safety and security of the transportation system.
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:23.119
It sounds like you're like if I didn't know I was talking to Transport Canada, I would think I was talking to one of the other countries that I'm always talking to about how they fixed it.
00:38:23.199 --> 00:38:27.360
Like these sound like the kind of things that that we hear from other countries.
00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:30.639
And it's it really honestly feels quite nice to know that you're doing this well.
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:42.159
It sounds like you're pretty far ahead, not just in terms of the services, but also with like the baseline reporting that your department needs to get to comply with the Service Fees Act and things like that.
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:47.679
What I really want to focus on uh as we wrap this up, you've said a couple of times at a change manager.
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:52.480
Overcoming resistance is always the organizational work of digital transformation.
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:56.400
What does it take to get people on board with the resistance to this process?
00:38:56.719 --> 00:39:05.039
I know some of the people in Transport Canada, and I'm especially thinking of someone like Julie Lees, who used to be CIO, have traditionally been very digitally literate.
00:39:05.280 --> 00:39:14.719
So what role has your team and past executives changed taken in making digital transformation and change happen within the organization?
00:39:15.039 --> 00:39:21.760
Well, I'm glad that you have this question because it's uh I would say that it's one of our trademark in marine safety and security.
00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:28.320
So we have dedicated change managers associated with each of our transformation initiatives.
00:39:28.400 --> 00:39:29.840
And the reason is simple.
00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:34.000
Technology alone doesn't deliver transformation.
00:39:34.239 --> 00:39:39.360
We need to focus on people because it's people who are using those tools.
00:39:39.519 --> 00:39:43.039
If if we are not supporting them, they will not use them.
00:39:43.280 --> 00:40:00.639
You can have your IT department developing the best tool in the world, but if I have no one to tell them or train them or provide them with standing operator procedures to operate in in the digital world, they will not use it.
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:05.519
They will resist because they will not understand the new way of working.
00:40:05.679 --> 00:40:07.599
So this is why it is critical.
00:40:07.679 --> 00:40:10.320
And I I think the the statistics are there.
00:40:10.480 --> 00:40:17.440
So it's about 70% of transformation projects are failing because of a lack of change management.
00:40:17.679 --> 00:40:49.039
So uh this is why we want to make sure that any service line going through transformation will be supported by a change manager to make sure that people understand why we are doing those changes and also have the necessary uh tools and support, such as, as I mentioned, operating procedures, training, uh a SharePoint a SharePoint site where to uh find the information.
00:40:49.119 --> 00:40:52.559
It could be you need someone who is doing that work.
00:40:52.639 --> 00:40:54.239
It won't happen by magic.
00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:58.079
So it's just not a question, okay, here's the tool, deal with it.
00:40:58.239 --> 00:40:59.599
It's not happening this way.
00:40:59.840 --> 00:41:01.840
Uh you have a master's in public administration.
00:41:01.920 --> 00:41:07.519
You're not a technologist, although a lot of the words you've been saying about APIs and shared components sound pretty digital.
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:15.760
Do you think having a background in public administration and not tech helped you or hindered you when you were trying to make this transformation happen?
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:27.360
I would say that it helped me a lot because it it's helping me explaining the business side of the house to my IT folks that I'm working in very close partnership with them.
00:41:27.599 --> 00:41:35.440
So my master's degree essentially gave me all the courses that I needed and that and then that that I apply today essentially.
00:41:35.519 --> 00:41:48.000
I have courses in change management and business process analysis in org design, uh applying uh a Meinsberg type of approach at the time, a long time ago.
00:41:48.400 --> 00:41:51.519
Course in results-based management, data analytics.
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:57.360
Yes, we were using Excel in 2000, but still the basics, the foundation is there.
00:41:57.679 --> 00:42:07.519
So absolutely, I think I am really on at the right place to lead this team towards transformation.
00:42:07.760 --> 00:42:31.519
But of course, all those skill sets is uh through a good partnership with the program people on the marine side, but uh also with my counterpart in service and digital group, where I have to share the vision uh of the R3 phase approach, but also to bridge the gap between the technical and the our operational realities.
00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:38.079
So I think that's the idea of service modernization and data sounds like a digital job, but you're so right.
00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:40.159
Very seldom are there technology problems.
00:42:40.239 --> 00:42:43.840
There are always people problems, process problems, sometimes data problems.
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:47.440
I want to wrap up with a question that's a little more profound.
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:49.039
What's still broken?
00:42:49.199 --> 00:42:50.559
Like what keeps you up at night?
00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:51.760
What's still broken?
00:42:51.840 --> 00:42:59.920
I would say that unfortunately each director, I think, and this is not only within Transport Canada, you can take it more globally.
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:08.079
We are still designing and building the same tools that is basically doing all the same things.
00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:20.800
Many of us, not just in transport, as I mentioned before, we need to manage our workload, we need to issue certificates, we need to manage documents, all those things.
00:43:21.039 --> 00:43:25.920
We need to communicate with our um with our external clients.
00:43:26.159 --> 00:43:29.599
We need to it's all the same functionality essentially.
00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:36.400
So we have to stop, I would say, this nonsense of building the same tools over and over.
00:43:36.559 --> 00:43:39.360
Just take the cost recovery service management solution.
00:43:39.519 --> 00:43:42.719
We are not the only department having service fees.
00:43:42.960 --> 00:43:44.639
There's a lot of other departments.
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:46.000
Health Canada has fees.
00:43:47.440 --> 00:43:51.599
Yeah, they probably built a ser a cost recovery service solution as well.
00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:57.039
But how many cost recovery service solutions we have in the federal government right now?
00:43:57.519 --> 00:43:59.519
And if we had one, then when there was one change.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:01.360
It everyone would benefit.
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:08.159
Like if we added a new language or we changed the process with the regulation, then it would be one change and everybody would benefit, right?
00:44:08.400 --> 00:44:13.280
Yeah, just make it scalable to adapt it to the specific needs of a service line.
00:44:13.440 --> 00:44:15.280
The good thing is we are on the right track.
00:44:15.440 --> 00:44:25.199
Canadian digital service is starting to provide us with some common components that are reusable, that are meeting some of our needs.
00:44:25.360 --> 00:44:28.400
So I I'm confident that we are on the right track for sure.
00:44:28.719 --> 00:44:29.199
What's next?
00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:31.760
So what what's keeping me up at night?
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:36.800
Um I would say that it's making sure we can keep moving our initiative.
00:44:37.199 --> 00:44:44.000
So modernizing marine services or any type of services is really a long-term commitment.
00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:55.920
And on an annual basis, I need to convince my senior management that it's worth to continue our effort on uh on an annual basis.
00:44:56.079 --> 00:45:00.880
So my pressure is I have to deliver and I have to show the results.
00:45:01.119 --> 00:45:06.800
But I again I have a wonderful team, very brilliant people working with me.
00:45:06.960 --> 00:45:14.000
And I feel that my team, myself, with my master degree, like you said, uh I am at the right place.
00:45:14.239 --> 00:45:20.800
But moreover, my entire team is at the right place to deliver very successful results.
00:45:21.039 --> 00:45:21.519
That's amazing.
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:23.360
Lucy, thank you so much for your service.
00:45:23.519 --> 00:45:28.159
I'm I I kind of wish I had a boat just so I could use all these amazing services.
00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:44.400
But uh no, it's it's really nice to see someone thinking about this from first principles, from the process, from the data, from shared components and economies of scale, from thinking about the change, from uh recognizing that you don't know what the plumbing's like until you pull out the wall.
00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:45.440
So you can't make plans.
00:45:45.679 --> 00:45:50.079
You have to kind of earn the trust by making gradual improvements and being transparent about it.
00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:53.840
And so many of the things that I've heard work for other countries.
00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:57.440
Uh it's really nice to hear that they're happening in some places in the Canadian government, too.
00:45:57.760 --> 00:45:58.559
Thank you, Alistair.
00:45:58.719 --> 00:46:01.599
Thank you for this opportunity to share uh our work.
00:46:01.679 --> 00:46:03.199
Uh, I really, really appreciate.
00:46:03.760 --> 00:46:06.880
Thanks for joining us on the Functional Government Podcast.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.200
Technology alone doesn't deliver transformation.
00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:07.919
We have to go back to 30 years ago and recognize that we couldn't anticipate that.
00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:10.560
We will have to do it piece by piece.
00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:12.720
It sounds like what digital government's supposed to do.
00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:14.480
It's managing resistance, huh?
00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:19.600
Because we were changing their way of working from analog to digital.
00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:23.120
Welcome to the Functional Government Podcast.
00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:32.320
Transport Canada's marine safety and security is responsible for everything from vessel inspection to certifying seafarers who drive those vessels.
00:00:32.479 --> 00:00:40.320
It's the reason the ship bringing your Amazon order across the Pacific won't sink in Canadian waters, and that the captain knows how to steer it.
00:00:40.479 --> 00:00:54.880
But until recently, doing that job often meant drowning in paperwork, tens of thousands of physical files stacking up in a building, inspectors who needed 20 different logins to do their work, systems that don't talk to each other because they were never designed to.
00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:57.119
Fortunately, we're fixing these problems.
00:00:57.439 --> 00:01:04.719
Lucy Belgeron is the director of service modernization and data for marine safety and security at Transport Canada.
00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:20.159
She's been quietly leading a successful modernization in the federal government, not by building some flashy portal, but like going back to basics, understand and fix the process, then add data, and then only then build the digital service atop it.
00:01:20.319 --> 00:01:21.200
And it's working.
00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:25.519
On this episode of the Functional Government Podcast, we're going to find out how.
00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:26.560
Hi, Lucy.
00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:27.200
How are you?
00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:28.000
I'm fine.
00:01:28.079 --> 00:01:29.200
How are you, Alice Sir?
00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:30.159
I'm great.
00:01:30.239 --> 00:01:31.840
Thank you so much for being here.
00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:56.560
Entre autres, plutôt francophone.
00:01:56.799 --> 00:01:58.799
Alors en espérant que tout se passe bien aujourd'hui.
00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:07.920
So for listeners who don't think about boats and vessels much, what does Transport Canada Marine Safety and Security actually do?
00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:11.039
Well, our mandate is quite comprehensive.
00:02:11.199 --> 00:02:21.680
So essentially, we develop and enforce marine safety and security regulations, uh the laws, and also the international conventions.
00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:26.400
So that are established by the International Maritime Organization.
00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:45.439
But more concretely, if we look at it from an operational point of view, we register and inspect vessels, we certify seafarers, we monitor pollution, we approve and assess uh compliance for ports and marine facilities security plans.
00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:52.400
And in case of marine incidents, we are making sure that all the regulatory framework is sustained.
00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:59.840
So everything we do is really about ensuring a safe and secure transportation system.
00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:00.960
Wow.
00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:03.439
And uh it's just part of Transport Canada, right?
00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:03.919
Absolutely.
00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:05.599
Transport Canada is much bigger than just boats.
00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:07.680
What else does Transport Canada handle?
00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:29.360
Well, of course, uh the mode uh where I'm working with is marine safety and security, but there's also other modes of transportation where they also have uh laws and regulation and international conventions such as uh civil aviation, rail, and all the uh the road and uh safety uh mode.
00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:34.960
So Transport Canada does a lot of different things, specifically within marine safety and security.
00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:37.439
What would happen if your systems didn't work?
00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:41.039
Well, my job is to make sure that this is not happening.
00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:48.800
So we have to keep pace with the rapidly changing and evolving technology, basically on a day-to-day basis.
00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:52.560
So this is why I'm looking at improving our systems.
00:03:52.800 --> 00:04:14.639
So, of course, like any other responsible organization, we have a business continuity plan in place, which ensures that all critical systems and people who are working in those uh areas will have a plan to ensure that our marine operations are still continuing in the case of an incident.
00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:19.439
And this, of course, is to make sure that we have a safe and secure transportation system.
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:22.879
So this is what is driving us on any plan.
00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:28.480
Yeah, it seems to me like there's some government services where if it doesn't work for a day, it's like, okay, I'll do it tomorrow.
00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:32.639
If you can't land the airplane, that's like that's a problem that's gotta get fixed.
00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:42.959
So I imagine that many of your systems have a much higher like standard for reliability and availability and redundancy than you would expect in a lot of other parts of government.
00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:45.519
So the technology sounds pretty tough there.
00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:47.439
I want to talk about technology a little bit.
00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:53.759
As part of my research into the state of Canada's systems, I talked about how many logins there are in government.
00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:55.759
There's 270 different websites.
00:04:56.079 --> 00:05:01.279
One of our earlier guests, Lisa Fast, actually designed the webpage that has links to all these different sites.
00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:04.240
60 different logins, 30 different departments.
00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:14.000
And it's not unusual for a citizen to have to access many different sites just to change their address as they move, which means they're keeping track of multiple passwords.
00:05:14.079 --> 00:05:19.920
And when I learned this, it sounded pretty bad, but maybe we should feel even worse for public servants.
00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:30.720
I've heard that a single marine inspector at Transport Canada might need 20 different logins to do their job, each with different copies of the same data.
00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:31.519
Is that true?
00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:36.240
Yes, Alistair, that's true, and it's our reality, unfortunately.
00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:42.800
So and and it shows why modernization and more specifically digitization is so important.
00:05:43.439 --> 00:05:47.839
So in Marine, right now, each program has its own system.
00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:51.839
So it means that, yes, different login for each of them.
00:05:52.000 --> 00:06:06.079
So through modernization, uh our goal is really to come up with fewer logins for sure, less duplication, more time focused on the real inspection services uh that we have.
00:06:06.399 --> 00:06:15.360
So of course it's a challenge because we are currently dealing with more than 50 legacy systems that are not talking to each other.
00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:17.680
So that's our reality.
00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:19.920
You are you are absolutely right.
00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:24.720
It's uh it's difficult to work in that kind of legacy environment right now.
00:06:24.959 --> 00:06:34.240
But with modernization, uh, I think we uh we are in a good position to start replacing those old systems with new ones.
00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:40.560
But the challenge is also the fact that we cannot just replace an old system by a new one.
00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:43.439
We will have to do it piece by piece.
00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:59.600
So as soon as we are decommissioning some functionality of a legacy system and building new applications, so this is where we will find finally some light at the end of the tunnel in many, many years, but it's a building block type of approach.
00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:04.079
Yeah, I mean you can't just turn off the ports for a few days while you install the new software, right?
00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:05.199
Absolutely not.
00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:12.959
Can you tell me a little about like these decisions to have many separate systems with different logins, made sense at the time.
00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:16.079
Like the people that did this were making a sensible decision.
00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:18.160
Can you explain how that happened?
00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:22.480
Well, Marine Safety and Security is a long-standing organization.
00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:27.839
Like the Canadian Passport story you shared with us in the previous podcast.
00:07:28.079 --> 00:07:36.079
So, for example, one of our service, such as the uh vessel registry, have rules that go back many, many years.
00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:51.680
So, 30 years ago, each program developed their own tool to meet their own business needs, reflecting their organizational uh structure and sometimes and also the regulations that they are responsible for.
00:07:51.920 --> 00:08:02.240
So this resulted in dozens and dozens of systems that basically accomplish different goals, but also replicate features, data, and processes.
00:08:02.399 --> 00:08:08.560
So today we have inherited a patchwork of separate systems that are not talking to each other.
00:08:08.639 --> 00:08:15.120
And as a result, yes, we have multiplied the access point for our inspectors, for example.
00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:20.319
So that's the legacy challenge uh we are trying to solve now through modernization.
00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:30.160
So hoping that we will be successful in harmonizing processes, consolidating our data, building shared components as well.
00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:32.399
It's another approach that we are looking at.
00:08:32.559 --> 00:08:38.240
And as a result, we will have a strong foundation which will enable transformation.
00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:45.440
So I guess 30 years ago, it made a lot of sense to like buy a turnkey system for each service or program, right?
00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:47.519
You didn't want a vendor to sell you half of something.
00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:49.279
Like, no, no, give me a thing that works.
00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.559
Give me the computer, the operating system, the application.
00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:54.080
This is what it's for.
00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:58.639
But nobody expected the citizen to be accessing their data directly.
00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:06.960
Like we had this idea that you would pick up the phone and call someone who was sitting in front of a computer, or that you would go to a Service Canada kiosk and do something there.
00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:15.600
Nobody envisioned this world where every single Canadian or almost every Canadian is walking around with a device in their pocket that can connect to computers.
00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:23.519
And they also didn't really expect government employees to need a single set of data or to work across systems.
00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:30.320
Like these are things that seem obvious today, but we have to go back to 30 years ago and recognize that we couldn't anticipate that.
00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:37.600
Nobody 30 years ago knew what this world would look like with phones in our pockets and employees working across a citizen's entire portfolios.
00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:42.480
When did Transport Canada start to realize that this approach had become a a liability?
00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:53.759
So uh I would say that in 2019, for the first time we were successful in getting funding, and we decided to launch two major modernization initiatives.
00:09:53.919 --> 00:10:00.159
So, and this is where we saw okay, maybe that's our chance, that's an opportunity to do things differently.
00:10:00.399 --> 00:10:07.200
So the two initiatives that got funding was the vessel registration and the certification services for seafarers.
00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:11.919
So you talk a bit about the uh the three-phase approach that we have in place.
00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:24.960
We'll talk more later, which means that we start with uh the process and then the data, and later on we are looking at digitization of the interaction with external stakeholders.
00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:35.919
So when we start with the first uh phase, which is the analysis of the business processes, both teams realized that basically they had the same needs.
00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:43.919
They needed to digitize the management of the workload, and they also needed to manage the documents that are submitted by the to the program.
00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:50.720
So it was making no sense that we had two teams building the same tool at the same time.
00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:56.000
So we decided in in uh to split the work between each team.
00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:05.759
So one would take the responsibility of designing and building the workload management application and based more on the common components approach.
00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:15.039
And then the other one would do the same thing, building a common component that is scalable for the document management type of application.
00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:17.679
So you got each you split it up into two teams.
00:11:17.759 --> 00:11:18.000
I have to do that.
00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:24.720
One was dealing with the workload for the software, and the other one was dealing with the the actual management of the documents in that workload.
00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:25.440
Exactly.
00:11:25.519 --> 00:11:29.600
So it took two years to develop both because we developed it from scratch.
00:11:29.759 --> 00:11:51.200
And then two years later in 2021, each team basically were you interchange their component and then they scale it to their specificity of their services, and we were able to work with the same tool essentially, but we had we have adapted it to their business uh profile.
00:11:51.519 --> 00:11:58.559
So if I understand this correctly, it's like saying you and I are gonna build a house and we both need plumbing and we both need electricity.
00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:03.600
So we decide that I'm gonna make my house electric and you're gonna plumb you do the plumbing on your house.
00:12:03.679 --> 00:12:08.240
And then when we've got them working, we go, hey, here's how to plumb a house, here's how to make it electric.
00:12:08.399 --> 00:12:14.480
And now we both have plumbing and electricity in half the time it would have taken if we'd both had to invent it ourselves.
00:12:14.639 --> 00:12:16.960
Plus, the plumbing and electricity is standardized.
00:12:17.039 --> 00:12:19.279
So like I can fix your plumbing, you can fix my plumbing.
00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:21.440
If you make your plumbing better, mine gets better too.
00:12:21.600 --> 00:12:22.639
Is that a fair analogy?
00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:26.799
Yes, we can take this uh because the foundation basically is the same.
00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:40.320
It's just a question of deciding, okay, what what color will be the the fixture or what or the type of uh I don't know that the the the different uh sis electric systems and so on, like you said.
00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:49.279
But of course it it was a sort some sort of a risk because we knew that in doing this it would take longer to deliver.
00:12:49.679 --> 00:13:16.399
But in the long run, it would accelerate our broader transformation effort in marine safety and security because in having those common components that are built to meet a certain business capabilities, then we knew that any other marine services ready for transformation will have to just onboard on this new common component instead of building from scratch again in again.
00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:22.480
Okay, so first benefit, if I want to build a third house, I already know how to do the plumbing and the electricity.
00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:27.360
Second benefit, if I want to build a heating system, now I can install heating in all the houses.
00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:31.840
Third benefit, everyone can buy the same lamp and it'll just work with the electrical system.
00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:35.120
So this is kind of the standardized components that you're talking about.
00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:36.879
Yeah, it's like a plug and plate.
00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:39.279
It's like the building block approach.
00:13:39.519 --> 00:14:01.120
I have a component, so to meet a certain business capability, and then I'm taking it, I'm tailoring it to my specific needs, and then I can also through an API use another one that will do, let's say, document management, and then I can use another one through an API, which is issuing electronic certificates, for example.
00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:09.360
So in this way has many services and marine safety and security as the same type of process in place.
00:14:09.519 --> 00:14:11.519
We are all doing basically the same thing.
00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:20.559
So we are managing service requests, we are managing documents submitted by clients, we are issuing certificates, we are inspecting.
00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:21.919
So it's all the same.
00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:29.600
So why designing and building the same component many, many times for a specific program instead?
00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:39.120
Like look at this in a more holistic way and build a product that fits the needs of a business capability instead.
00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:39.600
Sure.
00:14:39.679 --> 00:14:42.720
And modern software is made out of building blocks like this, right?
00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:52.720
When I make a website, I might embed a Google form, I might add Stripe for payment, I might include some third-party video player in the web page instead of building all those things from scratch.
00:14:52.960 --> 00:15:00.879
So these kinds of common components are like reusable pieces for invoicing or payment or competency verification.
00:15:01.039 --> 00:15:10.000
And I've heard that in the government of Canada, there are some common components such as forms and notify, which are standards that you can use to build on.
00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:12.080
Have those caught on within government departments?
00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:12.879
Absolutely.
00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:18.559
So yes, we are leveraging the common components built by the Canadian Digital Service.
00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:24.960
So they have the G what they call the GC Notify and also the GC Forms components.
00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:29.360
So instead of reinventing the wheel, we use those components.
00:15:29.519 --> 00:15:39.919
And again, as a plug and play or Lego type of building block, we are just using those components to add it to our end-to-end process.
00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:46.320
We had a speaker, David Eves, who wrote something recently about, you know, commodity components are the key to digital sovereignty.
00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:51.679
This idea that if you have your own stack of these components, it's really important for building government acts.
00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:55.200
I want to pivot back to something a little related to this.
00:15:55.519 --> 00:16:09.440
In 2017, there was this thing called the Service Fees Act, which basically said that every fee that a department charges must be publicly listed, along with the service standards, which say things like if you pay us for this service, we'll do this thing within this many days.
00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:17.360
And importantly for this discussion, the department also has to report on how often it hit or missed those standards and sometimes pay for missing them.
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:24.799
Most government departments are funded by taxes, not fees, so there's less of a connection between what the citizen gets and whether the department gets its budget.
00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:30.159
But for Transport Canada, many of the fees, the things you do charge fees, right?
00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:35.679
Like many of the things that you charge for, like a permit for driving a boat, for example, you have to charge a fee.
00:16:35.759 --> 00:16:42.879
And as a result, you have to track processing times to measure your performance, you have to track your costs to justify the fees, and you have to issue refunds.
00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:49.440
As a department that collects fees from its citizens, you probably have to report more about what your services are doing.
00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:55.840
So across all your services, did you build common components that made it possible to do this kind of collection?
00:16:56.080 --> 00:16:56.960
Yes, absolutely.
00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:03.360
The department built a common component of what we call the cost recovery service management solution.
00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:15.119
Essentially, is to meet the requirements under the Service Fees Act in terms of reporting on program cost, program revenue, performance of our service standards.
00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:22.160
And also there's a piece under the Service Fees Act which talk about the remission policy, essentially.
00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:34.400
So what that means is if we are missing a service standard, we will have to remit a portion of the fee paid by the client to the client, essentially.
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:43.519
So just so I I'm clear, for a fee, government departments have to refund you if they don't deliver the service they said they would in the time they said they would.
00:17:43.759 --> 00:17:44.240
Correct.
00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:49.119
So this is what we call the remission policy attached to the Service Fees Act.
00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:55.440
So we have to remit a portion of the fee paid by the client if we are not meeting our service standards.
00:17:55.599 --> 00:18:03.599
But this has to be tracked and reported on an annual basis to Parliament through a fee report that is tabled annually.
00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:12.880
And then from there we need to track those data with regard to our cost recovery services or all the services with fees.
00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:14.880
That's an obligation that we have.
00:18:15.039 --> 00:18:25.759
And for for doing so, there's a common component, yes, that was developed by our group here in Service and Digital to do to perform those specific functions.
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:41.759
And again, it's a it's a common capability that uh any service with fees in Transport Canada can use and plug and play to, in my case, the workload management application that we build up front because it will feed.
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.960
So it's part of the end-to-end process essentially.
00:18:45.119 --> 00:19:03.039
When I'm getting a request for delivering a service, if if there's a fee associated to this service, I will have to plug with the cost recovery service management solution uh up to the invoicing of the service, but also the reporting to parliament.
00:19:03.359 --> 00:19:03.599
Wow.
00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:10.880
So if if you didn't have this service in place, then humans would have to track all this data, and that's a lot of extra work, right?
00:19:11.039 --> 00:19:13.039
So having software do it makes more sense.
00:19:13.200 --> 00:19:27.920
But instead of just getting each service that you offer to have its own tracking, you said to each service, if you use this component, we will automatically track everything from the moment the service is requested to the moment it's delivered, how much we charge, and all that kind of stuff.
00:19:28.079 --> 00:19:35.039
And then your system just rolls that up at the end of the year and puts it into a document to parliament that makes you accountable to the citizens who use the service.
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:35.759
Exactly.
00:19:36.319 --> 00:19:37.200
That sounds amazing.
00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:38.400
It is amazing.
00:19:38.559 --> 00:19:43.440
So uh our team in IT did amazing work in developing this component.
00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:46.319
And the beauty of this is it's all automated.
00:19:46.559 --> 00:20:07.599
So as soon as I have the data into my workload management application, so I can feed the cost recovery service management solution right away, and all those calculations and tracking of spent on doing XYZ help me assess well uh reporting on the program cost, for example.
00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:17.920
And then since I I am invoicing my clients or collecting the fees up front, I can have right away the revenue generated by this service.
00:20:18.079 --> 00:20:31.440
And then boom, it's uh move into a platform that is uh also has the capacity the ability to report back to Parliament and prepare this uh beautiful report uh for our uh taxpayers.
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:35.359
And it sounds like, you know, this is the government says you must report this once a year.
00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:40.480
But if I understand your technology, in theory, you can just go at any time if you had the right query.
00:20:40.559 --> 00:20:42.720
You could just go say, How did we do today?
00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:47.839
Or, you know, you can you can get more granular because you've collected the data in a proper structured way.
00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:48.960
Yes, it's true.
00:20:49.119 --> 00:20:52.000
So uh we can have the information in real time.
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:54.880
So this is why it's a management tool as well.
00:20:55.039 --> 00:21:00.400
So we can create Power BI reports for on a monthly basis to see progress made.
00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:03.440
Are we on track to meet our service standards?
00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:10.720
That's information that is useful for management as well to make to make some correction in the delivery of the service if needed.
00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:16.160
So uh of course we have uh this information at our finger uh tips right now.
00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:18.240
So it's a huge improvement.
00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:22.880
I mean, I don't want to sound too excited, but it sounds like what digital government's supposed to do.
00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:32.319
Let me ask you one more question about the motivations of why you changed, because obviously simplifying these systems was important, complying with the act so you could collect fees was important.
00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:38.960
I guess digital services are also more efficient, not just in collecting stuff, but simply like digitizing things.
00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:45.759
You mentioned 60,000 physical files stacking up in a building that you told me about before.
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:52.160
Can you tell me what it feels like to have 60,000 files in a building and what that does to your will to modernize things?
00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:55.279
Well, I'm seeing this as an opportunity, actually.
00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:59.680
So uh of course, we had some issue with the infrastructure.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:01.680
Of the building at some point.
00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:04.960
There was no room anymore to stack more files.
00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:07.680
So it's a physical building full of documents.
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:08.079
Exactly.
00:22:08.319 --> 00:22:10.400
And it was just literally the building is full.
00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:18.880
The floor was too heavy with all those files, so the building infrastructure was unable to support it anymore.
00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:32.720
Which means that we were we were looking for another floor or even another area, another room to store all the medical files that we had accumulated over the years.
00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:41.279
But the beauty of it is at the same time we got the funding, as I mentioned earlier, to modernize the Seafarer services.
00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:58.400
And this is where we start our journey of modernizing all those paper-based processes, which means that we had to take one by one those 60,000 files, scan it, and move it into our workload management application.
00:22:58.559 --> 00:23:12.160
So it's it's incredible all the work that was done over time because uh we are not imaginating so that kind of effort that is required to digitize.
00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:14.160
But again, it's our reality.
00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:17.359
It's not like you said, building a flashy portal.
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:24.960
It's really get rid of the paper base and make sure that our staff can work in a digital environment.
00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:27.359
And it's starting by scanning files.
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:29.359
Yeah, it does seem to be the boring stuff.
00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:32.799
Like Lisa Fast talked about she spent six months getting the form right.
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:35.200
But these boring things can have tremendous impact.
00:23:35.279 --> 00:23:43.759
But you know, when you go from I need another floor because the the floor is about to collapse from the weight to oh, you can have the floor back, it's all digital now.
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:45.839
Um Yeah, now it's empty.
00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:48.720
What's it like to scan 60,000 files?
00:23:49.039 --> 00:24:03.519
Well, it's well, at the beginning, and when you start a transformation process, so I remember when we start this one, so I was entering in the room and there was piles of files on desk with post-its right up on top of it.
00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:16.000
It was okay, that's the pile for uh that we just received, that's the pile for approval, that's the pile for incomplete files that we need to do some back and forth with the client, and so on.
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:18.720
There was files all over the place in the room.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:25.279
So, and then on top of that, we have the vertical cabinet with all the medical files, the 60,000.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:37.680
So it was quite overwhelming at the beginning, but we said since we start by the big by the beginning with the UX designers, we look at process step by step.
00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:40.559
Okay, so it was all on post-it, easy.
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:43.599
So, but now where are the duplications?
00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:47.119
Is there approvals that are not necessary anymore?
00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:54.000
Is there any way where we can simplify the process to better align with a digital environment?
00:24:54.160 --> 00:25:05.839
So all those questions and pain points were identified at that at that time to come up with a recommendation of a simplified process for digitization.
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:47.920
And this is where we build the famous workload management application, where it was necessary if we wanted to move the scanned files into a system, we needed that because as soon as you have a CFARE who apply for a medical uh certificate, we took the opportunity to pull the files from the uh physical cabinet, scan it, included in the workload management application with the service request uh of the CFAR, and then boom, slowly it took two years to scan all the 60,000 files, but we did we did it based on each request coming in.
00:25:48.079 --> 00:25:51.200
So, because you cannot boil the ocean all at the same time.
00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:58.559
So we took it one by one, and finally at the end uh uh of the journey, we were able to be fully digital.
00:25:59.039 --> 00:26:03.279
I love that I got someone from the Marine Division telling me we can't boil the ocean, that seems perfect.
00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:12.319
So if I'm clear here, you went in there and looked at the post-it notes and the process, and you recognized, oh, there's a process here called the form is incomplete.
00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:17.440
I have to talk to someone, or there's a process here that says this has to be renewed or this has expired or whatever.
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:23.680
And you looked at the whole process and you said, what things in this process don't make sense in the digital world anymore?
00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:26.960
Like, okay, there's a physical signature here, how do we change that?
00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:28.240
Or like what needs to be changed, right?
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:29.680
So you have the process, right?
00:26:29.920 --> 00:26:32.319
Because you may already know what the process is or whatever.
00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:35.359
Then you go, okay, now we have this new process.
00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.119
You didn't just stop and scan 60,000 files.
00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:48.160
You went, I'm going to come up with a way of migrating from the analog world to the digital world that doesn't necessarily create more work.
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:54.079
It's just that the next time I need to touch a physical thing, that's when I will enter it into the digital thing.
00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:57.680
Instead of kind of having everybody come in on weekends until you've scanned everything.
00:26:57.759 --> 00:26:57.839
Right.
00:26:58.079 --> 00:26:58.319
Correct.
00:26:58.480 --> 00:26:58.640
Correct.
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:04.079
So even part of the process is the process for gradually migrating from analog to digital.
00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:07.440
And at the end of two years, you've kind of gone through all the files at least once.
00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:09.759
And so now you'd incorporated them, right?
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:11.039
Yeah, that's correct.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:19.680
Because also given the fact that we had 60,000 files, we have some C Fairs in there that was probably 120 years old.
00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:20.240
Wow.
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:22.720
So why scanning those files?
00:27:23.039 --> 00:27:23.519
What happened?
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:28.480
I mean, you've got these historical records that sound like they should be in a museum, but they're just sitting in a warehouse.
00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:29.680
Exactly.
00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:37.839
So it becomes like more uh archives than physical files that are necessary to deliver a service as of today.
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:47.119
This is why we decided, okay, as soon as we uh we are adding a request, we will do the search of the physical file and then digitize everything.
00:27:47.279 --> 00:27:51.359
Otherwise, we wouldn't we are probably today still scanning files.
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:57.759
So at the end of it, you can kind of look around and all the files you have left are like retired mariners and retired seafarers.
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:05.279
We dispose of them in a secure way because there's uh, as you know, life a lifespan of those files.
00:28:05.359 --> 00:28:13.359
Yeah and but uh there's a what there was a lot of uh files in there uh that were not relevant anymore.
00:28:13.759 --> 00:28:17.119
Wow, I didn't know this was gonna be like a maritime history session, but this is fascinating.
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:21.039
Okay, so you mentioned earlier process, then data, then implementation.
00:28:21.119 --> 00:28:26.160
I think I understand you start with the process because you've got to understand how to modify it for digital.
00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:32.559
Then you start with the data because the data happens in the context of the process, and then you start with the actual implementation.
00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:34.400
What happens if you do those in the wrong order?
00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:35.920
Well, wrong order.
00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:40.319
It's really any group can decide which order they would like to take.
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:43.440
So in our case, we built a strategy.
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:53.039
I set the vision for marine safety and security, and we decided that it was making better sense for us to digitize processes first.
00:28:53.440 --> 00:28:56.000
Because let's say I'm starting the opposite.
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:58.559
I'm starting with building a flashy portal.
00:28:58.720 --> 00:29:05.680
So your client will submit their files electronically through my portal, but what happened in on my side?
00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:15.200
I will print the files, I will probably put it in a f in a cabinet somewhere, and then I will do my processing all manual.
00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:18.079
So we said that doesn't make any sense.
00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:20.880
We need to equip our staff first.
00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:36.640
We need to improve our digital literacy in working in a digital environment, and this also is taking a lot of time, and this is why we have the change manager working very closely with those teams to help those people.
00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:43.920
Well, they it's managing resistance because we were changing their way of working from analog to digital.
00:29:44.079 --> 00:29:56.319
So that being said, uh we prefer we prefer the approach of equipping our staff to work in a digital environment and then look at the data, as I mentioned.
00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:06.079
Once we have those tools in place, we are able to extract information from the workload management application, but also from the other systems.
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:18.400
And before using it for, let's say, uh an online platform or even just visualization type of products, we have to make sure that we trust those data as well.
00:30:18.559 --> 00:30:25.039
And we trust the infrastructure that we have built with all the cybersecurity uh requirements and so on.
00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:28.480
So there's a this is why data is second.
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:33.680
So as soon as we are in a position to to produce data, we want to trust them.
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:36.960
So we need to make sure that we understand what they are.
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:43.279
So we built a dictionary, like uh uh the La Rosse dictionary or Le Petit Robert.
00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:47.599
We have to define each of those data to understand it.
00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:50.960
And then also data is is an asset, right?
00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:55.279
It's not specific to the a program uh needs necessarily.
00:30:55.359 --> 00:31:03.359
So it has to be available and accessible to any program in Transport Canada in need of this information to do their own work.
00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:11.119
So, which means that we move all the data into a centralized repository that we call the sort of data lake.
00:31:11.279 --> 00:31:29.119
And this is where we are uh able to manipulate or transform the data to produce algorithm, a Power BI report, uh some application or whatever you want, or even uh AI, uh artificial intelligence.
00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:31.759
So, like uh let's say a chat bot.
00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:37.519
So, but if I have no trust in my data, I will be facing garbage in, garbage out.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:50.079
And just so people understand about the the shared stuff, if I know who the seafarer is and their medical history, and then there's the boat coming into a port, I might want to link to here comes the boat, and this is the guy steering it.
00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:58.079
So I now connect two things that were different records, but they're much more valuable when they're together because you can pick the health of the guy steering the boat, for example.
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:00.720
Um it sounds pretty esoteric.
00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:06.160
And before I get further, I want to point out that the term data lake is actually a term from data science.
00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:10.400
It's not the transport candidates naming data structures after itself, right?
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:11.839
From the marine world.
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:12.079
Yeah.
00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:12.640
Yeah.
00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:14.400
Just not everything's marine world.
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:18.000
Data lake was a data scientist thing, not a transport canada thing.
00:32:18.079 --> 00:32:19.279
You're happy to be using the lake.
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:19.759
Okay.
00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:21.599
Let's make this concrete.
00:32:21.680 --> 00:32:24.720
Give me a concrete example, something like vessel registration.
00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:28.319
How did you transform a process like that with this approach?
00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:33.599
Remember that I mentioned the piles of uh files in the room and so on.
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:38.400
So the first thing we are doing, so we set up a uh a multidisciplinary team.
00:32:38.559 --> 00:32:51.920
So maybe our family, the audience will be familiar uh with a scrum team essentially, uh including uh developers, a product owner, a technical advisor, maybe a specialist in data.
00:32:52.160 --> 00:33:04.400
But on top of that, in marine safety and security, we decided to add two other roles to that team, which is the UX designer and researcher as well as a change manager.
00:33:04.559 --> 00:33:14.240
And that's the the first time I'm not really aware of any other group doing that, having a change manager at the table with the developers.
00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:15.759
So that's the first step.
00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:28.799
And then, as mentioned, based our on our vision, which is the three-step approach, we have we start with the process first, second is the data, and third, we are developing the uh the tools.
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:48.240
So, what's that mean is in the case of the marine medical unit, we start reviewing all the processes with the UX researchers to identify where were our pain points duplication in our processes in order to first introduce the workload management application.
00:33:48.640 --> 00:34:02.559
And from there, once the staff with the support of the change manager is used to work with the new workload management application, we are in a position now to extract data from it.
00:34:02.720 --> 00:34:08.880
And the data we are extra extracting from the workload management application is twofold.
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:15.360
The first one is will help the program better understand the performance of the program itself.
00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:19.599
So for decision making, it's uh absolutely helpful.
00:34:19.679 --> 00:34:49.440
And the second thing is also the fact that the the workload management application provides us the ability to see the process and phases, which means that I can collect data on each phase of the process, and this allows me to see where are the bottlenecks in my process, which means that if I have, let's say, uh 3,000 files uh stacked on at the approval level, maybe have a problem with my approval process.
00:34:49.519 --> 00:35:09.199
So may uh so I will nail down and dig a little bit further with the UX researcher, understand what's exactly the problem over there, and put the resources accordingly, maybe adjust my roadmap accordingly and focus really on that specific bottleneck to bring some more efficiency uh in my process.
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:16.639
So this comes back to what what Lisa Fast was saying, that like you can't know what the world is like when you start trying to fix it.
00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:22.320
And so the only thing you can do is get information very quickly to learn what the next big priority is.
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:27.039
With passports, it turns out it was the form, and they went down that problem, and then it was like what documents to bring.
00:35:27.280 --> 00:35:29.440
In your case, you're like, okay, I go look at the process.
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:33.280
It turns out it's a bottleneck at the approval, so I should change my priorities there.
00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:53.760
That seems in very stark contrast to the kind of waterfall planning model where people go, this is what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna give you the full five-year plan when I start, as opposed to your case where you're like, I know what my goal is, but I'm gonna use the data I'm collecting during the process to change my priorities and my project plan to make sure it works properly.
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:54.800
Yes, exactly.
00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:02.239
It's sometimes the um the analogy could be uh when you do renovation, you open a wall and oops, there's a pipe.
00:36:02.559 --> 00:36:05.440
So it's same, it's the same thing in transformation.
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:15.360
So in this case, we realize that there was a bottleneck there, but when we dig a little bit further, we realize, oops, that's a regulatory change that will be required.
00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:22.559
And this could take two, three years to happen because we have to go through the gazetteing process and so on.
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:36.239
So sometimes we are underestimating the time it could take because we are finding some little things like this throughout the delivery of our transformation project.
00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:38.079
So we have to be patient.
00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:38.960
Yeah.
00:36:39.199 --> 00:36:47.760
Um, so what things can a marine inspector or a boat owner or a seafarer do today that they couldn't do five years ago when you started on this project?
00:36:48.079 --> 00:36:50.480
Well, a lot of things has changed in five years.
00:36:50.639 --> 00:36:54.960
Today, since let's we started this journey in 2019.
00:36:55.039 --> 00:37:01.199
Uh since then, we have the cargo inspection program that now is fully digital from end to end.
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:14.400
So inspectors are uh managing the service request for inspection up to the payment of fee and the delivery of the certificates all online, all digital.
00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:27.599
Uh vessel owners can now uh receive their registration and insurance certificates electronically because we have a common component that supports that specific uh common capability.
00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:33.360
Uh, we have also the Canadian voters who have the Pleasure Craft Operator card.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:43.199
Uh they can use our online tool to search for a course provider if they have losed their card or need a replacement.
00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:53.760
So uh on the marine medical side of the house, we have now the marine medical examiners who are able to submit their medical reports on seafare to through an online portal.
00:37:53.920 --> 00:37:56.000
This uh was not possible in the past.
00:37:56.159 --> 00:37:57.599
And I can continue now.
00:37:57.679 --> 00:38:01.920
But all those changes mean that we can provide the service faster.
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:05.840
We have less paperwork to deal with, uh for sure.
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:13.840
And it's more time for our inspector and staff to really focus on what matter the most, safety and security of the transportation system.
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:23.119
It sounds like you're like if I didn't know I was talking to Transport Canada, I would think I was talking to one of the other countries that I'm always talking to about how they fixed it.
00:38:23.199 --> 00:38:27.360
Like these sound like the kind of things that that we hear from other countries.
00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:30.639
And it's it really honestly feels quite nice to know that you're doing this well.
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:42.159
It sounds like you're pretty far ahead, not just in terms of the services, but also with like the baseline reporting that your department needs to get to comply with the Service Fees Act and things like that.
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:47.679
What I really want to focus on uh as we wrap this up, you've said a couple of times at a change manager.
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:52.480
Overcoming resistance is always the organizational work of digital transformation.
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:56.400
What does it take to get people on board with the resistance to this process?
00:38:56.719 --> 00:39:05.039
I know some of the people in Transport Canada, and I'm especially thinking of someone like Julie Lees, who used to be CIO, have traditionally been very digitally literate.
00:39:05.280 --> 00:39:14.719
So what role has your team and past executives changed taken in making digital transformation and change happen within the organization?
00:39:15.039 --> 00:39:21.760
Well, I'm glad that you have this question because it's uh I would say that it's one of our trademark in marine safety and security.
00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:28.320
So we have dedicated change managers associated with each of our transformation initiatives.
00:39:28.400 --> 00:39:29.840
And the reason is simple.
00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:34.000
Technology alone doesn't deliver transformation.
00:39:34.239 --> 00:39:39.360
We need to focus on people because it's people who are using those tools.
00:39:39.519 --> 00:39:43.039
If if we are not supporting them, they will not use them.
00:39:43.280 --> 00:40:00.639
You can have your IT department developing the best tool in the world, but if I have no one to tell them or train them or provide them with standing operator procedures to operate in in the digital world, they will not use it.
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:05.519
They will resist because they will not understand the new way of working.
00:40:05.679 --> 00:40:07.599
So this is why it is critical.
00:40:07.679 --> 00:40:10.320
And I I think the the statistics are there.
00:40:10.480 --> 00:40:17.440
So it's about 70% of transformation projects are failing because of a lack of change management.
00:40:17.679 --> 00:40:49.039
So uh this is why we want to make sure that any service line going through transformation will be supported by a change manager to make sure that people understand why we are doing those changes and also have the necessary uh tools and support, such as, as I mentioned, operating procedures, training, uh a SharePoint a SharePoint site where to uh find the information.
00:40:49.119 --> 00:40:52.559
It could be you need someone who is doing that work.
00:40:52.639 --> 00:40:54.239
It won't happen by magic.
00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:58.079
So it's just not a question, okay, here's the tool, deal with it.
00:40:58.239 --> 00:40:59.599
It's not happening this way.
00:40:59.840 --> 00:41:01.840
Uh you have a master's in public administration.
00:41:01.920 --> 00:41:07.519
You're not a technologist, although a lot of the words you've been saying about APIs and shared components sound pretty digital.
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:15.760
Do you think having a background in public administration and not tech helped you or hindered you when you were trying to make this transformation happen?
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:27.360
I would say that it helped me a lot because it it's helping me explaining the business side of the house to my IT folks that I'm working in very close partnership with them.
00:41:27.599 --> 00:41:35.440
So my master's degree essentially gave me all the courses that I needed and that and then that that I apply today essentially.
00:41:35.519 --> 00:41:48.000
I have courses in change management and business process analysis in org design, uh applying uh a Meinsberg type of approach at the time, a long time ago.
00:41:48.400 --> 00:41:51.519
Course in results-based management, data analytics.
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:57.360
Yes, we were using Excel in 2000, but still the basics, the foundation is there.
00:41:57.679 --> 00:42:07.519
So absolutely, I think I am really on at the right place to lead this team towards transformation.
00:42:07.760 --> 00:42:31.519
But of course, all those skill sets is uh through a good partnership with the program people on the marine side, but uh also with my counterpart in service and digital group, where I have to share the vision uh of the R3 phase approach, but also to bridge the gap between the technical and the our operational realities.
00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:38.079
So I think that's the idea of service modernization and data sounds like a digital job, but you're so right.
00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:40.159
Very seldom are there technology problems.
00:42:40.239 --> 00:42:43.840
There are always people problems, process problems, sometimes data problems.
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:47.440
I want to wrap up with a question that's a little more profound.
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:49.039
What's still broken?
00:42:49.199 --> 00:42:50.559
Like what keeps you up at night?
00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:51.760
What's still broken?
00:42:51.840 --> 00:42:59.920
I would say that unfortunately each director, I think, and this is not only within Transport Canada, you can take it more globally.
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:08.079
We are still designing and building the same tools that is basically doing all the same things.
00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:20.800
Many of us, not just in transport, as I mentioned before, we need to manage our workload, we need to issue certificates, we need to manage documents, all those things.
00:43:21.039 --> 00:43:25.920
We need to communicate with our um with our external clients.
00:43:26.159 --> 00:43:29.599
We need to it's all the same functionality essentially.
00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:36.400
So we have to stop, I would say, this nonsense of building the same tools over and over.
00:43:36.559 --> 00:43:39.360
Just take the cost recovery service management solution.
00:43:39.519 --> 00:43:42.719
We are not the only department having service fees.
00:43:42.960 --> 00:43:44.639
There's a lot of other departments.
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:46.000
Health Canada has fees.
00:43:47.440 --> 00:43:51.599
Yeah, they probably built a ser a cost recovery service solution as well.
00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:57.039
But how many cost recovery service solutions we have in the federal government right now?
00:43:57.519 --> 00:43:59.519
And if we had one, then when there was one change.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:01.360
It everyone would benefit.
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:08.159
Like if we added a new language or we changed the process with the regulation, then it would be one change and everybody would benefit, right?
00:44:08.400 --> 00:44:13.280
Yeah, just make it scalable to adapt it to the specific needs of a service line.
00:44:13.440 --> 00:44:15.280
The good thing is we are on the right track.
00:44:15.440 --> 00:44:25.199
Canadian digital service is starting to provide us with some common components that are reusable, that are meeting some of our needs.
00:44:25.360 --> 00:44:28.400
So I I'm confident that we are on the right track for sure.
00:44:28.719 --> 00:44:29.199
What's next?
00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:31.760
So what what's keeping me up at night?
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:36.800
Um I would say that it's making sure we can keep moving our initiative.
00:44:37.199 --> 00:44:44.000
So modernizing marine services or any type of services is really a long-term commitment.
00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:55.920
And on an annual basis, I need to convince my senior management that it's worth to continue our effort on uh on an annual basis.
00:44:56.079 --> 00:45:00.880
So my pressure is I have to deliver and I have to show the results.
00:45:01.119 --> 00:45:06.800
But I again I have a wonderful team, very brilliant people working with me.
00:45:06.960 --> 00:45:14.000
And I feel that my team, myself, with my master degree, like you said, uh I am at the right place.
00:45:14.239 --> 00:45:20.800
But moreover, my entire team is at the right place to deliver very successful results.
00:45:21.039 --> 00:45:21.519
That's amazing.
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:23.360
Lucy, thank you so much for your service.
00:45:23.519 --> 00:45:28.159
I'm I I kind of wish I had a boat just so I could use all these amazing services.
00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:44.400
But uh no, it's it's really nice to see someone thinking about this from first principles, from the process, from the data, from shared components and economies of scale, from thinking about the change, from uh recognizing that you don't know what the plumbing's like until you pull out the wall.
00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:45.440
So you can't make plans.
00:45:45.679 --> 00:45:50.079
You have to kind of earn the trust by making gradual improvements and being transparent about it.
00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:53.840
And so many of the things that I've heard work for other countries.
00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:57.440
Uh it's really nice to hear that they're happening in some places in the Canadian government, too.
00:45:57.760 --> 00:45:58.559
Thank you, Alistair.
00:45:58.719 --> 00:46:01.599
Thank you for this opportunity to share uh our work.
00:46:01.679 --> 00:46:03.199
Uh, I really, really appreciate.
00:46:03.760 --> 00:46:06.880
Thanks for joining us on the Functional Government Podcast.
