Y2K poses threat despite government spin

Cut Treasury Board figures in half to get accurate count on Y2K-ready systems

The Global Millennium Foundation was formed in late 1997 to promote universal awareness of the Year 2000 problem and coordinate strategies for solving it. Contributing editor Andy Shaw recently caught up with Foundation president Joe Boivin in his Ottawa office to get a measure of the respect governments are giving the Y2K issue as the deadline nears. Boivin says he's been feeling a lot like Rodney Dangerfield these days.

TIG: You were recruited from the private sector for this job. Can you give us some details about your Year 2000 experience before you joined the foundation?

BOIVIN: I spent a couple of years with IBM, teaching Year 2000 methodology all across Canada. Then I went to CIBC and put a nine-- point Year 2000 program in place there. And for the last year and a bit with the foundation, I have been working with governments, police, military, and some very large multinationals - both sharing my knowledge and getting a better understanding of what they're doing.

TIG: And how has the sharing and understanding gone with governments?

BOIVIN: It's been disappointing and frustrating a lot of the time. At first, I was plugged in very well and worked very closely with a number of Canadian federal government departments and some of the provincial government departments in Ontario. I criticized a lot of what they were doing and tried very hard to show them what worked in other organizations. But then the doors began to close. A lot of the people I worked with gently told me that they had been spoken to by their bosses and were told to avoid having discussions with me in future. I was rocking the boat too much and their jobs were at stake.

TIG: What were you telling them was the problem?

BOIVIN: Mostly their strategy. They were all hung up on the detail level and had a bunch of techies running around playing with computer programming code.

But I was trying to get them to recognize that the bigger picture was where they needed to focus their energies.

TIG: And what should their bigger picture be?

BOIVIN: A couple of things. First, it should include the best practice model that has proven almost 100 per cent effective and that is the concept that every manager has to be held accountable to ensure [his or her] department is Year 2000 ready. Without that in place you only have a partial solution. The other is leadership. You need someone to direct progress and determine where you need to put special emphasis. But most government folks balked at putting that degree of leadership into the equation. They prefer to leave it to the finance department or Treasury Board to control overall progress through the pulling or loosening of the purse strings. They're not providing the personal kind of direction and leadership that are needed in larger organizations to get things done thoroughly.

TIG: What kind of leadership would you say the federal government's CIOs have been giving on Year 2000?

BOIVIN: I think when Paul Rummell was in the chair, he got blindsided on the whole Year 2000 issue. When he came on board, his focus was very much on principles and methodology. But I'll never forget what happened at a government conference in late 1997. Paul gave the opening comments and more or less dismissed the Year 2000 issue, saying it was already well in hand and not to worry about it. Then we heard speaker after speaker saying it was a far bigger problem. And I got up just before Paul's closing comments to summarize and said it was clear that Y2K was a very serious threat to the entire Canadian economy. There was no way Paul could use his planned closing. He had no choice but to recognize publicly that this was something that needed more attention.

TIG: And how about the current CIO, Linda Lizotte-MacPherson?

BOIVIN: Well, we haven't really heard boo from her. I did see one comment in the paper a few months ago, bless her heart, qualifying the high numbers being claimed for federal systems being Year 2000 ready. She said the systems being counted are only mission-critical systems and do not include embedded systems.

TIG: So how many federal systems would you say are ready?

BOIVIN: I say take the figures you hear being reported by Treasury Board and divide by two. So, contrary to the public relations spin most Canadians are being fed, there's still a very significant threat. My position all along is that it's going to be awfully difficult to avoid public panic if we keep hiding the truth. If we share the fact that things aren't progressing nearly as well as they might, then individuals are more likely to prepare themselves. That's a lot better than putting out silly pamphlets like the federal government has just done. It leads the reader to conclude there's really nothing much wrong. That it's business as usual. But that's not what's coming.

TIG: As a country then, how do we stack up with others?

BOIVIN: Actually, despite our shortcomings, Canada is among the world leaders. It is the rest of the world that causes me the most anguish. And it doesn't matter how much better one country is over another on this issue, we're all in this big lifeboat together. So Canada should be exercising some leadership in helping other countries get on top of the problem.

TIG: Are we poised to lead?

BOIVIN: No. And that's because no one in government has taken ownership of the issue. John Manley has his Taskforce 2000 but the focus there is really just on industry. Marcel Masse at Treasury Board and External Affairs have pieces of the action. Art Eggleton at National Defence has the one bright light with its National Contingency Planning Group. It is cutting across boundaries and doing a risk assessment for the entire country. Also, some of our national associations such as the power association and the telecom groups are doing some of the best work in the world at co-ordinating their infrastructures. But there is no overall leader for the country on the issue. No one such as John Koskinen who is chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 conversion in the United States and who reports directly to the boss.

TIG: Getting back to government, what can I, say, as a middle manager in a department still do to help with Year 2000?

BOIVIN: Well, it's a little late in the game, but I still believe you really shouldn't even be in management unless you take that responsibility seriously. Any manager - I won't limit it to middle manager - who is deserving of the title, should take it upon themselves to ensure that they understand what it means to be Year 2000 ready And this isn't about spending a whole lot of money or replacing everything with the latest whiz-bang state of the art solutions. It's much more about understanding what's critical to your business unit and what are the essential services you provide to the public. Think about what are the different alternatives that could be used to provide those services in the future.

If you've done such homework, you're going to look professional and competent at the turn of the century.

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. May 1999
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