Strategic Drivers

This Application Strategy responds to external and internal strategic drivers summarized in the sections below.

External

The Government of Canada (GC) Information Technology Strategic Plan (Ref F) sets an overarching strategy to guide the information technology management activities of all Departments including the management of application portfolios. In January 2016, an assessment of DND/CAF conducted by Gartner (Ref G) recommended changes to our application strategy aimed at aligning it with current industry and technology trends as well as strengthening the linkages between the application portfolio and the Defence capabilities it enables. This strategy aims to respond to both GC strategy and technology trends.

Internal

The historical de-centralized approach to application management has resulted in a portfolio characterized by a high degree of technical variability, complexity, lack of integration and duplication of functionality. The current state of Defence Applications is not only costly to maintain but also represents a barrier to delivering the integrated and interoperable capabilities required by DND/CAF. Both the Defence Renewal Charter (Ref H) and the Defence Plan (Ref I) call for enhancements to our ability to manage the Defence application portfolio and its associated risks. Accordingly, the Defence CIO is implementing a management model that enables central oversight to coordinate the distributed delivery of IM/IT – including the portfolio of Defence applications.