As government agencies and organizations look to modernize their technology stacks to keep up with changes in the workforce, aging solutions, and closing contracts, they’ll all set out with a similar process: submit an RFP, review submissions, and choose a vendor. Seems simple enough.

But what government CIOs often don’t realize is that requiring proven, specific use cases may be limiting what their new (and likely expensive) technology investment can do for their organization. Here’s what I mean.

According to federal CIO Tony Scott, the U.S. government spends 76% of its $88 billion IT budget on operating and maintaining out-of-date technologies – that’s three times what is spent on modern systems. And while the proposed Modernizing Government Technology Act seeks to change all that with a centralized fund that agencies can apply for, in the meantime, aside from money, why are federal agencies so resistant to switching out old IT?