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Cloud Choices and Exit Strategies: Designing for Reversibility

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Every cloud decision is also a decision about how you might undo it. That sounds pessimistic, yet it is the most practical test of whether an organisation is really in control of its technology. Reversibility is not about expecting to leave; it is about keeping the freedom to do so, which in turn gives you leverage in every conversation with a provider. Designing for reversibility starts with unglamorous choices. Prefer open formats and standard interfaces over proprietary ones when the difference is small. Keep your data exportable in a form you can actually use elsewhere. Separate what is specific to a platform from what is specific to your business, so that the second can travel without the first. And write the exit conditions into the contract at the start, when you still have negotiating power, rather than at the end, when you do not. An exit strategy is also a plan, not a clause. If nobody has ever described how a service would be moved, by whom, in how much time and at what c...
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Digital Sovereignty in Practice: What It Really Means for a Public Organisation

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Digital sovereignty is often discussed as if it were a place: keep the data in the country, host everything on local servers, and the question is settled. I think that framing is too narrow. For a public organisation, sovereignty is less about where technology sits and more about who holds the decisions: the ability to choose a provider, to change it, and to leave it without putting essential services at risk. In practice, this turns a political slogan into a handful of concrete questions. Under which legal jurisdiction does our data fall? Who operates the service day to day, and who can access it? Could we move to another solution within a reasonable time if we had to? And do we keep enough internal skills to understand what we have bought? When the honest answer to several of these is "we are not sure", the organisation has a dependency it has not yet named. The mistake I see most often is treating every system the same way. A public service runs hundreds of capabilities...
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AI and Job Matching: Connecting Today's Direction with the Longer-Term Vision

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In my work within a Belgian public service, we are using AI to improve the matching engine between jobseeker profiles and job offers. I see the purpose clearly: supporting the search for relevant connections between people and employment opportunities. That service purpose must lead the conversation. AI matters here because of the work it supports, not because adopting it is an achievement in itself. Matching brings the individual and the opportunity into the same frame. On one side is a jobseeker's profile; on the other is a job offer. My conviction is that our discussion of AI should remain anchored in that relationship. For jobseekers, the intended value concerns the relevance of opportunities. For the organisation, the focus is how digital capabilities can support its employment-service mission. I connect this work with our longer-term IT department vision. A strategic vision gives direction to our digital initiatives and helps explain why we pursue them. I believe it should...
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A Unified View of the Jobseeker: Giving Digital Strategy a Clear Focus

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Within a Belgian public service, we are concentrating our efforts on Microsoft Dynamics technologies. I see this focus as a concrete expression of our digital strategy: directing attention towards a defined technology area while keeping the service purpose clear. My conviction is straightforward. Technology choices need to serve the organisation's mission and the people who rely on it. The emergence of a single, unified file per jobseeker gives that direction a clear service reference. I believe the individual should be the starting point for how we think about information. A unified file expresses that principle directly: one person, considered as a whole. For the organisation, it provides a focus for digital development. For jobseekers, it centres the direction of that work on their needs. Our citizen-facing portal is due to open to citizens soon. I view this as another expression of the same service orientation. The portal concerns how citizens engage with the service, while ...
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Technical Debt Is a Governance Decision, Not Just an IT Concern

In my work within a Belgian public service, technical debt management is a governance priority. I believe decisions about maintaining and renewing technology belong in the same conversation as decisions about new digital services. They concern the organisation’s capacity to support its mission over time. Making technical debt visible brings that responsibility into strategic planning, where it belongs. We are developing our digital strategy with that responsibility in mind. Managing technical debt means looking beyond the immediate delivery of a solution and considering the obligations that accompany it. For me, the practical question is clear: how do we balance what we need to deliver with what we need to sustain? That balance deserves deliberate attention when setting digital priorities. Our digital roadmap runs to end of 2027. It gives visibility to the direction of our work and coherence to the choices ahead. I value a roadmap that connects individual initiatives with a broader ...
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EU Regulation is voted. Now, wait and see...

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The headline is simple enough: the AI Act is now law, in force since 27 July. Yet the story for most companies is about time, not drama. Obligations for stand‑alone high‑risk systems on the Annex III list won’t bite until 2 December 2027, and AI built into regulated products follows in August 2028. That gives European boards both a runway and a mirror — space to prepare, and a clear reflection of which bets they truly believe in when the compliance lights come on. Between now and those dates, the market will do as much regulating as Brussels. Buyers will start asking sharper questions about training data, risk controls and documentation, long before any auditor shows up, and vendors who can answer plainly will quietly separate themselves. The firms that treat 2027 as a product launch deadline, not a filing deadline, will find the transition less jarring and more commercially useful. There’s nothing abstract about this: model choices, supply chains and warranties are about to become ...
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