Strategy & Management Consulting
Case Study 1
Industry Vertical: Government
Application Spectrum: IT Strategy, Governance, Process
Improvement
Summary: At the time of this engagement, the City had
just elected a new Mayor. The Mayor wanted to make sure key city
government processes were effective and efficient. RFPs were
released for BPR studies and analyses of the City’s critical
processes. These processes included HR, Finance, Procurement,
Customer Service and Information Technology. RiVi evaluated 8 of
the key IT Management processes and provided recommendations for
improvement.
Problem
A change in the leadership of a governmental entity, in this case a
city, is an opportunity for establishing a baseline of the
efficiency and effectiveness of the services and programs offered by
the city. These services and programs have been provided via a city
infrastructure that was inherited through a series of past
administrations, perhaps with not much improvement or change. The
new major, wanted to have recent and accurate information about the
status of key city processes before investing limited budget funds
and scarce resources, on improvement projects related to the
evaluated functions, departments and services.
Approach
64+ key city stakeholders were interviewed in order to gather
information on the “As-Is” state of the 8 Key IT Management
processes selected by the city. These 8 key IT management processes
essentially represented the main governance mechanism (s) utilized
by the city to make and prioritize technology decisions. The As-Is
processes were compared with “Best Practices” information obtained
by interviewing 6 comparable peer organizations (other cities and
private industry). Pertinent documentation was also extensively
collected, reviewed and analyzed. From the comparison and evaluation
of the “As-Is” environment with the Best Practices approach, a set
of recommendations (the “To-Be” state) were formulated and presented
via the report.
Results
A 600+ page report was delivered to the city along with a final oral presentation to the City’s Chamber of Commerce , who provided the funds to the city for the project. Several interim presentations were provided to other high level stakeholder groups in order to gain support, understanding and buy-in.
The report was accepted as a “CIO Mandate” or road map, to be used by the new CIO so that no time would be wasted in implementing the recommended changes and improvements. A time line was provided which divided the recommendations into the following categories: Triage (immediate attention), 6-Month Plan, 1-Year Plan and 3-Year Plan horizons.
The report and its recommendations were so well accepted by the incoming CIO that he included the following in the 2004-2006 City IT Strategic Plan:
“Several recommendations were made by the RiVi report that would help link information technology to the City’s business goals and directions, and would allow the City to use technology more effectively in providing high quality services to the public…”
The City’s strategic plan document also mentioned that as a result of the RiVi Study and its recommendations, the City has put forth the following major accomplishments:
- Creation of the Department of Information Technology reporting to the Chief Operating Officer (COO)
- Hired its first CIO; on board in May 2003
- Established IT Governance which ensures business value for IT investments
- Developed an IT Strategic Plan and gained stakeholder approval
- Initiated consolidated IT budget request review as part of Business Planning
- Delivered rapid improvement in key IT services
- Automated ISR (Information Systems Request)
- Redesigned web portal
- Initiated GIS Assessment efforts to develop a City-wide GIS strategic plan