Expert IT support gets new ministers’ offices up and running

 

At Shared Services Canada (SSC), secure, reliable information technology (IT) services are essential to fulfilling daily business requirements, 24/7 for the Government of Canada. There’s a good reason why IT services are sometimes referred to as the backbone for organizations. Just as the human spine carries information to nerves along the body, a computer network’s backbone connects different systems so information can be exchanged across long distances. In the case of the Government of Canada, its IT networks link departments, agencies and their ministers’ offices and, by extension, supports operations, applications and enables the delivery of programs, services and benefits to over 35 million Canadians.

Immediately following the October 2015 federal election, incoming and outgoing ministers and their staff required IT support during the transition of ministers’ offices. An interdepartmental ministerial transition team led by SSC, including members from 24 federal organizations, supported 36 ministerial offices in the National Capital Region.

The SSC’s transition team successfully delivered 12 key services under a tight timeframe to support the post-election transition. These services included network security, remote access, telecom services (such as voice over internet protocol), teleconferencing, web conferencing, internet and email support. SSC also created customized transition guides for participating departments and agencies. This was the first time that SSC played a key role providing IT services in support of a ministerial transition.

Partner organizations were offered multiple service options for their ministers’ offices including a “turnkey” service, which provided the most extensive support. In addition, early engagement with partners on their requirements and a dedicated SSC hotline and email address to receive requests, ensured proper triaging, a timely response, and accurate tracking. With the importance of service delivery in mind, regular communications and engagement ensured that SSC was aligned with its partners and ready to deliver same-day services or make quick adjustments if necessary once ministers were appointed.

The Director General for Workplace Technology at SSC credited strong teamwork for the project’s success. In his words, “This team took a very collaborative approach and focused on consistently providing excellent client service. Working directly with our partner organizations allowed the department to deliver on-schedule and ensured we were ready to set up the services the very day ministers were appointed.”

SSC received very positive feedback, especially for its ability to meet tight deadlines. Veterans Affairs Canada is one of the departments which expressed its appreciation to the SSC team shortly after the transition was completed, “Thank you for your outstanding support. We’d like to extend our thanks to all those who worked hard to make the transition so smooth. The ministerial email account was created and BlackBerry activated in record time! The transition went very well. Thank you to all!”

Early planning also enabled SSC to provide some services in advance of ministerial appointments. For example, SSC proactively sent pre-provisioned BlackBerry devices to partners. This streamlined and accelerated the rollout and resulted in services being provisioned within hours of requests being received.

The ministerial transition moved forward in tandem with other major SSC and partner transformational projects which added to the complexity of this project. Ministerial transition support services continued to be provided until March 31, 2016, allowing ministers’ offices adequate time to fully staff up and transition.

SSC’s leadership role and service delivery model in the ministerial transition were integral to this project’s success. Pre-planning, early engagement and collaboration with partners were also key contributors to the successful transition and will ensure that best practices are followed in the future.

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