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Tying a Sensible Knot: A Practical Guide to State-Local Information Systems

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Executive Summary

Chapter 1. Understanding the State-Local Environment

Chapter 2. Principles for Working in the State-Local Environment

Chapter 3. Best Practices

Appendices
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Chapter 3. Best Practices

Make the best use of vendors


We’ve all heard the phrase, "Don’t reinvent the wheel." If the technology you need has already been developed and is available for you to use, then you shouldn’t waste time and resources recreating it. Another increasingly common phrase is, "Outsource it." Depending on the nature of your project and the availability of resources, it can make good sense to pay an expert to build the system for you, so you can concentrate on the work that needs your specialized expertise.

Managing organizational interdependencies and new partnerships, setting data standards, and facilitating group decision making are just a few of the challenges to state-local government project teams. These processes require the programmatic and contextual knowledge that government officials possess. Technical expertise to support the implementation of a new network, a new database engine, or a more intuitive graphical user interface is not the exclusive knowledge of government officials. A number of the projects in the eleven reviewed in this effort had no technical expertise on the project team. Either the resources were not available in the participating agencies at all or they were not available to these projects. In some cases, technical expertise was available on the teams but in limited quantity.

To overcome the resource limitations and to maintain focus on the programmatic challenges, a number of the teams operated as systems integrators rather than as system developers. Project teams identified portions of the plan that could be outsourced to technical specialists and then managed those relationships. This hybrid approach allowed for substantial time savings. In many cases the project participants recognized the value of various technical approaches to implementation of the system, however, the necessary technical expertise was not available on the team. Rather than investing in developing those skills first, and then designing and developing the system, the team focused on business process issues and basic design and handed off the detailed design and hands-on development work to vendors. In a number of cases, vendors were able, due to their comprehensive knowledge of the technology and the use of an iterative prototyping approach, to contribute to the design efforts as well. It is important to remember, however, that agency staff will need to develop the skills to maintain the system unless an ongoing maintenance relationship with vendors is part of the overall plan.


Immunization Information: Experts put the technology pieces together

The immunization registry project is organized into four regional demonstrations areas, covering large numbers of individuals and needs. In considering the resources necessary to effectively design and develop a system, participants agreed that neither the state nor the localities had enough technical staff to do the system development work in addition to other project activities and existing assignments. As a result, an approach was selected that freed the project team from the burden of technical development and allowed them to focus on identifying and meeting disparate local needs within a set of statewide goals.

The project team chose to focus on the local and state program needs and on acquiring a general understanding of available technologies to address these needs. They became familiar with a number of potential technology solutions and began to understand what kind of system would best meet their needs. They then turned to the private sector for technical experts to implement the technology pieces. A private firm was brought in as the systems integrator and was charged with subcontracting the necessary technical development to appropriately skilled vendors. The knowledge gained in the process of self- education about needs and possible technical approaches gave the project team greater confidence when working with the integrator and helped them educate the vendor as well as themselves.


Automated Dog Licensing: Selling to the vendors

When planning for the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets Dog Licensing system, the project team was acutely aware of the time and staff constraints that all participants faced. To meet the project schedule, they decided to look to the vendor community for technical solutions while they concentrated on the data and operational issues. Knowing that many municipalities use commercial packages designed to support the usual functions of Town, City, and Village Clerks, the team created high- level system specifications and issued an RFP looking for companies interested in adding dog licensing to their packages. This approach would allow several vendors to build and market versions of the system as long as each provided a mechanism for the data to be sent from their system to the Ag & Markets centralized database. Several vendors responded to the RFP and the competitive aspect of multiple vendors vying for a limited market ensured that all would have to build quality products.

The NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets talked extensively with vendors to ensure that the requirements for automated dog licensing could work with local systems already in place. This helped many localities, especially small ones, save money and time while allowing them to make useful connections to a new statewide system. Some local officials told us that being able to use existing systems to meet the requirements of automated licensing made all the difference in their enthusiasm and willing compliance with the new program. This approach also generated unexpected side benefits when vendors offered suggestions for making both the centralized system and the field system design more efficient.


Real Property System: Buy some and build some

Version 4 of the software to support Real Property Services in NYS is being developed with relational database technologies. The team reviewed the technology and application marketplace, as well as the systems and software located in the local agencies before deciding on the appropriate platform and approach to use in developing the new release of this software.

The challenge faced by the Office of Real Property Services (ORPS) in implementing this development approach was the fact that few, if any, of their MIS staff had experience in these technologies. The question facing the project team was this: Do we develop in the technologies we know or do we work with the technologies that better meet the needs of the users? Clearly, the right choice was to match the technology to user needs, but how could they do that with no in house technical expertise? To address this challenge ORPS technical staff worked with vendors to build components of the system while in parallel building capability in the agency to handle these technologies themselves. As ORPS staff became more knowledgeable about the relational technologies, they were increasingly able to participate in the design and development activities. The ongoing maintenance and enhancement of the system is expected to be the responsibility of the newly trained ORPS MIS staff.