Accenture Federal Services’ McClure, Jackson, Layman on How Federal IT Leaders Approach Modernization

Dave McClure, Malcolm Jackson and Jason Layman of Accenture Federal Services wrote in a Nextgov article published Monday that there are three lessons from the company’s Future Systems research that show how federal information technology leaders approach IT modernization and the first is that these leaders invest in innovation infrastructure.

“In order to get beyond the project-based approach to innovation, agencies need to make strategic investments that deepen and broaden the impact of their modernization efforts over the long term,” McClure, Jackson and Layman wrote. “This means setting aside IT funding for innovation, but it also means making organizational changes – empowering specific individuals and teams to pursue innovation with an eye toward broad organizational impact.”

They also discussed the two other lessons from the study and those are the ability of federal IT leaders to focus on scalability and “take a radically human-centered view of their innovation outputs.”

The company officials noted that human-centered design calls for agencies to look beyond the user interface and take into consideration the human impact of their offerings. “This means that the intersection between technology and the workforce must be very natural and nonthreatening. Innovation should uphold and endorse the value of the workforce,” they added.

McClure and Jackson are principal directors of federal CIO advisory services at Accenture Federal Services, while Layman is managing director and technology strategy and advisory practice lead at the company.