well Welcome to our panel on Seamus Innovations at scale we have a great lineup of panelists for you today to start I'd like to ask each of you to introduce yourself well good morning my name is ré Delo I am the executive director of the solutions development directorate within the office of the chiefest information officer at uh the Department of Homeland Security thanks for having me today good morning everyone my name is Laura Le diestro I'm the deputy director of digital Innovations at the center for Naval analyses or CNA uh I lead the team responsible for ushering in and maintaining digital Solutions on the service now platform um we implemented service now uh in August of of last year so we're rather uh young in our digital transformation but I did just want to mention this is the second time that I've implemented service now at an organiz ation uh prior to joining CNA I implemented service now another um nonprofit Whose line of work is very similar to CNA and it was there that uh I got to uh uh work with various areas of the business on their digital transformation and implemented the platform the first time good morning my name is Jesse White I'm the CEO of intact technology uh service now's uh Federal partner of the Year this year I'm Jonathan white commander and the US Coast Guard I am leading the Coast Guard's journey into the cloud and using data for decisions uh we're about one and a half years into that journey and uh we are delivering exceptional results that we'll talk about uh today thank you ré I'll start with you so historical traditional ways of engaging with government agencies such as in person paper base sometimes can be frustrating for um folks because of their consumer experience which is more personal it's more automated how have you at DHS created a culture of innovation that is giving greater access elevating efficiencies and providing a digital first approach all right a culture of innovation at DHS so I I would say it kind of takes me back to uh 2012 uh 2010 2012-ish when we were implementing um replacing a paper based system for the I9 forms for US citizenship and Immigration Services I mean you got to think about it we've been replacing paper based systems for over a decade and we've been in business for a long time in terms of modernization so uh these days we're doing more things like I don't know if you all have seen in the news a couple weeks ago TSA is modernizing even their selfcheck uh process at uh Reed International Airport um where you're we're not not only are we deploying technology that enables folks to to actually process themselves but we also are observing that process and becoming more agile I think one thing especially me in the solutions uh space uh I have to not be afraid to break things I mean it's part of the process I do like what I heard from the Admiral this morning in the keynote about risk sometimes we are taking very calculated risk with deploying very large systems that serve the public and what I like to see uh from our partners at TSA those things that they're doing which is deploying Solutions and then also observing how the the customers the consumers the public reacts to those Solutions and making it an iterative process because modernization is iterative it's agile we already know our favorite word in Tech is is agile but that is that process of not only deploying the technology but observing did it do what you thought it would it might meet the requirement but it might not be that usable so when we think about the president's executive order uh 14058 for um improving the customer experience overall for the public those are the types of things that we're doing at DHS we're making sure that folks are not afraid to deploy Solutions and then take a step back to see are they working and then enhance them in the process that's great commander commander Wright so the Coast Guard has unique designation of being the only military organization as a part of DHS and a part of DOD how is integrating new Solutions into existing in Frameworks versus a complete rip and replace helped with citizen experience and employee productivity yeah let me uh describe the Coast Guard situation here first right so we have one foot in DOD one foot and DHS our it systems comply with DOD requirements our data privacy by and large complies with DHS requirements uh we also report and receive funding from DHS so we report our funding spend to DHS so we have a very weird environment to deal deal with when we when we talk about systems and uh what I'm doing is I'm I'm the uh I'm the bull in in the china shop here right my job is to establish the framework and the foundation for the future so that we can do the rip and replace or do the transformation of our existing systems into the modernized applications that we that we really crave and so what I've done is I've established a trifecta of services platform Services Foundation to that is our cloud environments or commercial Cloud environments uh we are multicloud and we are complying with the uh dissa secure Cloud reference guide uh so that is a huge challenge right that that in of itself is a mountain to climb we have climbed and achieved that success the second part of that Trifecta is a software Factory and low code platforms so I need a landing spot for my developers who are going to build those experiences I want to give them options in order to deliver the right capability to the right Mission area the Coast Guard has 11 statutory missions one of them is defense the other 10 are decidedly civilian in nature we do search and rescue we do interdiction of um migrants we do uh drug enforcement uh and so when you when you think about that constellation of missions there are are so many different stakeholders that require different ways to interact with not only the general public but also between themselves and so the third pillar that we have is our data Fabric and so making data foundational to those missions sharing data across the 11 Mission sets because sometimes you you need to know what's going on in in other areas of the Coast Guard but then serving that up as an application and I I call applications portals to the data right we want to build an experience for the end user whether that's a external user or an internal user to be able to just interact with that data in some meaningful way and and make it easy for them to do that sir would you say those Integrations are seamless or is that a goal that you're working towards yeah seamless is definitely not the word I would use that set you up on that one yeah yeah so this is this is my challenge right the challenge is to from external appearances it should look seamless right the developers should have an amazing experience on the platform the customers migrating their systems into the cloud should have a white glove service onboarding process and we're putting these things in place I'm very focused on customer uh whether that customer is an internal customer or an external customer and then from the data side we're doing data mesh concept so we're establishing data domain owners empowering them to own and classify and deal with their data but then serve that back to the organization as data products uh that is a mental and cultural shift for 99% of the organization okay most people are used to using the application they used for the last 10 years putting something new in front of them as very disruptive and and and and uncomfortable for them and we have to acknowledge that and so when we deploy a new capability it should be deployed with training it should be deployed with with a a uh spec sheet if you will like a fact sheet why is this better for you what am I doing to make your job easier and uh I think that eases the the transition a little bit but it certainly is not going to be seamless there's a lot of behind the scenes switchboard type activities that that we're kind of plug in the holes and and making sure everything looks good on the outside sure so I'd like to stay with you for a minute so you have all these different solutions how do you integrate those into military operations yes you have military operators you have decision makers relying on real-time information what's the greatest impact on digitizing these manual processes have have they had on branch operations Fleet Readiness yeah so um I mean who's email Xcel spreadsheets around you know data calls whatever that all is a a huge context shift to military operations to real-time operations what we need to do is focus on integrating that experience that sort of data flow into the operation itself and we shouldn't have people do swivel chair operations where they're using disparate applications to do particular tasks that's a focus of mine it's not really my current Focus but from a delivery of services and and and uh being an IT Steward I'm absolutely focused on that aspect of things but the real-time information is the part of that question is is really the important part um flowing information uh in inside the agency is somewhat easy we control end to endend the the flow but we actually share information with both DOD partners and DHS partners and other federal agencies that interface boundary is where problems occur right there's trust relationships between agencies there's data format standards even taxonomy and and what a data field means is incredibly important and I think one thing we need to focus collectively on in the government is defining those standards but not to the level where it's constrictive we need to be able to Define it for flow and and that's one thing I'm looking at uh and how like for example cjad C2 uh for the defense side that's a great opportunity to define those interface standards and be able to flow information seamlessly across organizations i appre r from a VHS standpoint um does that resonate as far as the uh the partner relationship with with Coast Guard yeah it's very important I mean we do work together I mean within my solution space I I host the cloud um that that uh a lot of our partners uh operate from the identity systems I'm in headquarters so we touch it all so yes a lot of that resonates with me thank you lur Lee I'd like to transition to you so the center for Naval analysis might not be as well known as some of the other organizations could you tell us a little bit about CNA and I'd also like to pose the same question that Commander Wright answered but I'd like to focus on the workforce so workforces around the world are relying on real-time information how is what's been the greatest impact of the digitization of manual processes on the workforce uh CNA operates the only federally funded research uh and development center for the Department of the Navy and we have done Decades of amazing work employing operations resarch Arch to help inform the decisions of the Navy Marine Corps and DOD leaders historically uh much of our Workforce has been reliant on very manual and paper-based methods um and in a lot of cases riant on uh Legacy and aging technology um since we've been live and with service now uh last year we have digitized 26 to date uh 26 manual workflows and forms in our service catalog alone and we certainly have a long way to go um but we have begun to um pivot our attention to uh focus on other areas of of the business Beyond it so even now we're on our way to uh implementing uh SPM next month and we also have other applications on our road map like workplace Service delivery and customer relationship management um and what really set us on this path of course is that it's it is a well-known and wellestablished business need you know this need to digitally transform and modernize our technology um as far as greatest areas of impact there are three that I'd like to highlight the first of which uh as we've seen uh since August and as I've seen also at my prior organization um it's this enhanced uh employee experience that we're able to deliver using the platform um we're able to uh have faster response times to our employees and customers uh we en Empower our employees to selfs serve you know to be able to track work track progress uh access reliable information reliable I think is key reliable information quickly and easily um and all of things all of these things of course prior you know were possible but challenging to come by but now with uh service now is it's uh it's made a positive impact on our overall customer satisfaction uh the second greatest area of impact i' I'd like to mention is um we've seen significant um improvements in our productivity and efficiency within our Workforce um uh we're uh able to you know look at processes and you know if it takes X number of steps to achieve a task you know we're looking at how can condense that down how can we streamline it um so we're reducing manual efforts and in some cases uh you know we're trying to eliminate tasks that are of little to no value um let me give you an example kind of to what Commander white SED to say earlier was um you know I'm finding that portions of our Workforce are very reliant on the use of email right so we use email and our inbox for the intake of requests and then we're further managing our inbox to facilitate and track a workflow and it can become very you know a very time consuming um burden to have to work our inbox this way we can only hope that we don't let an email you know slip through the Crocs and we hope that we can get back to everyone in a timely manner can anyone relate to the story um uh so you know by digitizing manual processes and for example you know moving away from this heavy Reliance on on email which is kind of holding us back and not allowing us to accelerate progress um you know we're able to uh uh you know reallocate our our employees time to tasks and activities that are far more relevant far more productive uh we're making better use of our employees working time and um when we're able to automate tasks we're even enabling our employees to get more done in less time if that Mak sense um the last area of impact I want to touch on is also our improvements in data analysis um simply by you know digitizing our data and having it stored in a central location uh that alone allows us to access real-time data up-to-date information um and present it to various levels of our organization uh for example our tier one staff our support staff they use dashboards and reports to be able to see work as that comes in and uh using our those reports with real-time data they're able to prioritize the work and get to identify what needs their attention sooner than later um and you know I I heard it said this morning I thought it was a great point that you know we we also want to make sure our data is transparent so as employees walk our halls and if you go by the service desk area you're going to see behind the service desk a wall of TV monitors that displays our dashboards and reports and data in real time time so we have some really nice numbers on there you know in real time how many tickets have we closed in a month and so on but we also want people to be aware of which slas are approaching its breach or which slas have already breached and that number is big and red and we always want it to be zero when it's zero it's green we love green um so you know just this this transparency I think also is uh you know is also key and uh at the managers and management and executive levels um similarly you know we're able to display data on dashboards and reports and uh draw metrics out of them so uh and with that you know that can be really powerful because then our leadership is able to make you know well- informed and actionable decisions um and identify growth opportunities even and uh that gets us into these cycles of continuous process Improvement so very very rewarding to see unfold um the last point I want to touch on is you know as we have this enhanced employee experience together with improvements in data analysis and these gains in productivity and efficiency and as we see these things come together what I found is that we're able to then drive more user adoption to the platform H which then leads us to be able to drive culture change forward and that has probably been one of the most re things to be able to see um it has already happened to us uh where other areas of the business come to us and they want a seat at the table you know they they see our service now road map they see where future implementations fall in fiscal years and and quarters and they say lury what do I need to do to jump the line like who do I need to talk to so you know it it's it's a very humbling and you know nice problem to have and it leads to a lot of interesting conversations for another day um but you know I think that's all to say it's it's really because folks see the benefits driven results you know by digitizing manual processes and making optimal use of the platform Lally you got a lot of head nods with the the email to manage workflow so I don't think you're you're alone there I figured that wasn't the case no you're good company Jesse I'd like to transition to you from an industry industry perspective so you work with a lot of government customers what strategies do you see are most effective for agencies implementing to help with their transformation Journey yeah so first to set the context I'll just share the way that we think as intact so from our perspective we are a community within this community in a lot of ways and there's um something really fascinating that we think about in this community that if you look at where we are right now um in human history we have an enormous amount of uncertainty around us there are threats from from everywhere we have the rise of AI we have foreign actors that are already at digital war with us in different ways there's a there's a tremendous amount kind of out on the horizon and the way that we think about this is that in order for our nation and the US federal government to be ready to meet these challenges um we as a community actually have the power fundamentally to transform these agencies so that they can move move faster right they can address these threats they can serve the people that are serve the people in the nation and serve the people that are serving and protecting us along the way um so it's big like we have a lot of pressure on us in a lot of ways and by the way everybody wants us to do it really really fast uh the cool thing is um we now have the technology and I'm not just saying that because I'm on stage of service now conference but we literally have the technology to move extremely fast right the service now platform has enormous amounts of out-of-the-box technology that can be deployed to solve problems and like drive real transformational outcomes very very quickly but the way in which that's done matters and the old approach um of transformation in silos doesn't work uh fundamentally it just takes too much time and um I'll share an analogy with you this this is what we think about so um before when we were transforming in silos it would be like we're going to remodel the kitchen okay not a big deal you get a couple guys in a van you don't have to do too much planning share your needs and they go and they do the work well now basically we as leaders are being asked to uh renovate the entire house at the same time right it HR facilities Mission side workflow just pieces everywhere and the approach that we now need to get set up for this uh fundamentally uh needs to be focused on alignment so we need an alignment layer over the top of this that just like if you were renovating your house at the same time um uh helps everything move smoothly and I'll I'll talk through this so we think about it in four different parts the first piece of it is that we need to have a a really highspeed low drag like architecture and strategic planning cap ability so there are needs across the organization that are constantly coming in um specifically for the platform there are needs that we need to meet in the organization with the platform and by the way the platform is growing and changing and getting better every six months right with these major releases so there's a lot of moving Parts going on and the the idea there is that we need to take in all these needs consider these things establish a blueprint and then then establish a really clear order of operations to go back to the house analogy if we didn't do that the concrete guys the painter and the plumber may be showing up at the same time and people don't really know what they're doing it's going to be a mess right uh so that's really really important first piece and this needs to be really Dynamic we're not talking about months of planning we're talking about days and weeks of planning right but really making sure that we're optimizing use of the technology and the way that we're doing that um the second piece is that once we have that defined we know where we're going we understand the outcomes we're driving towards we understand the needs of our stakeholders around us now we need to begin to establish standards and practices and these standards and practices are things like how design is done how we want the user experience to be across the platform how we want people to be enabled in the organization because if you have five six different projects moving at the same time simultaneously from an enduser perspective for it to look seamless at the end of the day we have to set up those standards and practices and enable each of those teams that as they go and do their work they're doing it in a very consistent way right uh fundamentally going back to the house analogy this this ensures that uh when we come into the house all the stairs are of the same height right the stairs here are 10 inches and the stairs here are eight inches are going to be a disaster so these standards and practices are really really important the third piece of it is uh ocm so we tend to think think of organizational change management in different ways but from our perspective fundamentally we need to align policies within the agency the law piece takes too long uh we need to align policies within the agency processes within the agency and stakeholders within the agency and the idea is that um we need to be able to drive adoption literally from the executive level all the way down to the user level inside of an agency everybody needs to have an understanding of what's coming they need to understand how it's going to make their life better um there's tremendous capability inside of the platform but we all know this the natural human resistance to change is fear but the it's actually not fear of change they're just afraid of uh what it may mean for their job right and whether they'll be able to do their job well whether they can perform well and the way we think about this is that at the end of the day the technology is extraordinary and we can do so much with the technology but it's actually the human that drive the outcome so human adoption is the value multiplier and it's such a critical element and the reason that we look at this needing to be done kind of at that platform strategy and governance layer that's what we like to call it is that you need consistency there too right you need to this needs to be one beating drum people hearing the same message over and over again they get past that resistance and they begin to settle down into this thing going back to the house analogy I don't know that any of us are going to remodel our house without aligning our stakeholders expectations at home right if we don't they're going to show up and be like what the hell did you do here what are we do it right so uh that's a really really important component to to exist at that level and then the fourth piece fundamentally is um is quality assurance so if you think about that same thing you have a you know you go to remodel your house you have an architect or general contractor their job fundamentally is to check on what's going on throughout the build right and get ready for different levels of testing or inspection if you think about it right making sure that we're following the standards the manufacturer standards from service now and the best practice is there um and so that's a really important piece and that ensures at the end of the day that what you're actually getting is going to you know follow all of the alignment that you set up in the beginning so um just quickly to close that when agency do that well what we see is really really high speed movement um at the IRS last year they deployed um it workflow HR workflow facilities workflow 286 catalog items and crossed the employee life cycle in seven months most agencies that can take years to get done uh s a very very important agency the Cyber defense of the country uh literally put this platform strategy and governance layer in six months ago deployed five different applications across five different projects uh that that quickly literally in 6 months so at the end of the day Ed we don't necessarily think of uh Innovation is seamless it's hard to get to seamless but we find that when you line everything up really well uh it works more like a a great zipper I appreciate that Jesse when we talk to senior leaders a couple things top of Mind are always organizational change in governance and and Commander I I wrote something down that you had said you said staging bureaucracy y um at speed and so the last question I'll just open it up to to the panel so historically procedural organization and Technical boundaries within agencies and between departments have resulted in customer service shortfalls what are some strategies to break down silos in streamlined Service delivery yeah I'll open with that um So within DHS I mean we are such a large organization I'm in headquarters but you think about DHS the scope is 22 different or organizations that were formulated back um over 20 years ago and you can only imagine the silos that exist I mean two of the silos are on the stage between headquarters and Coast Guard although we're in the same organization uh we have to make a an effort to make sure that we are communicating uh one technique um that we utilize to make sure that that folks are are even uh aware of some of the policies and processes that are going on in in or organizations um are are even our hiring for example um I came from two different other organizations within DHS I've worked in USCIS as I mentioned earlier and then also I I had a lengthy time in Customs and Border Protection before coming to headquarters so that has given me quite a lot of knowledge to understand exactly what's happening there within even their service now environments to the headquarters service now environments which we all have one and getting folks to speak to each other so so that is is a a technique that has been utilized by senior leadership to make sure that they're actually hiring folks that have been in multiple components uh also uh we are making sure that there are integrated product teams uh we meet with the Coast Guard uh on a bi-weekly basis to even talk about financial systems that we're hosting and sharing and uh making sure the financial officer is also involved in those conversations that involve systems uh so that technique as well that involves communication as a big part of it and as uh in addition to that the technology piece of it making sure that there's a single uh point of of entry for some of these systems that the public utilizes so that there's not a lot of duplication and replication of systems and then also making sure there shared services so are we building the same stuff uh in 22 different organizations so that's a lot of what headquarters do does to consolidate the effort across DHS that's great Commander Wright yeah I wanted to leave with a a thought here and a sort of a challenge I like leaving with a little challenge so my one of my favorite books in the last couple years I've read is hacking your bureaucracy and one of the hacks in that book is to look between the silos right so if you want to break down silos you got to connect the silos right we don't want to tear down somebody's job workflow life whatever they might be doing some really great stuff but the handoff between those people is really bad right this gets lost in the inbox you have various workflows that we have to have a human bounce things around and so we we're attacking that problem right now with automation right a great place for automation is working between silos it's it's a great way to ensure data quality and consistency it's a great way to Stage work for other people and you could connect topit systems from a client side perspective what normally would take one person you know five different tabs in their web browser you can have one bot help bring all that together and then see the deal at the end with the submission and so we're doing that right now throughout our organization um our our next phase on that is to build that platform experience where we can break down those silos uh through process Improvement right business process Improvement and you do we're going to do that with tech as you said right we got to do it all at once right so we're going to deploy the tech and deploy the Improvement and deploy the data layer at the same time right and then keep iterating and building on that uh and hopefully at the end of the day we get to become become a more efficient organization overall thank you sir Laura Lee Yes um I think uh one strategy that is really valuable for my team and myself to use is uh to really um you know as we kick off a project and uh start to conduct uh meetings with any digital transformation initiative it's really important for us to uh spend a lot of time in the discovery and requirements phase to really understand the current process the current environment what the business hears me say a lot as we start these meetings is I'll say give me the lay of the land you know tell me what steps are you taking in your process um who's involved who's impacted you know the users of this is is equally as important um and I think as we're able to step through and really understand the process from end to end then we're able to have more productive conversations to pinpoint what works well what doesn't where can we streamline what can we be doing better and I think that's when we start to tackle some of those silos and come up with plans of how we can streamline our service delivery um and I think another thing too is as we're facilitating these conversations it is very important to lean in on our soft skills communication um as as you said and active listening um because we we need to be able to steer and and guide the conversations with our process owners and stakeholders to be able to clearly articulate the business needs and making sure that we're answering the question of what problems do we need to solve and of them what do we need to solve first thank you I want to thank you all for being here today thank you for your Insight