Optimizing Government IT Modernization Using Low-Code Platform for Diverse Intra-Agency Needs

Challenge

A large U.S. federal health agency sought to upgrade its financial systems’ capabilities by automating budget formulation and execution processes at an enterprise scale never before realized. The primary goal of this IT modernization project was to improve the flow of all budgetary and financial information—making it more accessible across the organization to better support transparency, compliance, reporting, and decision-making. This included improving and standardizing the agency’s business processes associated with financial reporting, acquisition, travel, purchase cards, workforce management, and payroll management. An additional project objective was to support the agency’s enterprise IT strategy by reducing costs and increasing use of modernized, low-code, cloud-based platforms.

While this was an enterprisewide transformation project, the agency had many centers and offices with different organizational structures and mission objectives. These organizations operated with unique financial management frameworks and compliance needs. Ensuring that this major project addressed both enterprise objectives and the divergent requirements of individual users would be key to its success.

If the enterprise solution didn’t work for certain centers within the agency, it could have caused significant impediments to its adoption and use, leading to fewer efficiency gains. Centers with differentiated compliance or reporting requirements, for example, would have continued to use legacy software or invested in additional solutions.

Engagement to obtain agencywide buy-in was also critical to ensuring broad adoption of the financial system and generating the projected savings and productivity gains.

Approach

The agency tasked Guidehouse with supporting this large-scale government IT modernization project. Our multidisciplinary team relied on their extensive domain knowledge, technical expertise, and deep familiarity with the agency to implement an enterprisewide solution that addressed 80% of agency processes. For the other 20% of processes that were unique to teams or centers, we tailored specific modules within the same solution. Our implementation strategy involved:

• Business process engineering to optimize business processes while creating technology solutions
• A modern low-code platform that would allow rapid configuration and deployment of tailored workflows, reduce development time, and enable faster functionality delivery
• Reusable components for workflows, reference data, security models, and user interfaces that were developed early in the project to reduce duplication, enable faster deployment of tailored modules, and ensure systemwide consistency
• Robust data management with cloud scalability and improved data harmonization through the use of Oracle Databases on AWS Government Cloud
• A responsive, human-centered approach to solutions design that would focus on the end user and a deep understanding of the requirements—including key factors such as compliance and center-specific workflows—before creating the budgeting solution

Our team understood that for a new system to be successful, a comprehensive change management approach that mitigates resistance and fosters lasting adoption would be essential. Using our (re)Vision™ methodology, we integrated behavioral economics and human-centered, design-based change interventions throughout the process. This ensured that all centers would receive a solution that worked for them and that they would be ready to use.

Impact

The system went live only eight months after Guidehouse began the work—an unprecedented timeline for such an encompassing solution affecting so many parts of the agency. Our responsive management of the project ensured that the agency could smoothly migrate to a new financial management platform that would meet the needs of all its centers and offices.

With our guidance, the agency was able to achieve:

Improved operational and process efficiency and effectiveness — Our support laid the groundwork for a transition from manual processes to modernized systems that better track and manage funds. Where it had previously taken 10 people to complete a certain process, we reconfigured the process to require the input of only two people. The project has streamlined the agency’s annual budget-planning process and saved an estimated 23,000 annual labor hours.

Reduced costs — The centralized structure we implemented saved an estimated 25% on operations and maintenance expenses. Streamlining center processes resulted in time and cost savings as resources were more effectively allocated and many manual tasks were automated. The introduction of reusable components reduced initial development costs as well as long-term maintenance expenses, which further lowered operations and maintenance costs.

Improved alignment on organizational goals — We helped the agency meet its goal of implementing more enterprise systems and having fewer center-based systems.

Mitigated risk and improved compliance — We developed centralized, standardized internal controls over purchase-card requests and decreased audit risk by streamlining the purchase-card program. This centralized approach also provided better insights into available funding.

Reduced onboarding complexity for centers — Early development of reusable user interface components and standardized workflows lessened onboarding complexity and enabled users to transition seamlessly to the new platform.

Improved data accuracy and simplified reporting — We enhanced data models to provide unified project codes and streamlined fund tracking. Using those enhanced data models, we streamlined disparate processes—reducing duplicate data entry and improving interoperability.

Standardized practices and improved sharing of best practices — We standardized previously disparate processes across the agency to help synthesize data enterprisewide and improve how different parts of the organization worked with each other. Throughout this transformation, best practices were identified and made available across organizations for broader adoption.

Streamlined enterprise communication — Replacing manually maintained spreadsheets with the new budgeting solution allowed the agency to share budget and acquisition information more easily within offices and at the enterprise level. This will reduce risks and help with data-driven decision-making.

Improved customer and constituent services — Our team focused on maintaining business continuity without placing additional burdens on users or interfering with business milestones. We worked closely with center teams to conduct data calls, validate data structures, and remediate integration issues—ensuring accuracy and alignment across the organization. Budget operations were transitioned seamlessly from legacy systems to the new platform.

Alignment with the broader enterprise IT strategy — This modernization effort aligned with the agency’s broader enterprise IT strategy by consolidating systems, reducing dependency on legacy platforms, fostering innovation, and securing enterprisewide consistency.