Comprehensive digital transformation strategies can help federal agencies improve program operations, mission outcomes, and citizen service delivery. However, agencies continue to face challenges such as complex interdependencies, tight budgets, and workforce change, shifting from technology-first approaches to strategic planning, change management, and collaboration helps ensure modernization investments move beyond legacy systems and remain aligned with business and mission needs.
In a recent Federal News Network interview, Elizabeth McCarthy, Senior Director of Federal Civilian Market Solution Architecture at Maximus, and Ron Leidner, Vice President of Client Management at Maximus, shared practical guidance on transforming modernization challenges into sustainable outcomes.
Start with strategy, not technology
Many federal agencies work to identify where to begin when confronting enterprise-wide legacy systems. McCarthy empathizes with the fundamental challenge:
"It's just knowing where to start when you're looking at an entire enterprise of legacy systems that all have interdependencies,” she noted. “It can be hard to know where to focus."
New technology often pulls attention first, yet this priority is not often optimal. Leidner points to artificial intelligence (AI) as an example:
"Folks are focusing more on the technology than the business issues they're trying to solve,” he explained. “They're not thinking about the workflow, how do I actually do the work that I need to solve for that problem?"
The key for agencies is to clearly define the use cases and business needs their technology investments are meant to address, then determine the right mix of technologies to meet those goals.
Rethink the refactoring approach
As agencies look to modernize, many consider refactoring legacy code into modern languages, and McCarthy and Leidner emphasize caution with this approach.
"You don't get any new functionality when you do that,” McCarthy pointed out. “You're not taking advantage of modern architecture—you’re just making the ancient things less ancient.”
Instead, Leidner advocates looking at what those systems are designed to do and then assessing whether modern architectures or commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions could achieve those goals more efficiently or effectively.
“We’re trying to move you to a modernized state,” said Leidner. “It’s more of a matter of getting access to the data rather than refactoring.”
Manage data for modernization success
Leidner and McCarthy explained that data access in and of itself is not the goal of IT modernization. Rather, data access is crucial to modernization strategy because it can help generate insights that drive informed decision making. McCarthy offers an example:
"A lot of financial agencies are very data rich, but they're not necessarily insight driven from the data that they have,” she noted.
With proper data management strategies, that paradigm can shift. For example, at the IRS Maximus implemented IT operational reports that monitor data ingestion in real time.
"If there is a failure, we're not trying to find it later," McCarthy said. "We can see in real time see if the ingest is not working, and address it right away."
Break down silos through collaboration
Traditional modernization has placed responsibility primarily on IT departments, which may not always align with long-term mission needs.
"Many times, the IT department develops the application, and the business looks at it and says, you know, that's not quite it,” Leidner notes.
Rather than remaining in reactive mode, Maximus advocates for a shift toward program sustainability.
"We're moving toward a product delivery model where we talk about sustainability of large programs over years,” explained Leidner. “What that requires is alignment with the procurement function, the C suite, the CIO, the CTO, the business function, finance—everybody working as a collaborative team."
Prioritize change management from the start
Maximus experts have seen many federal customers face a common challenge as they roll out modernization projects and new solution deployments.
"Customers wait to the end and they say, we know we have to train, but we're so busy building the system,” Leidner noted. “But on day one, change management is so important.”
According to McCarthy, communication is key to driving success with the change that comes with modernization. She emphasizes communicating why the changes being made are critical and the benefits to processes, productivity, and mission outcomes that they will help drive.
"Communicating the ‘why’ is critical—not just that we're doing this, but why it’s important because it increases security, it allows you time for other things,” she explained.
Learn More
To explore this topic further, read the full interview with Elizabeth McCarthy and Ron Leidner.