Critical Information Technology budgeted at $9 million is expected to require an additional $3 million

By Pepper Parr

December 8th, 2021

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Without information technology the city could not open the doors each day.

A lot of very smart people make the technology do what it is expected to do – and making it work is a challenge.

Chad MacDonald: Chief Information Officer

Different computer applications have to learn to “talk” to each other and feed information to each other so that senior staff and council can have an up to date (sometimes up to the minute) information on which to make decisions.

The other given for the technology, the people is money – this stuff is wickedly expensive and the people who work in Information Technology are not cheap – and there aren’t enough of them to go around.

Municipalities will poach from each other to get people who can make it all come together.

Earlier in the week Council got a Status Report on some of the projects for the period August to October.

It wasn’t all bad news – but there wasn’t a lot of really really good news for Council.

The program budget for the Enterprise Resource Planning program is $9,480,000 with more required in the near future.  A Council report and funding request will be presented in April of 2022.  The ask then is in the $3 million range.

One of the problems with keeping on top of these essential but very essential programs is that few of the seven members have much in the way of an understanding of what is involved. Councillors Sharman and Kearns have a good grip on the subject: Kearns is the sharper of the two.

Sharman is good at holding senior Staff to account.  There was an “iconic” Council session last year when Sheila Jones went toe to toe with Councillor Sharman with Jones reminding the Councillor that the approach for members of Council was “noses in – fingers out”.

Councillor Sharman does, from time to time get down into the weeds – the Senior staff in place now are quite good at curbing that Sharman habit.

Burlington has a number of projects delivering customer centric services with a focus on efficiency and technology transformation. Specifically, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Asset Management Software (EAMS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Business Intelligence (BI) have a corporate designation reflecting the breadth and depth of the scope of these projects and their contribution to achieving customer first approach and digital transformation.

This report also provided information on the theory of status reporting and the key elements of status reports in the City of Burlington including:

Overall project status that considers scope, budget, and schedule and where clear criteria is established to objectively assess the status within each area.

A brief description of the project and alignment to strategic goals.

Highlights of key achievements since the last reporting period and key tasks planned for the upcoming period.

Highlights of critical risks and challenges that form part of the risk management plan.

Key tasks that address communications and engagement and information related to staff resourcing.

Links to documents or tools and other information that may be relevant based on the project status.

In keeping with open communication and engagement, the report provides Committee and Council with an update on each of the three corporate initiatives including overall status, key milestones, critical risks, and other relevant information with the goal of providing assurance that project governance is working effectively.

While the criteria and guidance for assessing a project’s health status have recently been amended within the context of overall project management practices with Information Technology Services, we are deferring its use until 2023. This deferral will provide us with an opportunity to take a refreshed look at the report template to enhance the information reported to council. In addition, we are reviewing our inventory of corporate- wide projects to appropriate status reporting is provided to Council.

 

The most critical computer application that is being worked up has too many serious risk points. It is too late to go back. The CRM application should be dropped. Hydro installed one that works just fine – borrow from them.

Councillors Nisan, Bentivegna, Stolte and to a considerable degree Councillor Galbraith are lost when technology is the issue. They are easily snowed by Staff.  Burlington has a mix of computer applications that have reached the end of their life cycle and are no longer being supported; other applications have to be revised or replaced in order to communicate with the larger more robust applications that are being used now.

Some budget items can baffle people because of their complexity. It becomes very difficult to hold Staff accountable.

Understanding complex integrated information technology matters is beyond most Councillors.

To understand the size of the challenge calls for some literacy which most of the Councillors don’t have.  The Mayor tends to take what she hears on faith knowing that she can collar the city manager during their weekly meetings that are not on the record.

Sometime ago the city began integrating a Customer Response Management (CRM) program – the first step did not go well.  Members of Council were livid and demanded that the city administration not get in between the Councillors and the voters.

There were solid reasons for putting a CRM program in place when it went kaflooey the Councillors were in a position to demand immediate changes.  That dynamic is unlikely to apply to other situations.

It is generally realized and understood that data is needed to make decisions and that for the most part the data is “in there somewhere”  Isolating the data and setting it up so that it is accessible by other applications is the expensive challenge the city faces.

The Business Information reviews have been completed; they gave the Information Technology people a deep understanding of their operational needs. Chad MacDonland, Chief Information Officer told Council that the work has gone so well that his team has been able to show staff demonstration version of what the completed integration will look like.

Is this the kind of thing a Council member would lust over

However, all the information requirements were not met. Councillor Sharman said that he “lusts after the sense of confidence” he would get from seeing Gantt Charts – and asked if they existed and if they existed were they available.

Executive Director Jones reminded Sharman that the Councillors role was: “noses in, fingers out”.

The Gantt charts exist – no assurance that Sharman will get to see them.

 

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5 comments to Critical Information Technology budgeted at $9 million is expected to require an additional $3 million

  • Gary Scobie

    Ha Perry. A good laugh. But you do realize that the only computers that existed in the late 50s were massive units enclosed in secure locked-down rooms and operated by professional staff only, right? No one else could enter or ever even glimpse the consoles that operated the computer. So non-IT people couldn’t even look at, let alone touch anything. Any bulletin like this, if it existed, would never be viewed by a non-IT person. No wonder I’ve never heard this one before and I used to be an “IT person” back in the day.

    • perryb

      Well, I worked on these things too, starting in about 1962. There were actually lots of people in the computer rooms, starting with visiting dignitaries who wanted to see what they were paying the big bucks for, students getting a tour, newspaper reporters, cleaning staff, and worst of all, IBM salesmen (like me) and their customers. So it was kind of an inside joke, like ‘nose in, hands off’, but with a purpose.

      • Gary Scobie

        OK Perry. Glad you clarified it. And of course you’re right that “others”, as you point out, were given tours and staff would have been told to clean but don’t touch and the ever present IBM guys would be around too. In my case it was CDC guys at McMaster, but not till 1970. And I thought I was old! Alas, too young to have seen the bulletin, but it’s a good one.

        • perryb

          We’ll have to trade war stories sometime. I was responsible for the University of Windsor and CDC was the enemy!

  • perryb

    This story brought to mind a joke bulletin posted on computers all over the world in the late 50s, to warn non-IT people to look but don’t touch:

    ACHTUNG! Alles touristen und non-technischen looken peepers!
    Das machine control is nicht fur gerfinger-poken und mittengrabben. Oderwise is easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowen fuse, und poppencorken mit spitzensparken.
    Der machine is diggen by experten only. Is nicht fur geverken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseenen keepen das cotten picken hands in das pockets, so relaxen und watchen das blinkenlights.