"We have to really remember to start with the people," Elizabeth Schmidt said, summing a central argument of human-centered IT modernization.
Elizabeth Schmidt and a human-first argument
Elizabeth Schmidt, Vice President of Technology Solutions at Maximus, made the case on Federal News Network’s Forward-Thinking Government series that modernization must begin with people rather than technology. Schmidt emphasized that communicating change — including "why we’re making the change" — is "mission‑critical," and that this human-centered approach both reduces resistance to change and drives collaboration. She framed worker buy-in as essential to successful upskilling and reskilling, preparing employees "for success in new environments and roles."
Reordering Leavitt’s diamond: people, process, technology
The piece traces the argument to Harold Leavitt’s diamond model — the three-part framework of people, process, and technology — noting that while this model has guided change for "over 60 years," federal modernization efforts have often inverted the order. For "more than 30 years" the source says technology has been allowed to drive processes and then landed on people's desks. Schmidt and the article argue that the "fourth wave of IT modernization" is an inflection point: agencies are beginning to re-center efforts so people come first, then process, then technology.
AI, automation, and concrete proving grounds
Schmidt points to current modernization work — specifically AI and automation — as a practical proving ground for the human-centered approach. Maximus has focused on use cases such as intelligent document processing, contact centers, workflow automation, and predictive analytics using AI. Those implementations, the article says, offer opportunities to "flip the script" and design systems around user needs and mission outcomes rather than around technology deployment for its own sake.
Meeting nearly five generations of citizen needs
Delivering services to citizens across "almost 5 generations" is raised as an operational constraint that illustrates why human-centered design matters. The article contrasts Gen Z "digital natives" who prefer apps and avoid in-person interactions with "the youngest members of the Silent Generation" who still require in-person or telephone interactions and paper documents. Schmidt argues that multi-modal experiences — for example, contact centers that can switch seamlessly among channels — are necessary to satisfy that range of preferences and capabilities.
What this means for technologists, policymakers, and end users
- Technologists and security teams: The article suggests they should design systems that prioritize adoption and usability — ensuring workflows, automation, and AI support the people who use them rather than simply meeting uptime or deployment metrics.
- Policymakers and procurement leaders: Schmidt urges a shift to "mission-defined success metrics" — judging modernization by mission impact and citizen satisfaction instead of by whether a particular technology was deployed or an uptime threshold met.
- End users and the general public: The source emphasizes that citizens expect multi-modal service delivery. Satisfying divergent needs will require service channels that preserve access for older users while enabling app-based, digital-first experiences for younger cohorts.
Schmidt’s refrain returns the conversation to a simple yardstick: the real measure of modernization is mission impact. As she put it in the article, success is not primarily a matter of deployment counts or technical uptime but of asking, "[h]ave we made an impact? Are we making a difference?" For federal agencies implementing AI and automation in core service functions, that question will be the practical test of whether a reordering toward people-first modernization was more than an aspiration.
