Topic hub
IT Governance and Strategy
Technology roadmaps, project oversight, budgeting cycles, shared services, and independent technical advice.
Agencies make ten-year technology decisions with teams sized for daily operations, on budgets appropriated annually, under governing bodies that approve the contract in a public meeting. Governance is how those constraints are managed rather than fought.
These pages cover multi-year roadmaps that survive budget cycles and leadership changes, independent oversight of vendor implementations, the fiscal calendar that determines when a project can start, shared services arrangements between agencies, and the verification practices that large funded programs require.
HQT capabilities in this area
- Technology Advisory & Systems EngineeringIndependent technical advice, requirements, architecture, procurement support, and oversight for agency technology programs.
Services
- Technology Strategy & Roadmaps
- Project & Program Management Support
- Independent Verification & Validation
- Owner's Technical Representative
- Federal Systems Engineering Support
- Requirements Engineering & Architecture
- RFP Development & Vendor Evaluation
- Acceptance & Test Support
- Cloud Cost Management
- Legacy Application Modernization
- Application Support & Maintenance
- Security Assessments
Solutions by agency type
- Cybersecurity for Special Districts and AuthoritiesSecurity fundamentals for fire, water, park, library, and regional agencies without in-house IT security staff.
- Software Development for State AgenciesAgile and DevSecOps delivery on large state programs, directly and as a subcontractor.
- Cloud and Enterprise IT for Special DistrictsRight-sized infrastructure, identity, and support for agencies without a full IT department.
- Technology Advisory for Cities and TownsIndependent help specifying, buying, and overseeing the systems a city will live with for a decade.
- Technology Advisory and Systems Engineering for State AgenciesRequirements, architecture, independent verification, and oversight on large state technology programs.
- Technology Advisory for Special Districts and AuthoritiesIndependent technical leadership for agencies that need judgment more than they need staff.
- Software Development for Special Districts and Joint Powers AuthoritiesSmall, supportable applications, integrations, and accessible public services for districts and authorities that have no developers on staff.
- Cloud and Enterprise IT for State AgenciesMigration sequencing, landing zones, identity, and cost governance for state agencies moving large legacy portfolios under central IT standards.
- Cybersecurity for State AgenciesSecurity assessments, compliance evidence, and Zero Trust planning for departments answering to both state enterprise standards and federal auditors.
- Data and Analytics for State AgenciesData platforms, automated federal program reporting, and governed dashboards for state departments answering to funders, auditors, and the legislature.
Reference articles
- What belongs in a technology strategic plan, and how to keep it currentA practical structure for a technology strategic plan agency staff will read, plus an annual refresh routine that keeps it current.
- IT steering committees: charter, intake, and project prioritizationHow to charter an IT steering committee that decides: membership, decision rights, cadence, intake, and scoring.
- Cloud, SaaS, colocation, or on-premises: choosing where agency workloads runHow public cloud, vendor-hosted SaaS, colocation, and on-premises infrastructure differ, and the criteria an agency uses to choose.
- Advance planning documents and federal cost allocation for HHS systemsHow planning and implementation APDs, prior approval thresholds, match rates, and cost allocation plans shape HHS system procurement schedules.
- Federal grants that fund local technology, and what they requireWhere technology funding comes from and the obligations attached when federal money pays for a local project.
- Shared IT services and joint powers authoritiesHow small agencies pool technology through shared services, and what makes those arrangements work.
- Build, buy, or configure: choosing an approach for an agency systemHow custom development, commercial products, low-code configuration, and open source compare for an agency system, and how to decide.
- Replace the system or modernize around it: a decision guideFull replacement, incremental modernization, re-platforming, or an API layer: how to compare four options for an aging system.
- A pre-solicitation readiness checklist for technology purchasesA readiness checklist for IT and program staff to work through before drafting a solicitation for technology products or services.
- Parallel payroll testing before a payroll system go-liveA practical method for running legacy and new payroll side by side: how many cycles, which cases to force in, and how to clear every variance.
- Fault detection and diagnostics: turning building automation data into work ordersHow fault detection and diagnostics software turns building automation trend data into work orders, and what it takes to act on them.
- Energy savings performance contracts for HVAC, lighting, and controls upgradesHow an energy savings performance contract works for HVAC, lighting, and controls, and the oversight terms an agency should not concede.
- WIC management information systems and EBT for state agenciesHow state WIC agencies think through MIS replacement, EBT issuance and settlement, approved product lists, and system transfers.
- Capacity planning for agency systems: storage, compute, and seasonal peaksHow agencies can forecast storage, compute, and license growth on a budget cycle and size systems for predictable seasonal peaks.
- Security metrics that a city council or board can act onA one-page set of cybersecurity measures a city council or board can act on, with cadence, open-meeting, and definition guidance.
- Model drift monitoring: watching an AI system after go-liveWhat to watch after an AI system goes live: weekly and quarterly measures, and the triggers that should force retraining or a pause.
- Legacy modernization strategies: rehost, refactor, rewrite, replaceThe main approaches to modernizing an old application, and how to choose among them.
- Cybersecurity grant programs for local governmentThe federal and state programs that fund local cybersecurity improvements, and how agencies use them.
- Run your own security operations or buy monitoring as a serviceFour models for continuous security monitoring, what each asks of staff and contracts, and how response decisions stay with the agency.
- Where to run a language model: a decision guide for agenciesHow agencies choose among a commercial AI service, a provider model in their own cloud tenancy, and a self-hosted open model.
- Fixed price, time and materials, or staff augmentation: choosing a contract structureA side by side comparison of fixed-price, time-and-materials, and staff augmentation contracts, and how to choose between them.
- A new IT director's first ninety days: a checklistA checklist for a newly appointed agency IT leader covering people, systems, contracts, security, work already in flight, and setting direction.
From the blog
- A one-page Zero Trust progress report for a council or board
- Data conversion is the project, not the last two weeks of it
- Cloud cost surprises and public budgets do not mix
- Address data is the hardest data a local government owns
- Why we started HQT
- If you only do one security project this year, make it multi-factor authentication
- The accessibility rule for state and local websites is not a future problem
- Replacing a legacy application without a big-bang cutover
- Low-code or custom code? A decision guide for agencies
- Stop testing with production data
- Shared responsibility: what your cloud provider will not do for you
- Open data as a public records strategy
- Model the cloud bill before you move the workload
- Boring technology is the right default for systems that must run for a decade