---
title: How To Align IT Workforce Planning with Your Modernization Roadmap
description: Learn how IT workforce planning can help public sector leaders identify skill, capacity, and timing gaps before they disrupt modernization roadmaps.
image: https://blog.sisystems.com/hubfs/Blog/Preview%20Image/How%20To%20Align%20IT%20Workforce%20Planning%20with%20Your%20Modernization%20Roadmap.png
---
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# How To Align IT Workforce Planning with Your Modernization Roadmap
October 29, 2026
By identifying skills, capacity, and timing gaps early, IT leaders can decide whether to build internal capability, use external support, or even resequence initiatives to reduce modernization delivery risk.
[](https://blog.sisystems.com/hs/cta/wi/redirect?encryptedPayload=AVxigLJJCoVt5rBjJGro5p1sOdW5iYZ4qsfe1SOsRUEGN8F5C7sKCTQn%2FHylerE7fMj4wiuDg0zXGuzkJHi7r6Mc4yQGkkVlSrXZP0U07PD6bK4%2Biiith%2BrV3g7pl8lBCh2cQRopCgveF%2FqAZ6iM8IKqJNbahBtJa1zvTfa3b3S3sOZuGkXj9oAHZ5mfSUiNopGSUI4sFLsV%2BC7A%2BU4P7%2FJnKvSTybwc6oDzyTerifpv&webInteractiveContentId=218807067922&portalId=19957201&hsLang=en)
IT workforce planning in Canada’s public sector is being tested by an ongoing modernization challenge. In [2024–25, only 38% of Government of Canada business applications were assessed as healthy](https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/corporate/reports/treasury-board-canada-secretariat-2026-27-departmental-plan.html), based on factors including business value, technical condition, funding condition, and criticality. That’s the same result as two years earlier. In between, the figure dropped to 35%, and now Treasury Board’s target for March 2027 is 39%.
Every modernization initiative creates demand for specific capabilities that must be available when the roadmap calls for them.
In our work with IT leaders across Canada’s public sector, we regularly see this constraint surface. The required skills may exist, but the people who hold them are usually committed elsewhere.
Canada's [Digital Talent Strategy](https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-government/digital-talent-strategy.html) recognizes a similar challenge. Organizations need to modernize foundational operations while improving and continuing service delivery, which requires skills from both new and traditional digital domains at the same time.
In this article, we look at how IT leaders can prepare for specialized skill gaps by treating the modernization roadmap as a capability demand forecast and connecting it to IT workforce planning.
## How legacy systems compete for modernization talent
Legacy modernization competes for the same specialists that are needed to keep current systems running. A department can employ cloud architecture, cybersecurity, or integration specialists and still be unable to deploy them on a new initiative, because their time is already allocated to existing work. This makes it more than an “IT skills gap”.
As legacy environments remain in place, institutional knowledge can become concentrated among fewer specialists. Think of this as workforce debt, where the growing share of specialist knowledge and capacity is tied to systems the organization plans to replace. Like technical debt, it can accumulate quietly until it delays delivery.
## How to identify which type of gap you're facing
Start by identifying the kind of gap your modernization initiative faces.
### Skills gap
This is when your initiative requires a capability that doesn’t exist in your organization. You’ll need to decide whether to build it, hire for it, or bring it in externally.
### Capacity gap
This is when the capability exists, but the people who hold it are fully allocated to other work. You’ll need to decide whether you can redistribute or reprioritize their current work.
### Timing gap
This is when you can develop or acquire the capability, but not on the timeline your initiative requires. You’ll need to decide whether sourcing or training can realistically align with your roadmap.
Mistaking one gap type for another can be costly. You may end up hiring for expertise you already have, freeing up people who lack the capability you need, or securing the right capability but only after the need has passed.
These gaps also change as your modernization initiative progresses. When you’re first starting, you may need specialists who understand your legacy application. Later, you may need cloud or integration capabilities that you don’t yet have or can’t bring on in time.
Mapping your needs against the modernization roadmap turns them into a capability demand forecast, which helps IT workforce planning identify where skills, capacity, or timing could put delivery at risk.
## Closing specialized skill gaps by building, borrowing, or buying
There are several ways to close a skill gap:
- **Build:** Create durable internal capability through training, upskilling, knowledge transfer, or permanent hiring. This fits a skills gap when you’ll need the capability long after the modernization initiative ends.
- **Borrow:** Add temporary delivery capacity through contracted staff. This fits a capacity gap, with external resources onboarded and your internal specialists freed for your initiative.
- **Buy:** Bring in specialized expertise or advisory support for a defined outcome. This fits when your organization doesn’t need to retain the capability permanently.
While temporary expertise for a capability you ultimately need to own may solve today’s delivery problem, it may recreate the gap tomorrow and add to your workforce debt. External expertise should also come with a clear approach to knowledge transfer when the capability needs to remain inside your organization.
This is where a fourth option emerges, and that is ***resequencing the roadmap***. If a scarce capability won’t be available for months, changing which initiative goes first can close a timing gap that sourcing alone can’t.
## Why capability availability should shape your roadmap sequence
When you build a roadmap using strategy alone, your workforce is expected to support whatever was already decided. This assumes that internal capacity and hiring are available whenever the plan needs them. But this isn’t always the case.
Consider two initiatives. One that depends on a scarce capability that won’t be available for a few months. Another that addresses technical debt and can proceed with capacity you already have. In this case, capability availability should influence which goes first, even if it isn’t the only deciding factor.
This becomes even more important when modernization is happening alongside broader resource constraints. [Shared Services Canada's 2026 to 2027 Departmental Plan](https://www.canada.ca/en/shared-services/corporate/about-us/transparency/departmental-plan/2026-27/shared-services-canada-2026-27-departmental-plan.html) illustrates this challenge. It prioritizes moving off legacy systems while planning spending reductions of $318.5 million by 2028–2029, a decrease of fewer than 500 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions and reduced reliance on professional services.
The plan also identifies workforce capacity and skills readiness as a key risk, noting that challenges in recruiting, upskilling, and retaining specialized talent could impair modernization, innovation, and service quality.
## Make IT workforce readiness part of your strategic planning
Strategic IT workforce planning starts with a clear roadmap and an answer to one question: "Does your organization have access to the capabilities that roadmap requires, at the time it requires them?" Answering it early helps you close gaps before they stall delivery and keeps your modernization initiative from adding to your workforce debt.
This is where S.i. System’s **Business & Technology Consulting** services can add value. By looking at your priorities, available capacity, and delivery risks together, we can help you decide what should move forward, what needs to be resequenced, and which capabilities to build internally or support externally.
But before you commit additional resources to your roadmap, use our [**Cloud Modernization & Talent Readiness Assessment**](https://info.sisystems.com/cloud-modernization-priority-framework?hsLang=en) to identify gaps across business, technology, delivery capability, and operations, and clarify where leadership attention, capability investment, or additional support is needed.
**[](https://blog.sisystems.com/hs/cta/wi/redirect?encryptedPayload=AVxigLJJCoVt5rBjJGro5p1sOdW5iYZ4qsfe1SOsRUEGN8F5C7sKCTQn%2FHylerE7fMj4wiuDg0zXGuzkJHi7r6Mc4yQGkkVlSrXZP0U07PD6bK4%2Biiith%2BrV3g7pl8lBCh2cQRopCgveF%2FqAZ6iM8IKqJNbahBtJa1zvTfa3b3S3sOZuGkXj9oAHZ5mfSUiNopGSUI4sFLsV%2BC7A%2BU4P7%2FJnKvSTybwc6oDzyTerifpv&webInteractiveContentId=218807067922&portalId=19957201&hsLang=en)**
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