Mike Sakamoto, CIO at the California Department of Developmental Services and deputy director of its Information Technology Division, will retire Monday, he confirmed to Techwire. (When the department posted his position last month on CalCareers, the listing indicated the application process would stay open until the position was filled; the posting is no longer available. A DDS representative told Techwire listings are removed when a hiring review is underway; no interim CIO has been named.) Immediately after his retirement, he and his wife will shelter in place, Sakamoto said via email; after the COVID-19 pandemic is past, he said, they intend to travel the United States in a motorhome.
Sakamoto, who joined the state in October 2006 as chief of IT operations at the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, worked for several other agencies before becoming CIO in March 2018; most recently, he had been chief technology officer at the California Department of Health Care Services. Asked his greatest achievements in terms of projects completed or overall transformation, Sakamoto said his focus at DDS was on IT transformation.
“Many IT functions have trouble matching their priorities with those of the business. As the Deputy Director/CIO, I defined a strategic role for the Information Technology Division according to our principles,” he said, explaining its structure:
• “The IT Role: Collaboration with the business on shaping strategy and streamlining operations. Alignment between IT and the business, targeted technology investments, and being an advocate for our users.
• “The Resource Model: We focus on talent, methods, and tools to accelerate innovation. Hiring engineering talent, adopting the Agile working method, leading-edge tools, and targeted vendor partnerships.
• “Technology Foundation: We’re in the process of building flexible, scalable systems that speed releases of IT solutions with a modular architecture, enterprisewide data, and integrated cybersecurity.”
An example, he said, is alignment between IT and the business. “I made organizational changes specifically to promote seamless collaboration between the IT and the business divisions. I added new functions, i.e., Business Relationship Manager, to the IT leadership team and have those directly report to me. I formed unified business and technology teams that each support technology product, i.e., managing digital workflows for enterprise operations, that support multiple functions.”
Asked what projects or initiatives are in the works that he wishes DDS had been able to complete on his watch, Sakamoto pointed to the replacement of its Reimbursement System, a “major, multi-year IT project.” The 39-year-old legacy system, he said, was created to support just one “frequent flier program,” the Medicaid Waiver, and 3,360 clients. But since 1981, DDS has expanded it to six more programs. It now processes more than 50 million records on behalf of 330,000 clients.
As to what he found most unexpected upon becoming CIO – and what he might point out to his successor – Sakamoto offered a two-part response, indicating that his expectation upon coming in was “organizational change management."
“The unexpected part was with my new IT team. They were not expecting the changes that were coming. After meeting with each IT team member and the business leaders, I focused on the three most common types of organizational change.” These included developmental change -- improving and optimizing previously established processes, strategies and procedures while trying not to reinvent the wheel; transitional change such as automating manual business processes; and transformational change to the culture, core values and operations.
He advised his successor to “re-evaluate the health of the IT division across several different operations including system uptime, record of on-time/on-budget system delivery, and the track record of enabling the business to accomplish its goals”; look at “the fit of the IT Division with the overall direction of the department” to ascertain “from a strategic perspective” if a change in IT direction is needed; and at “the state of the IT leadership team” vis-à-vis the department’s strategic needs.
Sakamoto elaborated on his focuses, based on one-on-ones with IT business leaders:
• Better strategic organization of the enterprise data. A major issue highlighted by former California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Michael Wilkening, now special adviser on Innovation and Digital Services in the Office of the Governor, is that we are “data rich and information poor.”
“We’re building upon and executing against, with approaches like open enterprise microservices as a viable long-term strategy,” Sakamoto said.
• Prioritizing and investing in reducing technical debt to ensure the success of digital transformation.
• Updating and refining the cloud strategy – not seeking a single vendor but “increasingly looking to hybrid platforms to provide business and technical blueprint to accelerate digital change along with multi-cloud management tools.”
• Delivering on digital customer experience faster and better. DDS has “a way to go when it comes to scaling up our digital experience factories,” the CIO said, but it is examining “a new generation” of experience, architectures and tools to make that possible.
• DDS/ITD priority is on analytics to the highest degree. A data-driven enterprise “is still a bit of a ways off until more things are connected,” but DDS is a data-driven organization, Sakamoto said, noting he expects growth in data analytics to offer the tools that will teach Enterprise Data Operations the organization management data science it needs to support transformation.
The CIO offered several best practices to fellow CIOs during the pandemic, and said the “first order of business is to take care of the team” and ensure members can care for loved ones, stock up on necessities and try to stay healthy and safe while working. DDS, he said, offers flexible work arrangements, remote works and flexible shifts – while making the environment safe for those who must visit the office through personal protective equipment, social distancing and other methods. Communication is key and, as CIO, Sakamoto directed his team to create crisis-communication program “based on being transparent with both the executives and team members about what the current situation is, and the steps being taken to address issues.”
He recommended being proactive on security, and said he worked closely with the chief information security officer, having him “focus on security operations, especially de-risking the opening of remote access to sensitive data or to software development environments and practicing multifactor authentication to enable work from home.”
Sakamoto also suggested stabilizing infrastructure, systems and processes, as “massive shifts in team member work are putting unprecedented strains on the department’s infrastructure” and Internet service providers are experiencing degradation of service due to overloads from teleworkers.
