Gregory Barbaccia, federal chief information officer and a 2025 Wash100 awardee, has shared his insights on how the federal government should advance digital transformation.
“I notice a lot of the government considers itself to be ‘digital,’ but in reality, we’ve only digitized, not transformed. Sure we went 0-1, but that should have just been the beginning,” Barbaccia wrote in a LinkedIn post.
He noted the lack of automation and that workflows remain unchanged despite the replacement of paper ledgers with spreadsheets.
“Files are shared over email instead of through real-time collaboration tools,” he added.
Advancing Digital Transformation in Federal Government
In his post, Barbaccia called on federal agencies to modernize and “re-engineer how work is done.”
The federal CIO suggested several measures, such as automating repetitive tasks; making data actionable; enabling faster, more collaborative decision-making; and adapting behaviors.
“If we’ve only changed the medium and not the actual process then transformation hasn’t occurred. It’s not enough to change the platform. You have to change the practice. Stay tuned,” Barbaccia added.
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