May Minutes

ITAC MEETING MINUTES
For May 17, 2007

Attendees:
Frieda Artis, Reggie Brown, Sondra Chaffee, Niamh Darcy, John Killebrew, Gloria McNeill and Shannon Schelin

Due to work schedule, Robert Michaud could not participate in today’s meeting.

Wake County:
Dan Edwards, Bill Scanlon, Vel Wallace and Lib Wanner

Lib welcomed everyone and stated that in this meeting we will review with ITAC where we are on our ERP project. The presenters are Bill Scanlon, Project Director, and Dan Edwards, Technical Manager. She stated that both Bill and Dan will present an overview of where we are and ask for your input on a few of the challenges we are facing.

eWake: Perspective & Lessons Learned:
Bill Scanlon gave the group an overview of the project itself, for their clarification and as a reminder. He covered the purpose, goals, timeframe and products that comprise the ERP system, which is called the eWake System. He stated that we just kicked off the design phase of the HR component and we are currently in the build phase of the Finance component. Bill indicated that one of the things we have done is to capture lessons learned while we are actively working through the project for each phase.

Bill then turned the presentation over to Dan Edwards to talk about the technical environment. Dan outlined the technical architecture being used and the major software components. He stated that the County plans to use the Oracle 10G database, which is the latest release. He stated that we are still not sure if we are going to be using the standard or the enterprise edition, and that we are trying to stay with the standard because of the cost difference and because the standard edition of Oracle 10G is robust enough for our use.

Dan stated that we will be using Windows 2003 as the operating system. He stated that we had considered using other operating systems because the CGI development platform is UNIX-AIX, but decided to stay with Windows.

Lib pointed out that the lessons she learned in this process were that she thought we were buying an integrated software package and she didn’t realize it would have this many moving parts to keep track of. She stated that one of the lessons she learned was to have a different set of questions in our evaluation process so that she had a realistic view of what an integrated product was. She stated that she thought it would be a little simpler.

Lib then asked the group if they had similar experiences on either ERP projects or other complex system projects. She asked if they were surprised with all the moving parts involved. Niamh replied yes, there are usually a lot of different pieces in complex projects like this. She said it actually works better to have different pieces designed to do different things, because you have more control over what you can do and they are more specifically for that type of function. She stated that the systems she worked with before that were completely integrated, like the Oracle ERP, tend to be so tied together that is hard to do anything about a piece of functionality that you need to improve.

Bill then asked for the group's input on a number of project management issues. He stated that we have learned is that there is a balance between the functional role and the project management role in terms of how a project works. The functional group is focused on the product itself, and the project manager is focused on the project and keeping things on time, watching the budget, and all those elements of project management.

Bill then asked the group if there were these different roles in projects they had experience with, and if so, how they balanced the two roles. Niamh replied that for larger projects they usually set up a project steering committee and that they have a project manager on the IS side, and then there has to be an equivalent person on the functional side. She stated that the project manager on the IS side is responsible for the overall project and getting everything done within budget and on time.

Niamh stated that a project steering committee can then be the group that can assist in resolving bottlenecks when they come up and when there is a difference of opinion about components of functionality. She suggested that, if you can find an equivalent counterpart to the IS Project Manager in the functional organization that you can work with on a daily basis, but then also have an overall steering committee, this is an effective structure.

Bill stated that one of the challenges we had early on was the desire for the functional people to expect that the project manager had to be in every functional meeting and understand the system deeply but yet keep the project on track. Niamh stated that this is impossible to do. John agreed. He stated that the functional people are already busy, and the project manager's job is to get the project done using functional people who are already busy. He said this is challenging, and they use situational management to deal with issues.

Lib stated that one of the things that Bill and Dan have done lately is to meet with the functional groups involved and map out blackout dates to determine the key times when they know they can’t pay attention to the project due to other work constraints. Then they build the project schedule around those blackout dates. Both Niamh and John agreed that this was a good idea.

Bill then asked the group, in your organizations do you tend to be more deadlines-driven or do you use any kind of scheduling techniques to be able to say, "Here is how we are progressing according to our schedule"? In essence, how do you manage your time?

John stated that they are deadline-oriented in a significant way, and they pay attention to benchmarks that were established on the front end of the project to track progress. He stated that their intent is to have good benchmarks that they can use to check their progress and determine at regular intervals if they are as far along as they should be, and if not, why not? He said if they are not where they need to be they take corrective action. John said his advice is to do this as early in the process as you can so you have time to adjust.

Dan stated that one of the challenges that we have faced is that we are an early adopter of the total ERP package that CGI is offering, and the vendor does not have as much experience in implementation. John stated that we are definitely doing situational management in this case. Dan agreed and stated that this is one of the risks of being the first one out of the box on something like this.

Niamh stated that they are deadline-driven, also, and they manage budget and milestones in the project, as well. She stated that they have a standard way of tracking projects from a project management perspective, and depending on the size of the project, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly tracking is used.

Niamh stated from the company perspective, that they have a project management review process, and depending on the size of the project, every quarter, every six months or every year they look at all of the different attributes of the project to see where the project is.

Lib then stated that CGI just had an audit on our project to help them see how they are doing with their project management work, which we will benefit from, as well.

Bill then asked the group how they handle communication in their larger projects, in terms of engaging people yet not giving them information that is not solid when things are still being developed. Bill asked how they balance their communication effort with all the other work being done. Niamh replied it is always hard to find the exact right way to manage that, but she suggested that early communication expectation-setting around what you think is needed, in terms of resources, as well as getting input from people early on, in terms of what they need.

Niamh suggested getting feedback along the way and making sure you don’t compromise what is needed to get the job done on the project. She said if the functional people are saying that they don’t want to meet with you or can’t spend that much time on the project, and if you can’t deliver what needs to be delivered without getting that time with them, then the issue needs to be escalated to a steering committee to make sure all the functional needs are captured.

As a way to engage people in the business units, Niamh stated she would identify the individuals within that functional organization who are more interested in information systems and try to see if they could be involved in the project.

John stated that, regarding communication, if we are going to err, we would rather err on the side of over-communication. He stated that they have the same challenge, so he understands why Bill addressed the question to the group. Dan stated that one of the real challenges we have is in our project team meetings, where an issue might come up and some subset of people at the team meeting needs to take a deep dive into it, and you lose two-thirds of the room while they take that deep dive. He said the only other option is to schedule another meeting with that subset of people, which infringes on other work, so it’s a hard balance to strike.

Lib asked the group for their experience in putting in new systems where employees need to understand a fuller system rather than just one, narrow aspect of work, like accounts payable, invoice processing and contract routing. Lib said, in the new way, we are imagining more skilled workers who understand the whole process and where they fit in it.

Lib asked if the group thought making this charge with employees is an impossible dream or a worthy goal worth pursuing. Niamh responded that there is so much involved in that which is more outside the IS area and more within changing the way people look at their own functional area, and it is an uphill battle for IS to try to drive that change. Niamh said her experience is, unless you get someone more senior on board in the functional unit who is really going to drive that change and be a champion, then you are basically fighting an uphill battle.

Lib stated that we are fortunate to have that champion in our Finance Director, but her staff is not yet thinking as broadly. Related to this, Lib said she and Bill have been discussing change management and met with someone a couple of weeks ago, and his thought was to show the people the system and get their reaction to it rather than using business scenarios. She said that he said it doesn’t have to be finished or perfect, but the point is to let them see the screens, the general idea of what the new system will look like. Lib stated that if we show people an idea of the concept, they will get what we are talking about and can provide better input and be more prepared for the change. Lib asked if that approach makes sense to the group.

Niamh, Gloria and John stated that it made perfect sense. Niamh stated that if it is all too theoretical and too abstract from something that is actually going to help them do their jobs better, then they are not going to be as engaged. But if they actually see screens and see something and can do something in a different way or have more functionality, they will be more engaged to see the possibilities for a change. Lib stated that there is a world of difference in having something written on a piece of paper and seeing it.

Gloria stated she liked the idea, because people would feel like they were involved in the process and may put a different spin on it, in terms of user acceptance. Lib stated they were told that employees don’t want to come to meetings and see these things on flow charts or read business cases. But if you show the idea on the screen and ask them what is wrong with it versus what is right with it, then it is constructive input from a critical point of view, which is helpful.

Gloria then stated that for every application they deploy, they try to do formal user acceptance testing, where we get some of the user-stakeholders to take a look at it beforehand. Niamh added that getting a small group of users involved along the way, where you can show them early screens, is also important before you get to any kind of final user acceptance testing, because then they would be more engaged in building the system and much more likely to be champions. Gloria also stated that it is also much cheaper to get input early on.

Bill stated what he is hearing from the group is that we need to get to the next level of staff to get the people involved from the departments who are actually going to do the work, and asked if this is correct. Gloria stated yes, and that her organization even talks to management or people from different areas and sometimes uses a train-the-trainer approach and has that person come in and train staff on how the application works. She stated that they go back and introduce the new system to the larger population in that way. Niamh stated that she thought this was a good way to do this.

Dan then discussed a few more technical issues with the group. He stated that we now acquire equipment and software six weeks in advance of when we think we need it, rather than acquiring our entire infrastructure at the front end of the project, to manage cost and to limit our risk of getting inappropriate equipment. Dan asked the group for their thoughts on this approach.

Niamh stated that they typically purchase equipment in two phases -- the first phase is a subset of the final equipment, and they use that to test, as a pilot. She said that way you learn from that, and you can tweak the rest of the procurement. John agreed and said they use this approach, also. Niamh stated that this also allows you to train the staff better, rather than rolling everything out at once. John agreed.

Dan asked the group, in management of large systems, what has been your experience on breaking up the work between technical teams, functional teams, and system administrators? Niamh stated that they tend to have technical people who have much stronger systems background and are considered software engineers versus application developers. She stated that if she just works with pure system administrators, they don’t normally understand fully all the usages of the applications and some of the configuration pieces, while the software engineer has a better understanding of how the application is used. So, they tend to have all three. John stated that they typically don’t have many resources on a project, so they would tend to go with the engineers.

Lib asked if there were any other questions, in terms of observations about what we have been discussing, that could help with the project. John stated that he could certainly appreciate what we are grappling with and said we are doing a good job. Niamh agreed and stated that this is very comprehensive. Lib stated that we are fortunate to have great people on our team and hope to have a successful project.

Lib stated that we will be taking a summer break. Therefore, we will not be meeting in the months of June, July or August. Meeting adjourned at 10 a.m.