Case Study

County Information Technology Strategic Plan

The Goal

A Minnesota County needed an Information Technology Strategic Plan to provide them with a basis for identifying and aligning the County’s investments in information technology with the mission and goals of its services. Since their last IT Strategic Plan was completed in 1998, for the 1999-2003 five year plan, the County had experienced significant growth in population, services and systems; and Information Technology (IT) had become an integral part of its services delivery. They needed an IT Strategic Plan that would help determine the right amount of appropriate technology needed to reduce the cost of providing personal service and to allow customers to get services when they want them, where they want them. They also needed to coordinate priorities across all Divisions of the County, and they needed an integrated budget which could properly allocate resources.

The Challenge

The challenge for the County was to provide and sustain quality public services in a time of rapid growth and declining tax revenues—in other words, providing more services with fewer funds..

T The following challenges needed to be overcome in the planning process:

· They had over 100 separate systems

· There was a high degree of complexity as a result of Federal, State or County mandated applications which resulted in:

o Incompatible data models

o Duplicate data entry

o Inefficient reporting processes

o Difficulty reconciling financial systems

· Poor System Access and Data Security model

· Lack of hardware and software standards

In addition, there were high priority projects that had to be implemented, plus some broader issues that would change the way work is done and how information is accessed.

Endurant Solution

In the planning process, Endurant worked with the County to change its model of delivering services by introducing e-government/self service concepts. The new, technology based service model will allow recipients and requestors of County services to do much of the time consuming paperwork over the internet from their homes, places of business, or County operated kiosks at convenient locations throughout the County. This will increase the number of customers each employee is able to serve, thus improving the overall effectiveness of County operations while reducing the cost per customer to the County. The County’s vision for this technology based service model is: Any service, Anytime, Anywhere.

Implementing the new service model required a major change in the existing IT division, including a new set of business processes describing how the County’s customers access the County’s services, a new technical architecture, and a complete transformation of the IT organization. The recommended changes included a new management structure and a culture based on service to the County’s customers. Because of the enormity of the changes, the project was called the “transformation” of the IT Division, which was led by the IT management team.

Results:

Endurant worked with the County leaders to create a five year IT investment roadmap that included balanced investments in People, Process and Technology. The plan also included a governance process to give the County Agency leaders the ability to modify priorities over time; creating a flexible, dynamic plan that allows for change. Endurant facilitated the leaders to re-think how e-government will impact the organization. The plan included recommendations to build on existing technology especially web technology for the future.