May 2005, Vol

MAY 2005, VOL. 12, NO. 3 InterfaceMUNICIPAL National Journal of the Municipal Information Systems Association

It’s hard to find government services in this big country. That’s why there’s eContact See page 8

Also in this Issue: Collaborative Projects Page City of Ottawa transforms itself through teamwork 11 BizPal project promises help with managing fees and licences 15 People-Based Budget a big win for City of Windsor 17 How modern telephony tools help people collaborate 20 City of Hamilton improves HR practices to compete for staff 22

MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 Table of Contents News Advertisers Index MISA news across Canada 5 Page AESI - Acumen Engineered Solutions 26 Columns Agresso 16 President’s column – Keeping In Touch 4 Bell Canada 19 Roy Wiseman – Security Issues 33 Diamond Municipal Solutions 10 Direct IT Canada 36 Features ESRI Canada 24 Infinity Technologies 28 eContact promises one-stop access to government 8 iPLANcorp 23 City of Ottawa transforms itself through teamwork 11 Marmak Technologies 14 BizPal project could ease problems with fees, licences 15 MISA Ontario Annual Conference 7 People-Based Budget a big win for City of Windsor 17 Océ-Canada 18 Packet Works 29 Telephony tools help people collaborate 20 Panasonic Canada 31 Hamilton improves HR practices through collaboration 22 Polar Bear Corporate Education 21 BlackBerry becomes key mobile device for Nanaimo 25 Showcase Ontario 32 New practices are transforming IS procurement 27 Teranet Inc. 2 Vadim Software 13 Security issues to be featured at Showcase Ontario 30

InterfaceMUNICIPAL

Journal of the Municipal Information Systems Association Advertising Rates Suite 910, 2680 Skymark Avenue, $1,350 pre-printed insert Mississauga, ON L4W 5L6 $1,200 back page Phone: 905-602-4564 Fax: 905-602-4295 $900 inside front www.misa.on.ca www.misa.bc.ca $600 1 page $400 1/2 page Journal Production $250 quarter page Chair, Communications Committee: $150 business card Kathryn Bulko (Toronto) 416-397-9921 Articles are subject to approval by the Communications Committee. Co-Editors: The views expressed in this journal are those of the individual writers Lawrence Moule 416-458-4410; and do not necessarily reflect those of the Municipal Information Jane Morgan 416-488-2878 Systems Association. Design: Natalie Coombs No part of the publication may be reproduced by anyone without prior written permission from MISA. Printer: Select Printing,Toronto © 2005 Municipal Information Systems Association

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KEEPING IN TOUCH MISA Means Collaboration By Kathryn Bulko President, MISA Ontario

Where has the time gone? It can’t possibly Ottawa, to our members. After being held in Ottawa for be two years ago when I became President of MISA the past two years, the conference will be moving to Ontario. In some ways I feel that I’m just getting started Mississauga this fall, hosted by our members from the but, as I prepared to write this article, I couldn’t believe Region of Peel. all the things we’ve accomplished as an association. Back in 1999 at the annual conference, I can remember When I began my term we kicked off the year with when it was decided the very last night during the ban- a strategic-planning session. If you recall my article in quet that Toronto would host the 2000 conference. November 2003, I listed the top seven initiatives that the Times have changed! Now, we have members knocking board was going to focus on over the next two years. at our door to host this event. The City of Ottawa is Much progress has been made in all of these initiatives. hosting the 2006 conference, and the City of Waterloo is Proposing a board of executives for MISA Canada hosting the 2007 conference. Who will step up to the with representatives from MISA BC, MISA Prairie, MISA plate next? Ontario, MISA Atlantic and the Quebec MISA equivalent Throughout the years, we’ve continued to foster collab- – Réseau de l’Informatique Municipale du Québec oration and build on our strong relationship with all levels (RIMQ) – was a step in the right direction toward realizing of government, including the Province, by participating our goal of creating a vibrant national MISA. in the IM/IT STAR initiative, which deals with issues related In March 2004, we retained administrative and advisory to inter-jurisdictional collaboration in Ontario. services staff to assist us in promoting and implementing In April 2004, the former CIO of Canada agreed to various projects throughout the year and help take have a federal representative from the PSCIO and the MISA to the next level of a professional organization. PSSDC sit on our board. Because we have had provincial In addition to our popular annual conference, we government representation on our board for a few years, offered an IT security conference hosted by the City of we were very pleased to be able to include federal government representation – and help champion the cause of municipalities in inter-governmental collaboration. None of this could have been achieved without the dedication and support of each and every member of the Board. Although I’m surprised at how quickly the time flew by, one thing that did not surprise me was the constant dedication and support of MISA Board members. I’ve experienced many challenges over the past few years but, without the support of the Board and its members, I could not have succeeded in this role. We have just completed the nomination process for the 2005-2007 Board of Directors – a difficult task since we had an overwhelming number of members express interest in contributing to the success of MISA. As I step into the role of past president, I look forward to working with everyone again, as we continue to reach our goal of becoming a single voice for municipal IT. See you at the conference! Kathryn Bulko greets delegates to the 2nd Annual MISA IT Security Conference at Ottawa City Hall in October 2004. The conference has become a major event for MISA members. [email protected] n 4 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005

MISA NEWS ACROSS CANADA MISA Ontario Conference MISA BC To Focus On Core Issues Looks Toward the Future At Conference But Parties in the Past In Kamloops

Delegates to the MISA Ontario of MISA Ontario, will welcome dele- The MISA BC Fall Conference Annual Conference and Trade Show gates to the City of Roses, so called will be examining some of the most in Windsor will be exploring the because of its abundant rose gardens pressing issues on the municipal IT future by day and the past by night. and parks. agenda at the City of Kamloops on Conference sessions will provide There was a time, though, when September 11-14. a roadmap to the future under the Windsor was better known for Privacy, document management, theme of “Bridging the Gap.” gangsters, booze, gambling and GIS, networks and telephony – these Actually, there will be several speakeasies. As a highlight of the and more topics will be discussed kinds of gaps addressed during the conference’s entertainment, the by knowledgeable presenters as conference, June 5-8 at the Cleary Monday night program will take well as in collaborative breakout International Centre in the City of delegates back 80 years to “A Night sessions, all under the theme of Windsor. Presentation streams will of Bootlegging” at Windsor Casino, “Return to the Heart of IT,” says include: From e-Government to Smart featuring the comic antics of MJM conference chair Frank Mayhood. Communities; From IT Provider to Entertainment. One emphasis in the program Corporate Policy Adviser; From 2005 will be vendor-supplied solutions, to 2010,What Lies Ahead. On Tuesday evening, the annual banquet will offer an evening of both ERP systems and municipal One of the traditional gaps that riverside class and elegance. A recep- applications. Many municipalities has been a barrier to municipal tion at the beautiful Art Gallery of have basic applications in place but IT – lack of coordination among Windsor will be followed by a rose- are now looking at integration the three levels of government – is between systems to provide new bedecked dinner in the Canadian rapidly narrowing, and this confer- capabilities and enhance services. ence will mark another progressive Club Room of the Cleary Centre, then A full-day program stream has milestone. by dancing and a hospitality suite been allotted to GIS issues. The CIO of Canada, Helen on the top floor of the Windsor Hilton. Municipal breakout sessions McDonald, will be a keynote speaker Setting the tone for this lavish have been expanded to include a and will be discussing how to nightlife at the conference will be session for municipalities of less bridge the jurisdictional gap in a the Sunday golf tournament at the than 10,000 residents. Other time panel session with Ontario CIO championship Roseland Golf and has been reserved for special-interest Greg Georgeff and Toronto CIO Curling Club, with an evening recep- groups where attendees with com- John Davies. This tri-level meeting tion overlooking the Detroit skyline mon interests can collaborate. of minds will be a first for a MISA at the Radisson Hotel. conference. Broadcaster Brian Burke, former Bell Canada, platinum sponsor of general manager of the Vancouver Other keynote speakers will the conference, will join with many include technology consultants Canucks,will deliver a keynote speech long-time associate members of on developing a competitive team. Peter de Jager and Tim Barr, as well MISA Ontario, and some interesting as motivational speaker Jim Kennedy. The trade show will feature new ones, to offer a trade show filled 38 booths. Conference chair Harry Turnbull, with products and services to build who is also the incoming president many bridges for municipalities. Please visit www.misa.bc.ca. 5 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005

MISA NEWS ACROSS CANADA Ontario Municipalities Start IT Benchmarking

By Ralph Blauel practices of service efficiency and measure results using 2004 data. A list Halton Region quality in Ontario municipalities and of services and related performance provide a useful management tool measures has been confirmed by that integrates financial and perfor- For a few years now, the the CAOs and includes three initial mance data to assist in decision Municipal Performance IT performance measures: making within municipalities. Measurements Program (MPMP) • Number of municipal Web visits in Ontario has been a required The OMBI member chief admin- per 100,000 population component of the annual municipal istrative officers representing 15 • Number of devices per total staff financial information returns to the large municipalities have endorsed – devices include desktops, lap- Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the development of a common tops, handhelds and tablets (cell Housing. measurement framework, known as phones, printers, scanners and The program, which compares the OMBI Core Framework Measures, peripherals are excluded) measures like cost per litre of water for selected municipal services. • Cost of IT services per device and cost per km of road mainte- These measures present informa- supported – excluding costs for nance, has not been without its tion on OMBI members’ performance print shops, photocopiers and controversy in the media. This regarding service levels, efficiency, telephones, and including aver- stems from several factors, including and impact on customers and com- age capital replacement costs. concern about the lack of consistency munity. The information is useful in MISA members on the IT Services in assignment of “overhead” like pursuing several objectives such Participants group of OMBI continue IT spending and other program as determining best practices and to develop and refine the application support costs. assisting as a CAO budget-decision of these measures for OMBI CAOs’ consideration in June 2005. Before MPMP was implemented, support tool. the Ontario Municipal Benchmarking The CAOs collectively agreed For more information please visit Initiative (OMBI) was created by that it would be useful to have core www.ombi.ca. Ontario’s regional and single-tier framework measures produced municipalities to identify and develop each year. To recognize the existing Ralph Blauel is Central Regional appropriate service-performance performance reporting processes Director of MISA Ontario and director measures, capture performance we're already using (that is, MPMP), of technology services at Halton data, and analyze and benchmark they asked for a report in June con- Region. He can be reached at results. The aim was to identify best taining comparative core framework [email protected].

Key Meeting of National Organizers Set for May 14

Representatives of five municipal 14 while they were attending the and commit members of the Interim IT organizations agreed by telecon- Lac Carling conference in Saint- Executive to asking their respective ference April 18 on a set of docu- Sauveur, Quebec. (ASIM stands organizations to join the association. ments that they hope will be the for Association des systèmes d’infor- Those organizations include the foundation for a national association. mation municipale.) four existing MISA chapters – with A memorandum of understanding The memorandum would confirm MISA BC also representing the three was to be presented for signature by support for the principles of the members of the MISA/ASIM Canada national association as defined by a Territories – as well as the Réseau de Interim Executive at a meeting May draft By-laws and Operations Manual l’informatique municipale du Québec. 6

MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS New National Service Promises One-Stop Access to Governments eContact Serves Citizens’ Needs Regardless of Jurisdiction Level

By Peter Bennett Continually redirecting them to the correct City of Winnipeg service not only lowers client satisfaction but is also costly. The Purdue Center for Customer Quality gives a best practice target of 85 per A collaborative multi-jurisdictional project aims to cent for “once and done” calls, those calls improve access to government services for citizens right across where caller receives the information requested the country. in one call (Anton, Dr. Jon, Government Call The next step in electronic service delivery, eContact answers Centers Performance Benchmark Report, citizens’ needs by providing the contact information they need, Center for Customer-Driven Quality, Purdue regardless of jurisdiction or location. And, by redirecting costs University, Sponsor AMS, April 2002). across a call-centre network, it improves efficiencies too. eContact will provide multi-channel access through either the Where Does eContact Fit? telephone, where an agent provides the link between the citizen To improve access to service information, and the required information or services, or through citizen-direct departments and jurisdictions (including various Web access. levels of government, non-government organizations, First Nations and private-sector organi- The Lost Citizen zations providing government services) have Access to government programs and services is a fundamental made significant investments in call centres, issue that affects how citizens perceive governments and govern- in-person services and Web-site navigation ment services at all levels. Research conducted for Citizens First and search engines. (Erin Research Inc.,The Public Sector Service Delivery Council and eContact is striving to improve access to the Institute of Public Administration of Canada ) found that key services for citizens and businesses across “access is considered one of the biggest barriers to service.” Canada. Focusing on those citizens and busi- More than 90 per cent of citizens struggle to locate government nesses that do not know where to start, it services at all levels of government. directs them to the appropriate government This occurs for several reasons – the complexity of different services contact or information, regardless of levels of government, not knowing government terminology or department, jurisdiction or location. Either where to start to find a service, starting in the wrong place and directly or through agents, eContact will being redirected to multiple departments and jurisdictions. This provide contact information via telephone, problem is further exacerbated because,“the average person Web URL, fax, e-mail, and location address and does not possess a solid grasp of the inter-jurisdictional division support for all departments and jurisdictions. of labour between levels of government.” The goals of eContact are to: Dissatisfied with the tools and services available for finding • Enhance the inquiry experience of those the service or program they need, both citizens and government who don’t know where to start, enabling spend significant time trying to locate the right contact information them to access the government services for services requested. Because no one system integrates infor- they need mation pertaining to contacts and services across all levels of • Map questions citizens ask using colloquial government, government productivity is reduced and government language into more formal government operations are less effective and efficient. language to facilitate information searches Research states that four or more calls are required 42 per cent • Reduce the number of redirected calls and of the time for citizens to access services or information. multiple contact points across governments

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• Provide the correct point of service to citizen or busi- Canada/Manitoba Business Service Centre and the City ness inquiries from integrated municipal, provincial, of Winnipeg. The project with the Province of Ontario – territorial and federal contact information Access and Information Services Ontario, Kingston • Act as a GOL beacon, advancing the need for more District Community Information Centre, and Consumer cross-jurisdiction initiatives and Business Services – is now completed. • Provide an inter-operability and collaboration In addition, New Brunswick is discussing a pilot governance model with representatives across all eContact project to provide knowledge about citizen levels of government self-service with collaboration from Service New Brunswick, Canada New Brunswick Business Service Centre and • Make use of existing infrastructure investments. municipalities, which may include Fredericton, Saint Reductions in redirected calls, multiple contact John, Moncton and others. points, and multi-channel access that includes citizen At the federal level, eContact is working with self-service will increase service capacity and lower the 1-800-OCanada, Industry Canada (Canada Business delivery costs to governments. eContact will identify Service Centres Secretariat: CSDML), PWGSC (Enterprise opportunities to improve communication to citizens Architecture: registries) and TBS (BTEP,Architecture and business, as well as identify and trigger a resolution and Standards). process for redundant or overlapping services between and within jurisdictions and departments. Winnipeg’s Pilot Experience Finally, eContact will be achieved through horizontal The City of Winnipeg participated with the Province of inter-jurisdictional leadership and by establishing a Manitoba and the federal government (Canada/Manitoba sustainable inter-jurisdictional collaborative solution to Business Service Centre) on the eContact pilot project. It support continuing operations. was a great experience to work with our colleagues from the other levels of gov- Where is eContact Today? ernment. One of the first benefits of the One key result is a prototype that has project was to gain an understanding and evolved through pilot projects and helps appreciation of the different services that define the requirements of proposed systems. are offered by all levels. Essentially, in response to a specific query, When the participants compared their eContact presents via the Web inter-jurisdictional contact “frequently asked questions,” it became evident that all information for participating organizations that are jurisdictions maintained information on where to get providing citizen support. Where online access is not services from other jurisdictions. This resulted not only available, citizens can receive the same level of service in a duplication of effort, but also information that was through agents. Online access, in-person support and not always current because the source jurisdiction was telephone support will be available through participating not updating the information. jurisdictions’ portals and service outlets. eContact was used to update Advisor, the City call- The eContact Project Team has been busy conducting centre software. The database fields from eContact were a number of multi-jurisdictional pilot projects across added to the Advisor database, which enhanced the Canada. The projects include an examination of tech- quality and consistency of the information and enabled nology options, business requirements, business impact and benefits, inter-operability and collaboration archi- an electronic transfer of data between Advisor and tecture for data interchange and standards, business eContact. This feature tested a critical component of governance, and partner engagement, with significant eContact, which is the ability to interconnect with existing emphasis on an information management framework, call-centre applications. standards and processes. Throughout the eContact The City of Winnipeg gets calls from citizens about initiative, goodwill and inter-jurisdictional collaboration services provided by other levels of government. Because have increased, with interest and support from all levels the City does not want to send these citizens away without of government. answering their questions, a list of frequently asked Pilot projects to date have included participation questions and contact information is maintained for ser- from the Province of Manitoba –Service Manitoba, vices that are not delivered by the City. The pilot project

9 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS demonstrated that eContact can be used to direct citizens will be developing an awareness campaign focusing on to the “right door” with accurate information from the key municipal audiences in several provinces or territories service provider. across Canada. Creating 311 call centres in some of the As part of its project, Manitoba conducted citizen major municipalities is a great opportunity for eContact focus groups to get feedback on eContact, and the results – it is highly likely that citizens will use the 311 number to not only find out about municipal services, but also were very positive. Citizens indicated that eContact services offered by other levels of government. eContact would save time and reduce the level of frustration in can then direct citizens to the appropriate government looking for government information, regardless of services contact information – regardless of department, jurisdiction. It would more easily provide information, jurisdiction or location. especially for those who do not know where to start. For more information on eContact, please contact Some people even commented that eContact is more Dennis Duhaime, eContact senior project manager, Govern- useful than using the blue pages’ listing of government ment On-Line Initiative, Public Works and Government services at the back of telephone books. Services Canada at [email protected]. Municipal Engagement The biggest challenge facing the eContact project in the Peter Bennett, manager of information systems in the future is engaging municipalities. Because there are Corporate Information Technology Department of the City anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 municipalities in Canada, of Winnipeg, is also president of MISA Prairie. He can be contacting them all will be challenge. The eContact project reached at [email protected]. n

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business solutions to integrate vital financial, human resource and work management information into a City of Ottawa single repository for simplified management, operational support and decision making using the SAP Enterprise Achieves ‘Scary’ suite of tools. In the end, the IBS program successfully implemented 11 individual overlapping project releases spanning a Transformation three-year period, covering Human Resources, Payroll, Public Works and Real Property Services. More than 1,480 City staff were trained on the new enterprise With Teamwork solution sets. The total IBS Program budget was $39. 9 million. The program was delivered on time as amended and By Deirdre M. Stirling City of Ottawa under budget by approximately $775,000. By the end of 2009, $8 million will be saved annually as a result of the IBS program. Once in a career you get the opportunity to work on a project that is defining. At first glance the Achievements prospect was exciting – the City of Ottawa’s integration The IBS program has achieved the following: project had the mandated scope to change the way the • A set of harmonized business processes and one con- City would work. It would affect 17,000 staff and bring solidated technology platform for Human Resources, together a large group of professionals who would Benefits,Time and Payroll, with seamless interfaces to work toward one goal . . . but at the same time it was just Finance and Work Order Management; downright scary. • A single integrated solution to support the full life Walking out of the boardroom on that day back in cycle management and inventory of real property early 2002 when the city manager, two deputy city assets including management of space, capital managers and my chief corporate services officer had all projects and property maintenance; verbally put their trust in me and given me the direction to “go forward and do it,” my knees were shaking, my • A single integrated solution to support the full life-cycle heart was pounding, and I was feeling nauseous. What management for surface operations, traffic and parking, had I agreed to? And more importantly, how the heck waste water and water treatment. was I going to do it? All are integrated with the previously implemented Before I bring you to the other side of the project SAP financials, job costing, purchasing and supply- and share the important secrets I discovered, let me management modules. explain what this project was all about and briefly How Did We Do It? discuss what we accomplished. Since the program ended in May 2004, myself and other Background team members have been interviewed many times, written The new City of Ottawa came into being on January 1, a handful of magazine articles and press releases, and 2001, as a result of the amalgamation of 11 municipalities. been asked to present at numerous technology confer- Part of this exercise meant bringing together each orga- ences. And for the life of me, I don’t know why! nization’s services, technologies and business processes. Hey folks, we didn’t do anything special – there are The Integrated Business Solution (IBS) initiative was no tricks, no secrets and certainly no magic. In the end, designed to address and support the new corporate maybe that is what the secrets of a successful project processes and technology requirements of the City in the are. I have included a number of those secrets here for areas of Finance, Supply, Human Resources, Public Works you to determine if there is anything magical. and Services (PWS), Real Property Asset Management (RPAM) and other cross-functional requirements identified Project-Management Methodologies across the Corporation. This program was intended to The most important secret I can share is this – follow the deliver a series of related projects focusing on building project-management methodologies and principles that

11 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS you routinely follow. If you don’t follow proven project- change-management discipline employed at the City management processes – do that now. Find some, was key in supporting the scope and scale of changes establish buy-in, and get your people doing this religiously that were required. This group was responsible for all – no matter what size the project is. communications. It established management-advisory groups to be the sounding boards for new processes, Strong Consulting Partners trained more than 1,480 City staff, provided necessary When hiring partner consultants to assist in delivering documentation, and created a Web site of all new the solutions, hire the best you can afford. You need system processes and procedures. It also established someone you can trust, someone who has the experience, a benefits-realization program and had an unrelenting and someone you can work closely with over a long focus on readiness. period of time. In our case, the prime consulting partner Key to implementing change is determining how was IBM Business Consulting Services (Canada). people listen and understand. Sending a corporate-wide Be rigorous about which consultants are working on e-mail indicating that new processes are being imple- the projects, get rid of the consultants who don’t produce, Get out there and make people understand and fight to get the consultants you want. Traditionally, you are spending a lot of money on this mented is not enough. Get out there. Create brochures portion of your project – get who you need, do not settle, and posters, hand out funky pens, stand in the works and do not just accept the consultant who happens to yards early in the morning with coffee and doughnuts, be available at that time. and talk to people. Get their attention – “Hey, your pay- cheque is going to change and you need to know that.” Solution-Sustainment Team This is critical – very early on determine who will be sup- Scope Management porting the solutions once the projects are completed. I don’t need to say this one but I will – manage the Do everything in your power to ensure that the support scope of your project. Think NO, say NO, and then take group gets training, mentoring and any other necessary the time to understand what the impact of that new supports so that they can do their jobs effectively. These piece of work would really entail. If you can work it in at people will maintain the solution sets as well as develop minimal increase to cost, time and labour (still within the and guide them in the future. These are your “champions” project budget) and the business case indicates that it – the ones from whom the rest of the business users will would be a really, really good thing, proceed cautiously take their cues,and they have more influence in the success and do not ever let it out of your sight. or failure of your project than any other members of the project team. Don’t Believe Everything You Hear Senior-Management Support If a critical, time-sensitive piece of your requirements is held up and the business owner indicates that he or she Establish senior-management sponsorship and commitment. Our steering committee was made up of the city can be trusted and will deliver it on time – don’t believe manager and two deputy city managers as well as Chief it! This is where the creative skills of your manager Corporate Services Officer Greg Geddes (you may be come into play. Be prepared to change your project familiar with Greg from his past involvement with MISA). plan. Identify publicly why it is being changed. Apply This group moved mountains in making the IBS program pressure. Find the back door to the information and successful. Talk to your senior management people and enlist other people to provide it. Don’t sit there and wait tell them exactly what you need when you need it. Now for the information to be delivered. is not the time to be shy. Teamwork Change Management Celebrate your successes publicly, acknowledge your No matter what it costs – time, money or people – create defeats quietly. Your team is exhausted. You need to a change-management office within your program. The gather everyone together as often as possible and make

12 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS a big thing about your successes no matter how small or Leadership Style inconsequential they are. People need something to When securing a resource to lead your project, look for hang on to, that keeps them going. They need to know the following: must be all seeing, all believing and, more that they are appreciated for their contributions. importantly, able to communicate and establish buy-in And hey, when you have them all gathered there, from the team and the intended recipients of the solution. celebrate the personal bits – birthdays, babies, engage- Must have hidden ability to sell cars. For a large program ments and weddings. These are real live people – such as the IBS program, look for über-organized, detail- acknowledge that. Acknowledge that you have had a oriented, thick-skinned people who can juggle everything. negative impact on their lives. We “gave”people Christmas They have to accept that they are implementing change. Day off for two years running, and we limited them to Change is not popular, and therefore by association, two weeks off in the summer. Amazingly, they stuck they won’t be popular. If they don’t have those charac- around. As for the defeats – yeah, you will have some. teristics, don’t consider them for the job. Say it out loud,“We didn’t hit the target on these two As I said, there is no magic. But in case you didn’t things, but holy smokes you guys, despite those setbacks catch it earlier, this was a team effort. Every chance I get, we did do this . . .” I point to this: at times we were more than 170 staff and consultants strong. We supported each other, cried Energy Management together, laughed together (sometimes hysterically), Build a really great snack pantry! I’m serious. Don’t care believed in each other and what we were doing, and in how you justify spending dollars on this, you have to do the end we were successful. it. Get out there and buy some healthy stuff and some Maybe there is magic in that after all. junk food. There is nothing quite so satisfying as a handful of pretzels at 3:00 a.m. when you find yourself struggling over a problem. (The whole bag of pretzels is even better!) Deirdre M. Stirling is manager, business applications Encourage people to bring in goodies from home. On management at the City of Ottawa. She can be reached those really hairy cutover weekends, get your consultants at [email protected] and will be presenting more to spring for pizza. Your teammates won’t feel quite so information about the IBS initiative at the MISA Ontario abandoned when they are at their desks late at night Annual Conference and Trade Show in Windsor. n and receive an e-mail inviting them for hot pizza that has just been delivered to the 7th floor. Defend your Project Find that “Tiger Mother/Tiger Father” characteristic each of us has deep down inside. Be prepared to defend your budget, your team, your vision, your decisions and your project plans. Roar when necessary by com- municating often and loudly. Know that everything about you, your team and your project will be called into question. Pound your chest to say,“Look at us, we did this, and we did it well.”

MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS National Project to Ease Burden Of Managing Licences, Permits

By Ralph Blauel Halton Region, Ontario

Starting your own business will soon be a lot easier, thanks to a new service to be launched this summer. Canadian businesses will begin using BizPaL, a Web-based service that will easily generate a customized list of the permits and licences that businesses require from all levels of government. For some time, business entrepreneurs have been confused and frustrated by the burden of requirements at multiple levels of government. Currently, they must go to many different depart- BizPal System Overview ments within different levels of government to find out what permits and licences they need The client will begin by identifying where the business for their business, never being sure if they’ve missed is to be located and the type of business. Several other something. questions will be posed to customize the information for a Staff at the various levels of government are faced specific business (for example, a restaurant will be asked with answering similar questions from these entrepreneurs, the question,“Will you be serving alcohol: yes or no?”). without knowing what permits and licences are required Underlying BizPaL’s functionality is comprehensive from the other jurisdictions. Governments lose revenue process mapping by business analysts to describe all when clients who want to comply don’t understand all the conditions necessary to get a specific permit in the permits and licences that are required, leading to each jurisdiction. For the pilot project partners, this involuntary non-compliance. The duplication of effort work is being coordinated and supported by Industry across governments is also a great drain on resources. Canada analysts. Industry Canada Leadership Administration Tool Using the Government Services Reference Model (GSRM) An implementation kit is being developed to help and other opportunity-identification and partner- other jurisdictions with this process. BizPaL will also engagement methods, Industry Canada developed this inter-jurisdictional initiative to serve businesses and all provide jurisdictions with a comprehensive administra- levels of government. tion tool to manage their permits and licences in a coordinated fashion. BizPaL is a Web-based service that will provide an easy-to-use,“no wrong door” service enabling users to In carrying out the process mapping, areas of obtain permit and licence information through their redundancy and inefficiency are clearly highlighted, local government, provincial, territorial or federal Web offering governments significant service transformation sites. Each point of access will provide the client with opportunities. The BizPaL Pilot Project establishes a comprehensive and customized information for all the collaborative structure that will make it possible for participating jurisdictions. governments to seize these opportunities.

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COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS

Benefits to municipal BizPaL partnership also include: The BizPaL Pilot Project is being developed with • Less time is spent answering repetitive questions a lead group of government partners including the from clients who can now self-serve. governments of Kamloops, Halton Region,Whitehorse, Yukon, British Columbia and Ontario; and Industry • Staff receive fewer unanswerable questions. Canada will provide information on the permits and • BizPaL can be a training tool for new or licences needed in their priority industry sectors. replacement staff. The partners are developing operational, funding and • Governments will have increased compliance revenue. governance models to ensure that future partnerships • Governments will experience reduced enforcement will be self-governing and self-funding. Municipal costs. recruitment will be led by the provincial governments. • BizPaL makes use of existing Web investments, Municipal Commitments including e-forms and e-procurement. For municipalities, the commitments required to partici- • Staff are happier with satisfied clients, and are able to pate include: deliver more complete service. • Securing access to and commitment of permit and • Government can demonstrate that it provided a full licence expert staff list of requirements. • Completing a few weeks of business process mapping • BizPal can provide a competitive advantage for using the implementation kit the jurisdiction. • Integrating BizPaL into your municipal Web site using either Web services (one week) or the simpler in-line frames option (a few minutes). BizPaL has provided the opportunity for staff from various jurisdictions to meet together (virtually and in person) to share best practices, lessons learned, economies of scale and ideas about continuous improvement. Ideas generated from the BizPaL project might well be used in other areas of client service improvement and e-government. BizPaL will provide businesses a way to identify their entire permit and licence requirements at one time through the access point of their choice, saving them time and money. As BizPaL is a self-service tool, governments will be able to redirect valuable client-service resources. The collaboration within and among governments that is at the core of the BizPaL initiative will ultimately lead to more streamlined and efficient government services. Facilitating a level playing field and more productivity for businesses and governments will create a stronger economy that benefits all Canadians. For more information please visit www.bizpal.ca.

Ralph Blauel is Central Regional Director of MISA Ontario and director of technology services at Halton Region. He can be reached at [email protected]. n

16 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS Small Project Produces Big Win For City of Windsor’s IT Team By Melissa Urban responses to the online survey and produced statistical City of Windsor, Ontario reports. These also enabled the booklets and surveys to be printed. An experiment in participatory democracy has Residents found additional details on the site about turned out to be a great success for the City of Windsor. services, bylaws and other background material. Many Residents now have a better appreciation of the benefits of the survey questions were accompanied by links to of e-services, and Windsor has been recognized nationally the relevant background information. and internationally as an innovator in providing accessible, For people without computer access, the same survey responsible government. was provided on paper in libraries and community centres. All of this has been a delight for us in the Information The survey was followed by a series of public meetings Technology Department. It goes to show what surprising in City wards. benefits can flow from a $20,000 project. The results provided council with information as to It has also demonstrated to us, and to other depart- what the residents were prepared to live without if taxes ments, how Web-based tools can bridge gaps between were frozen; where they wanted to see improvements in organizations in the city, and between the City and its bylaw enforcement and infrastructure; and what services residents. they considered on the lower end of the priority scale. During the budget deliberation we provided updates Background to the People-Based Budget site so that residents could Early in 2004, a recently elected new mayor and City continue to be part of the process. councillors decided to ask the people of Windsor about The following quote is from a resident:“I was grateful their priorities for the annual budget. They organized a for the chance to express my feelings without having to series of workshops, and Mayor Eddie Francis also invited be on the delegation list for city council.” Many other residents to speak to him on the Web about what he quotes in media coverage confirm that intended results called the 2004 People-Based Budget. were achieved on this project. The People-Based Budget is based on giving residents the opportunity to come forward and express what they Survey Application believe the City’s priorities should be. This meant gath- This was the first vehicle used to begin to open up ering together all relevant information such as sources communication lines among the mayor, council and of funding, spending of tax dollars, 2003 budget figures residents of Windsor. It was a start to many more oppor- and costs of City services, and then presenting the infor- tunities in which residents will have a voice. Council has mation for residents’ review and comments. committed to use the People-Based Budget process The mayor’s office sponsored the project and enlisted every other year. the involvement of the communication, finance and Internally, the project has generated additional benefits. technology divisions to create a relevant and easy-to-use The technology team had recognized from the start that system for residents. the survey tool could have multiple uses, so we created Working with Financial Services staff, IT staff came up a survey template tool rather than develop something with a Web site and an interactive online survey, which isolated to only this project. not only provided citizens with relevant budget infor- We can now offer all areas of our organization use of mation but enabled them to give their opinions and an online survey. It can be launched internally on our rank their priorities. intranet, externally on the Internet or in both mediums. The interactive Web site, www.peoplebasedbudget.com, “The survey application gives us the ability to carry was backed by a database that collected the residents’ out a survey without having to go in and write HTML or

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ASP code to generate or process the survey every time completed, IT collects the responses in a database for we need a new one,”says analyst programmer Al Polachok. generation of real-time reports to the survey owners. “It has the capability of generating a complete working Since completion of the 2004 budget, the City has survey with minimal effort.” used this application for three other surveys, two internal Polachok and the technology team developed the and one external. survey tool using Visual Studio and ASP language. Low Cost, High Reward If a City department wants to do a survey, it simply provides us with a plain-text file containing the questions. The People-Based Budget project was completed on We go to an administrative page on our intranet and time, although it forced us to push out the deadline for upload the file. The content is parsed, converted into another project that had been in process. We dedicated HTML, loaded into a database, and integrated directly three analyst programmers and one business analyst to into our intranet. the project full time. At this point the administrator can generate a preview Time constraints did not allow us to develop a regis- of the survey and try out a few different presentation tration process, providing residents with user identifications formats by selecting various options. Surveys can be and passwords to validate their submissions. Responses constructed using multiple-choice questions, ratings such did not indicate any concerns of invalid entries. as 1 to 5 or 1 to 10, checkboxes, narrative comments or Nevertheless, our team is researching options for online any combination. validation of responses in future. At any time, we can make the survey accessible to all users or a subset of those users. As survey forms are Cost of the project, based on hours invested and resources dedicated over four weeks, was approximately $20,000 in Information Technology labour. The results have been more than gratifying. As a result of this innovative approach,Windsor employees won a national award for developing information technology that supports accessible, responsive government. During Technology in Government (GTEC) Week in October 2004, the People-Based Budget Web Team was presented with a Silver Award of Distinction in the category of Innovative e-Government Within Municipalities. That, in turn, attracted the notice of Oh Young-kyo, head of South Korea’s ministry of government administration and home affairs and chief organizer of the Sixth Global Forum on Reinventing Government, held in Seoul from May 24-27, 2005. Oh wrote to Mayor Francis inviting Windsor to be represented at the conference. And so representatives from member states of the United Nations and international organizations such as the World Bank, as well as activists from all social sectors, saw the Windsor display at the 2005 International Innovation Exhibition at the Global Forum on Reinventing Government, sponsored by the UN.

Melissa Urban, manager of technology development for the City of Windsor, can be reached at murban@city. windsor.on.ca. n

18 DID YOU KNOW 000 VoIP se to 160, Bell has clo that ss Canada? today acro es in place lin prise.bell.ca www.enter

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For more information, please contact your Bell representative or visit www.enterprise.bell.ca MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS A Day in the Modern Life Of a Multimedia IP User Here’s How Telephony Tools Can Help People Collaborate

By Cam Gregg Real-Time Collaboration Bell Canada During the meeting we realize that we’re missing a very important document, and we need it right away. Following is a fictitious, but technologically accurate, I know Fred has it, but I’m not connected with him description of how telephony tools can enable collaboration via IM yet. and improve communications efficiency for municipal IT Instead, I access the corporate directory via my multi- professionals. media client and quickly add him to my personal instant-messaging list. I then send an IM asking him to please send the The Day Begins document to me ASAP. “Will do,” he answers and, even I’m an IT manager in Montreal, and I have to go to though the file is 12 megabytes, he sends it across Ottawa to conduct personnel reviews with my team. It through our converged IP network with no problems. will take me out of the office for most of the week and, During the call a screen pop shows me an incoming without access to calls or my workspace, it will really put call from my doctor’s office – I’ve been expecting them me behind. to call to let me know my appointment time next week. Since my out-of-town business is not expected to Instead of interrupting the call, I simply let it go to voice take up full days, I use the advanced multimedia features mail so I can check it later. of my IP telephony solution to keep in touch. Before leaving, I use my singular multimedia client to set my incoming calls to ring both the office and Sending an IM retrieves my cell at the same time.This way, I don’t miss any calls while I’m travelling and, at the same time, I can let them a missing file in minutes go to voice mail if need be. On the Move Settling In While on the train I insert my 802.11 wireless card, connect I arrive at my destination and get settled in the office of to the WI-FI available, and launch my multimedia client one of my team members who is on holidays. Using the applications – giving me complete access to my work- hot-desking capability, I simply log into his IP phone so space and my colleagues – and join a conference call. that any calls to my Montreal office will ring this phone While on the call, I realize that we need my colleague and all my personal preference settings are still with me. Jean’s input on a particular issue so I check her availability I then launch my multimedia client on my PC and, with my personalized instant-messaging application through a couple of clicks, I route any incoming calls (IM). Her presence indicates she is online so I send her directly to voice mail (except my boss, of course). a quick IM and she answers,“Sure thing.” I also change my presence to indicate that, although Then I simply click to call and bridge her in, and she online, I’m in the middle of personnel reviews. initiates a Web push to review some important infor- My first review session happens to be with a team mation on our corporate intranet. member who is a little under the weather and working

20 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS from home today, so I plug in my Web cam and use I catch up on e-mail, return a few voice mails, and my multimedia client to initiate a videoconference. prepare for another productive day. Normally this is a long distance call but, as we’re both on the IP network, the call is free. Disclaimer Near the end of the first review, my assistant IM’s me with a reminder not to forget to get all the documents The above situation describes some of the end- signed and instantaneously file-transfers them to me. user features and functionality enabled with Bell Good thing, as I may have forgotten. Canada’s managed IP telephony (MIPT) solution. As such, not all features and functionality described Closing Time may be available with alternative voice-over IP The day has ended, and I’m leaving the office. I’d forgotten solutions. to use my multimedia client to have incoming calls go straight to voicemail before leaving, so instead I simply make the changes via my Blackberry in the cab on the Cam Gregg is director of innovation for Bell Canada. way to the hotel. IP telephony solutions will form part of the content I arrive at the hotel, check in, and head up to my of Bell’s presentation at the MISA Ontario Annual room. Using whatever Internet connection they have Conference and Trade Show in Windsor. Bell Canada, available, I use my multimedia client to review my call an associate member of MISA Ontario, is platinum sponsor logs for the day. of the conference. n

21 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS Extending the Human Touch Hamilton Improves HR Practices Through Collaboration

By Lawrence Moule “Excellence in public service is achieved in the City of Co-editor, Municipal Interface Hamilton through an integrated approach to planning and performance development, optimal use of technology, Is your municipality concerned about finding well-trained staff and effective management of change. and retaining good employees? It should be. Studies by Staff is supported in providing excellent customer service, human-resource consultants have shown that, during the characterized by continuous improvement to programs next decade or so, municipal employees will be retiring and services.” at a rate three times the rate of entry of new recruits. It was within this context that the City’s administrative Well aware of this, the City of Hamilton, Ontario, has leaders started putting technology to work. A series of taken steps to build a competitive advantage in competing initiatives was developed that eventually became for, and keeping, top talent. known as the PeopleSoft project, because it was based on a suite of e-applications from PeopleSoft Corp. (now The IT and Human Resources departments have part of Oracle Corp.). teamed up to implement a set of self-service applications to save time and make life easier for employees and job Leading the implementation strategy from 2002 applicants. The City believes that such tools will encourage onward was a steering committee composed of the talented people to come and stay, and will increase their general managers of the Human Resources, Public productivity. Works, and Finance and Corporate Services departments, the latter incorporating IT. Policy Foundation The foundation for these initiatives is the City’s Mission, Project Managers Vision and Values, which Hamilton created after 2001 Collaboration was built into the project from the top when seven municipalities amalgamated into the town. Beneath the steering committee was a coordinating new City of Hamilton. The plan, which is summarized committee of project managers including four executives in the “Careers & Working at the City” section of from the City and one from outside. The group consisted www.city.hamilton.on.ca, includes six general goals. One of: Louis Shallal, then CIO (now with York Region), of those is to be “a city of choice for high-performance Christine Swenor, director of IT, Rick Male, director of public servants.” finance, Mark Amorosi from HR, and Stephen Mansfield, Before council adopted that goal and set out to a principal with Deloitte, the consulting firm that helped achieve it, Hamilton was experiencing very stiff competi- manage the entire project and provided the basis for its tion for talent. Its process of manually receiving and methodology. screening applications was labour-intensive and slow. Amorosi says the work of the coordinating committee, Mark Amorosi, director of employment and client which continues to this day, was successful because all services for Hamilton’s HR department, remembers that, stakeholders were represented, the project structure when he joined the City in 2001, the average time to hire encouraged flexibility and inclusion, and Deloitte was an an employee was 65 days. HR staffers manually screened effective partner. an average of 700 resumes for every job opening. “It was one of the best examples of a true partnership Improving such practices required focusing not on between a consulting firm and an organization that I processes or technology, but on vision. By 2004, Hamilton have seen in my 20 years of experience,” he says. created its first Human Resources Strategy with four Using this collaborative project structure, Hamilton parts: Respectful and Supportive Workplace, Leadership, became one of the first municipalities in Canada to Learning, Performance Excellence. (You can see the implement PeopleSoft’s Employee Self-Service module. strategy in the Careers section of the Web site.) That portion of the project began in late 2002, after the Under the Performance-Excellence element, the PeopleSoft ERP was upgraded to version 8, the Web- desired end state is presented as follows: based system.

22 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS

Previously, the only way for employees to get infor- “In December 2004, there were 67,735 internal and mation about their personal business was to call the HR external hits on the two modules,” Amorosi reports. department directly. If employees wanted to know how “Total hits from April through December 2004 were many vacation or sick days they had left, they called HR. 259,155. That’s staggering for my money.” If they wanted to confirm a payroll deduction or get a Police and library departments have become clients copy of a routine form, they called HR. of the system, and a new health and safety module has The HR staff was buried in manual transactions and been added. administration. If an employee was buying a house and needed a letter of confirmation of employment, it took Amorosi says the success of the project has been two weeks to generate it. built on linking technology to the corporate strategy, The Employee Self-Serve module was implemented particularly the HR strategy. to clear this fog by answering standard queries and pro- “For me, the whole Peoplesoft initiative is directly viding routine services online. Now, when an employee tied to that,” he says. needs an employment letter to buy a house, the system “We have vastly improved service to current and generates it automatically from the employee’s request potential employees.” and it is delivered within a day. At the same time, the eRecruit module was implemented – for the first time in a Canadian municipality – More information about Hamilton’s PeopleSoft project will to cut weeks out of the hiring process. It provides: be presented at the MISA Ontario Annual Conference and • Online job postings Trade Show in Windsor. n • Online submission of applications and resumes • Up-to-date status of applications and interviews • Online submission and confirmation of employee referrals • Automated screening of applications and resumes. Today, the average hiring time has been reduced to approximately 45 days. eRecruit automatically screens applicants for qualifications by asking a series of questions related to specified jobs. It automatically generates letters of acceptance or rejection for interviews. It processes first-time applications within minutes, automatically sending confirmation of applications received so that HR no longer receives calls from people anxious to have their applications acknowledged. Despite the promise of such improvements, there was a lot of resistance to change among the 6,500 City employees, who were suspicious of technology after the turmoil of amalgamation. By April 2004, when the Employee Self-Serve and eRecruit modules first went live for internal use, the HR department was not certain how the new HR site would be received. “Within five minutes of the site going live, people started to use it,” Amorosi smiles. “In April 2004 there were 11,493 hits on Employee Self-Service and eRecruit.” That number climbed sharply after September 2004, when the new applications were made available both to employees outside the office and to external job applicants through the Internet.

MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005

With the Blackberry, because the e-mail ser- BlackBerry Becomes vice is real-time, I can see an operational issue developing at 7:30 am when one of my analysts starts work, instead of at 8:30 am. I can be Key Mobile Device aware of a crisis before the majority of staff arrive for work. Similarly, when the analysts are delivering For City of Nanaimo projects in off hours, they can now send me an By Mary Ellen Callaghan e-mail that I get on the BlackBerry. I don’t have City of Nanaimo, BC to carry the cell phone or stick by the phone at home to make sure everything went fine with the delivery. Like many municipalities, our city on Vancouver Island has numerous mobile employees – and a challenge in finding The Changing Business Need ways for them to communicate efficiently with their offices. In the spring of 2004, the Information Technology But unlike other municipalities, or any that we know of, the Office (ITO) embarked on a project to make City of Nanaimo has developed some unique mobile solutions business-licence and calls-for-service data based on BlackBerry technology. From small beginnings, our readily available to our inspectors in the field suite of BlackBerry applications has spread across a growing on the BlackBerry. number of departments because the applications have signifi- The application required one month of lead cantly improved communications and saved time. time to complete and has been in production Our latest project is called eInspection. since May 7, 2004. This small application, built It gives building inspectors the capability to for use by one person in one department, is now being used by staff in the Finance, Bylaw enter data to our computers directly from the Services, Parks Yard Maintenance and Building field and includes a mobile printing solution Inspections departments. that is unique. In conjunction with Island Internet, ITO Our solutions caught the attention of continued to enhance the capabilities of the Research in Motion, creators of the BlackBerry BlackBerry for use by field staff. The Street handheld device, who invited Nanaimo to Lights Update project was completed July 30, make a presentation at the Wireless 2004, bringing the 2,700 street lights in our Enterprise Symposium 2005 in Orlando, database up to date using a BlackBerry with Florida, on April 19-21. Jason Birch from the real-time data entry in the field. We now deliver Information Technology Office at the City and street lights as a CityMap layer since we know Guillermo Ferrero of Island Internet Inc., our vendor for Web- the data is current. application custom development, represented the project team in Orlando. Overview of the eInspection Project The building-inspections field update applica- Improving Productivity tion (eInspection) has been in field testing by The eInspection project has joined the list of initiatives completed users since February 7, 2005, and was sched- either in 2004 or in progress using the BlackBerry. Projects we uled to go live April 28. completed in 2004 are called Business Licence Search, Calls for The genesis for this project goes back to Service Search and Street Lights Update. 2003. Building Inspections staff came to ITO The goals of BlackBerry application development are to: and described the following business needs: • Improve staff productivity by saving time “Our inspectors are very busy,” they began. • Save money – staff can answer questions in the field so field “A significant number of clients like to have data doesn’t have to be re-keyed a hard copy of the inspection report left at the site for a number of valid business reasons. • Improve service to residents as data becomes available more We have to re-key the results back at the quickly on our city Web page. office every day, and we want to reduce the Why the BlackBerry? It’s a device that includes a cell phone, duplicate effort. real-time e-mail and real-time access to a calendar for scheduling. “We must be more responsive to picking up It has changed the way busy people work, including me. inspections in the field while we are in the

25 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 area. And we’re very busy with development activity two million BlackBerry devices in use throughout the and expect to be so for a while.” world. Nevertheless, after considerable research, we Starting in October 2003, ITO began looking at building- found that there was no easy-to-use mobile printing inspection software provided by a number of vendors. solution available for the BlackBerry. None could provide timely access to data in the field as With help from multiple sources and after six months required to meet the needs of rapid land development. of detailed research and pilot trials, we have overcome this In April 2004, we decided to work with Tempest hurdle and now have mobile printing capability in the Development Corporation (our land system vendor) field from the BlackBerry using cell-phone technology and building standard application interface (API) calls for a fax machine, with the results printing on letter-size paper. access and update of building-inspection data. We Way Forward then contracted with Island Internet to build a custom BlackBerry building-inspection application for the City The City has 52 BlackBerry/MikeBerry devices in the using these API calls and doing live updates in the field. field, including 6750, 7510 and 7750 models. They provide immediate direct access to production data for With this application, inspection reports will no staff in the field. longer have to be keyed by the Permit Centre at day-end. Next on our 2005 BlackBerry project list is an application Our Secure Developer Database Online will present for real-time updates of calls for service for Parks yard inspection deficiencies to builders via our Web site at maintenance. 7:00 pm every day. The most challenging aspect of the project was how For more information on these projects, please contact to print building-inspection results in the field from the either Mary Ellen Callaghan, manager of business BlackBerry. This feature was critical to success. services, at [email protected] or Paul When we began this project, there were one million Thorkelsson, manager of building inspections, at BlackBerry devices in use. Currently, there are more than [email protected]. n

26 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 Emerging Practices Transforming Information Systems Procurement By Denis Chamberland, Robert Fabian and Mark Stirling important factor that is fueling the move to outsourcing. ABTS Global LP In our opinion, there are four emerging best practices in information systems acquisition that are particularly A large number of new information systems are important: judged to be full or partial failures. Many of these failures • OGC Gateway Review have their roots in a flawed procurement process. Not • IEEE standard for software acquisition surprisingly, there is a large and growing effort under way to improve information system procurement. • Software Engineering Institute’s Software Acquisition Capability Maturity Model Procurement processes must meet the technical and business needs of the municipality. They must also meet • CSA System Life Cycle Processes. the requirements of the case law on procurement, the OGC Gateway Review procurement chapter of the Agreement on Internal Trade and the specific procurement policies of the municipality. The United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) developed The OGC Gateway Process, an IT Applying best practices in the municipal environment procurement guide. This is an external quality assurance can improve the chances of project success and, in Ontario, help municipalities to comply with the new process. The guide was designed to cover procurement procurement requirements set out in section 271 of the of “IT-enabled business change,” specific to the United Municipal Act, 2001. Kingdom’s central government. The ideas are now being applied quite broadly beyond the United Kingdom and Background with considerable success. It is well known that new information systems have a The OGC process is divided into six phases: business high failure rate. Failure can come in the form of not case development, procurement strategy development, meeting functional expectations, significant cost overruns competitive procurement, contract awarding and imple- or significant schedule delays. In the most extreme but mentation, contract management and closure. The not uncommon cases, new systems are judged to be Gateway process focuses on the questions that need to complete failures and are scrapped altogether. be answered at the end of the first five phases. There is Given the significant expense associated with failures also a strategic assessment review before the process of new information systems, much analysis has been begins and after it ends. done to try to determine the causes of and solutions to To proceed from developing a business case to these failures. In a large percentage of cases, the causes developing a procurement strategy, there is a business can be traced back to flaws in the procurement process. justification review that must be conducted by outsiders. Such flaws are many and varied. Examples include failure The OGC provides a 10-page outline of areas to probe to define expectations, failure to include key stakeholders, and failure to clearly communicate the municipality’s and what evidence to expect in connection with each expectations to vendors. area. Such a review is almost certain to uncover any significant problems with the procurement. Growth of Procurement Best Practices A similar, detailed review guide is provided for use at In an effort to try to correct flaws in the information systems the end of phases two through five. The OGC is also procurement process, there is a large and growing body developing a decision map to help organizations deter- of best practices that can be applied to IT procurement. mine the procurement approach that best meets their Best practices are really only common sense. Field-proven particular needs. All in all, the OGC provides a useful best practices in IT procurement have another important and impressive procurement guide. virtue: they have been improved through use in hundreds or thousands of procurement exercises. IEEE Standard Regrettably, the use of these field-tested processes is The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. anything but common. The resulting failures constitute an (IEEE) has adopted a standard for software life cycle

27 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 processes (IEEE/EIA 12207.0). There are two related IEEE and describing what is required for an organization to standards, one about life-cycle data and the other about reach each level. implementation considerations. These standards were At the lowest level (initial), success depends on a developed to provide a common vocabulary for, and a hero who manages to get it right. The organization has common approach to, software life cycles. They provide a very little in place to help with software acquisition. foundation and can be viewed as recommended practice. Procurement discipline emerges only at the next level The IEEE has also established a standard for software (repeatable) where "basic acquisition project-manage- acquisition. It doesn't include a maturity model, but Consequences of non-compliance are severe it does include a 16-page checklist to “assist organizations in establishing ment processes are established to plan all aspects of the their own software acquisition process.” acquisition." For many organizations, this would be a significant improvement over current practice. Software Acquisition Capability Maturity Model Each maturity level has key process areas that must The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon be mastered.The repeatable level has seven: University has developed a Software Acquisition • Software acquisition planning Capability Maturity Model (ESC-TR-2002-010). The full model is available on the institute's Web site for unlimited • Solicitation distribution for internal purposes. • Requirements development and management It follows the general maturity model approach SEI • Project management has used in other areas, identifying five maturity levels • Contract tracking and oversight • Evaluation • Transition to support Subsequent levels add new key process areas to be mastered. It typically takes an organization one year or more to move from one level to the next in the maturity process. Each key process area has one or more associated goals. Against each process area are targets for commitment to perform, ability to perform, activities performed, measurement and analysis, and verification. This model provides a considerable level of guidance. For example, there are seven activities identified with software acquisition planning, and most of the activities are described in some detail. One such activity includes establishing and maintaining appropriate documentation. This, in turn, is broken down into seven documents that are typically included in the documentation set. They range from a document that lists all relevant policies for the areas of the acquisition, to a document that describes the measurements to determine the progress of the acquisition. The next level that is defined adds another six key process areas, ranging from process definition and maintenance to training-program management. Key process areas are added as the organization advances to the quantitative level and then to the optimizing level, where there is “continuous process improvement, empowered by quantitative feedback from the process and from piloting innovative ideas and technologies.”

28 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005

The SA-CMM can be a useful tool to help an organi- • Be useable, in that the process must not require zation to improve its IT procurement process. unrealistic levels of expertise; and CSA System Life Cycle Processes • Be practical, so that the process must not impose an unreasonable amount of overhead, either in cost The international standards community has a best or time. practices standard for System Life Cycle Processes. It has been accepted as a National Standard of Canada Deliver Superior Value (CAN/DSA-ISO/IEC 15288:04) by the Canadian Standards Given the tremendous pressures in today’s municipal Institute (CSA). The virtue of this CSA standard is that it environment, IT managers must improve the value they places acquisition in the context of a structured process deliver for IT expenditures. that covers all aspects of the system life cycle. Procurement smoothly integrates into all other system activities. If they do not improve this value, outsourcing becomes a more and more appealing alternative. Applying Best Practices in Municipalities The emerging body of best procurement practices We know that the municipal environment is a difficult for information systems, if properly applied, can help place to operate information systems departments. IT to deliver superior value in a way that meets the Budget deficits impose unrelenting pressure to reduce increasingly complex legal requirements. costs, yet residents continue to expect service levels to be maintained, or improved. They also expect increasing numbers of services to be available online. The authors are consultants with ABTS Global LP,the con- Despite the constant pressures, the legal framework sulting affiliate of Aird & Berlis LLP and an associate member requires that purchasing activities be operated in accor- of MISA Ontario. For further information, please contact dance with procedures that are fair, open and transparent. Denis Chamberland at [email protected]. n The consequences for failure to meet the procurement principles that apply to municipalities – as set out in the case law, the Agreement on Internal Trade, the municipality’s policies and, in Ontario, new section 271 of the Municipal Act, 2001 – can be severe. The case law is replete with purchasing processes that have breached basic requirements, with the result that municipalities have been required to reimburse suppliers for the costs of preparing their bids, or worse, their lost profits. There are advantages to applying the power of the emerging disciplines in information systems purchasing to the municipal environment. We have developed our own procurement processes for information systems, Got telephone exhaustion which offer you the peace of mind that you will not seeking Network advice, become bogged down in bidder challenges (which are on the rise). help and service? An integrated solution combines expertise on the Make just one call: technical, business and legal aspects of information Packet Works complete Internet & systems acquisition. We understand that, to be useful, Network Solutions an information systems procurement process needs to: • Be adaptable to fit a wide range of procurement Internet Access + Network Solutions + Security + Service = initiatives of all sizes and complexities • Cover the complete system life cycle, from formulating the initial business case to retiring or replacing the system Contact Packet Works Today for your single source solution! • Incorporate outside observers to impose a discipline that ensures that projects are not “hurried along” to 1.866.723.7703 www.packetworks.net meet an unrealistic schedule

29 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 Protecting Networks Across Jurisdictions To Be Focus of Panel at Showcase Ontario

By Heather Hudson Registration for Showcase Ontario opens July 11. Senior Writer Registration fees for public servants to attend the Office of the Corporate Information Officer conference are sponsored by the Information Ontario Management Board Secretariat Technology organization of the Government of Ontario. In the meantime, the Web site at www.showcase Public services have never been more widely ontario.com contains more information on the educational available, but our IT systems are often prime targets for programs, inter-jurisdictional networking opportunities viruses and security breaches. and Ontario initiatives that will be on display on the The Ontario government alone repels an average of trade show floor. 1.6 million hack attempts on its computer system each A Showcase Ontario booth will also be at the MISA month. That’s one attempt about every 1.6 seconds, Ontario Annual Conference and Trade Show, June 5-8 roughly equivalent to how frequently you blink. in Windsor. In 2003 and 2004, the Province of Ontario’s Corporate Security Branch reported that 30 per cent of attacks come Panel of Experts through e-mails and downloads and 37 per cent just from Members of the panel discussion on security will be: being connected to the Internet. The lag time from vul- • Serge Dupuis, chief security officer, Government of nerability to attack has fallen drastically from 27 months Alberta and chair, National CIO Sub-committee on back in 2001 (Bugbear virus) to 18 days in 2004 (Sasser). Information Protection (NCSIP). The sub-committee How do we protect ourselves? was formed by the Public Sector CIO Council to provide Showcase Ontario, the largest public sector IT education an effective inter-governmental forum focused on conference and trade show in Canada, will address these information security. concerns in detail September 19-21 in Toronto. Hosted by the Ontario government and open to all municipal, • Claire McKay, manager, technology infrastructure, provincial and federal public servants, this year’s event Information & Technology Services, Region of Peel, will examine how to maintain system integrity and avail- Ontario. She is a MISA representative on NCSIP and ability in a constantly changing and increasingly hostile one of the organizers of the 3rd Annual MISA IT IT environment. Security Conference to be held November 21-22 in Mississauga, Ontario. Challenges of Integration • Barbara Conrod, chief, strategic coordination, “Seamless services to the citizens of Ontario rely on Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre integrating computer networks and cooperation from (CCIRC), Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness all levels of government, providing both opportunities Canada. The CCIRC serves as Canada’s focal point and challenges,” said Peter Macaulay, senior manager for dealing with cyber threats to critical infrastructure. responsible for IT security from policy development to network monitoring within the Ontario government. It provides cyber security services such as incident response coordination and support, monitoring “We have an opportunity to spread the security and threat analysis, as well as technical advice blanket wider and improve overall security, but our chal- and awareness for critical infrastructure owners lenge is dealing with the new vulnerabilities introduced through inter-connectivity.” and operators. From the panel discussion, participants will learn • Dale Tasker, manager, Policy and Information how certain jurisdictions counter cyber threats and Protection Centre and Policy, Corporate Security maintain a stronger security posture. Designed to be Branch, Government of Ontario. CSB is responsible interactive as well, the discussion will invite all members for information technology security from policy to help design strengthened secure networks we can all development to network monitoring within the rely on in today’s environment. Ontario government. n 30

MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005

SECURITY ISSUES Security Assessment Findings By Roy Wiseman Chief Information Officer/Director, Information Technology Services Regional Municipality of Peel, Ontario

As the Region of Peel has discovered, sometimes 9. Business continuity management – to protect critical it’s what you don’t know that counts. business processes from the effects of major failures or disasters We recently completed a high-level assessment with an external vendor of our IT security, based on the ISO 10.Compliance – with legal and regulatory requirements, 17799 framework. Since I suspect that the results of the including understanding of applicable legislation. assessment at Peel can probably apply generally to Before you read further, it may be interesting to consider many municipalities, it is worth sharing our vendor’s where you think your organization would rank against findings on what we do well – and what we don’t. each of these domains. In which ones do you think that your organization would get a high or passing grade? Assessment Process In which would you require the most work? The assessment was based primarily on interviews with IT and other staff (Internal Audit, Property Management, Peel Results Human Resources, Insurance and Risk Management), as First the bad news: when compared with all other orga- well as a review of available documentation on policies, nizations, Peel was clearly above average in only one standards and procedures. It was not intended to be a domain (business continuity management) and about full-scale analysis of our technical environment, including average in three others (see table below). penetration testing to find specific vulnerabilities. When compared against what the vendor called Our vendor provided an assessment of our ranking “public-facing organizations,” however, our results were against each of the 10 ISO 17799 domains: considerably better. (Because our vendor did not have sufficient data on government organizations, governments 1. Security policy – including senior management were lumped in a broader category of organizations, direction and support including the retail sector, that serve large numbers of 2. Organizational security – including clear lines of individuals as customers.) accountability for IT security 3. Asset classification and control – for both physical and information assets Domain Peel compared Peel compared with with all others other “public facing” 4. Personnel security – including both internal hiring practices and arrange- Security Policy Average Above ments with third parties and vendors Organizational Security Below Above Asset Classification 5. Physical and environment security – and Control Below Above for both data centre and client envi- Personnel Security Average Below ronments, including protection of and Physical and access to individual computers Environmental Security Below Above 6. Communications and operations Communications & management – focusing on data-centre Operations Management Below Above operations, security administration and separation of duties In reviewing these results, we consoled ourselves with 7. Access control – to provide and limit access to infor- the thought that only security-conscious organizations mation based on clear business need would undertake such assessments and that we would, 8. Systems development and maintenance – to ensure therefore, probably rank much higher if compared with that security is built into the design and project man- all other organizations. In addition, specific sections agement processes (rather than an afterthought) such as financial and banking report considerably higher

33 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 SECURITY ISSUES average scores, as might be expected, than the public- • Security needs to be built into the development facing group. process, with threat-risk assessments and privacy- Our vendor also noted that municipalities do not, impact assessments as a mandatory component of in general, represent a high-value target for the hacker any project. community, with the most likely incidents to befall • Effective security requires identifying and classifying municipalities being “collateral damage”from broad-based our assets, which are primarily information assets, so internal attacks (viruses, denial of service) or from use of that we know which categories of information and our technology as an unwitting participant in attacks services must be closely protected, require some degree against other organizations. of protection, or are, in fact, open to general access. Recommendations • Peel has lacked the resources to monitor security While the full report provides a good roadmap for effectively, especially of client compliance with security where we need to focus to improve our security, it is policies. At this time, we monitor more by exception worth highlighting a few of the recommendations: (when something is reported to us) and we’re envious • Peel received consistently high scores for the abilities of some municipalities who regularly look for and and commitment of its IT security staff and for the address situations, such as passwords on sticky notes range of tools deployed on our network perimeter. attached to the screen, or computers left on and But, as with many organizations, these technical unattended. approaches are not sufficient. We must also address Summary and Implications physical and personnel security, as well as client security awareness and practices. With our security assessment completed, Peel is now working to implement the key recommendations – not • A key recommendation was to clearly assign respon- only to improve our scores in a planned re-assessment sibility for IT security to a single individual and group. but, more importantly, to have more confidence that we While it is nice to say that security is everyone’s are fulfilling our responsibilities to appropriately protect responsibility, we must also clearly assign the responsibility – and authority – to a specific individual or our information and technology assets. individuals to ensure that security policies and In this regard, while municipalities may not be consid- practices are implemented within all of I&T Services, ered to be “high-value targets,” we collect and maintain including how technology is used throughout the sensitive information about our clients and customers as organization. The report also recommended an IT well as about our own employees. We risk being severely Security Steering Committee with representation embarrassed (or worse) if such data falls into the wrong from key stakeholders and with final authority over IT hands or is accidentally or deliberately exposed. We are security issues. also under a legal obligation to take all reasonable steps • Improved access control requires clearer policies and to safeguard certain data. technology solutions (identity management, VPN, IT directors and managers, especially in the public network security “zones”) related to access by vendors, sector, are in a bit of a Catch 22 on security issues. As contractors and affiliated organizations that provide long as nothing goes wrong, we have a hard time making services on behalf of the Region. We need to impose the case for needing more staff resources and budget clear rules on the use of our equipment and network, to address security concerns. At the same time, we and disconnect individuals or organizations that do know that if something ever does go wrong, it will be not abide by them. (Vendors, take note.) our heads on the block. • As with many public and government buildings, With this in mind, we all need to take a good look at physical and building security is still a concern. our current security environment and practices – and Strangers are permitted to roam unchallenged once again apply more of our scarce resources to ensure through the building. On his first day, our consultant that we have done all that we can to address any identi- was able to wander freely into an unoccupied cubicle fied areas of weakness. within I&T Services and begin using the computer – with no one asking who he was and what he was doing. (We failed this key test on our first day.) [email protected] n 34 MUNICIPAL Interface MAY 2005 National & Chapter Executives

Ontario Ontario Regional Directors CENTRAL Ralph Blauel, Region of Halton PRESIDENT Kathryn Bulko, City of Toronto 905-825-6000, x 7997 (fax 825-6057) [email protected] 416-397-9921 (fax 696-3634) [email protected] EASTERN David Johnston, City of Ottawa VICE PRESIDENT Harry Turnbull, City of Windsor 613-580-2424 (fax 560-1201) [email protected] 519-256-9500 (fax 256-3100) [email protected] NORTHERN Scott Bradford, City of North Bay PAST PRESIDENT Jim de Hoop, City of Kingston 705-474-0626, x 225 (fax 474-0783) [email protected] 613-546-4291 (fax 546-4051) [email protected] WESTERN Garry Bezruki, City of Waterloo TREASURER David Laneville, City of Timmins 519-747-8726 (fax 747-8727) [email protected] 705-360-1375 (fax 360-1390) [email protected] AT LARGE SECRETARY Karl Drysdale, City of London 519-661-2500 x 4945 (fax 661-5985) [email protected] Jury Konga,Town of Richmond Hill 905-771-2549 (fax 771-2494) [email protected] ASSOCIATE MEMBERS REPRESENTATIVES Bruno Mangiardi, City of Greater Sudbury Mark Lehmann, Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Ltd. 705-671-2489 x 2526 (fax 673-4535) 905-206-3419 (fax 206-3328) [email protected] [email protected] Ruth Gastle, Microsoft Canada Louis Shallal, Region of York 905-363-8645 (fax 568-1527) [email protected] 905-830-4444 x 1752 [email protected] REGIONAL NETWORKS FOR ONTARIO REPRESENTATIVE Roy Wiseman, Region of Peel Garry McGonigal 905-791-7800 (fax 791-4195) [email protected] 519-979-8162 (fax 735-1245) [email protected] EX OFFICIO Rose Langhout, Ontario Management Board Secretariat British Columbia 416-327-3061 [email protected] PRESIDENT Gerry Matte, Municipality of Saanich 2005 MISA CONFERENCE 250-475-5403 [email protected] Harry Turnbull, City of Windsor VICE PRESIDENT David Hennigan,The Capital Regional District 519-256-9500 [email protected] 250-360-3141 [email protected] PAST PRESIDENT Per Kristensen, City of Nanaimo 250-755-4418 [email protected] Atlantic TREASURER Doug Rasmussen, City of Kelowna 250-862-3339 x 315 [email protected] PRESIDENT Donna Waddell, City of Charlottetown 902-566-5548 (fax 629-4156) [email protected] SECRETARY Linda Kreutz, Greater Vancouver Regional District 604-436-6974 [email protected] EXECUTIVE MEMBER Maurice Gallant, City of Fredericton 506-460-2830 [email protected] Committee Chairs EXECUTIVE MEMBER Bill Todd, City of Saint John LIAISON WITH SISTER ORGANIZATIONS 506-658-2853 [email protected] Per Kristensen, City of Nanaimo 250-755-4418 [email protected] MEMBERSHIP Barbara Davey, City of Survey Prairie 604-591-4803 [email protected] COMMUNICATIONS Robert Surtees, Resort Municipality of Whistler PRESIDENT Peter Bennett, City of Winnipeg 604-935-8240 [email protected] 204-986-2495 [email protected] VENDOR REP Andy Cheng, Bell Canada VICE PRESIDENT Georganne Dupont, City of Airdrie 604-787-9797, [email protected] 403-948-8800 x 733 [email protected] WEB SITE Rick Adams, City of Coquitlam TREASURER Murray Chapman, Strathcona County 780-464-8108 [email protected] 604-927-3601 [email protected] CONFERENCE COMMITTEE Frank Mayhood, City of Kamloops 250-828-3441 (fax 828-3578) [email protected]