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

Chapter 3. Best Practices

Understand and improve processes before you apply technology

A system that successfully supports both the service delivery role of local governments and the information requirements of the state usually results from a clear understanding of the dependencies and requirements that govern the business processes that link them together.

In many cases when an organization takes on a project to improve a complex business process, those involved in the process are brought together for the first time. Most work processes have evolved over long periods of time and reflect the idiosyncrasies or preferences of individuals or of program and policy changes. Often, no one knows the whole story or the basis behind particular tasks or sub-tasks.

Project teams often find that a significant amount of the improvement they expect from a new system, actually comes from understanding and improving these processes. Subsequently, automation can often add further improvement. Several approaches were used by the eleven project teams to ensure that the participants understood and improved the complete business process involved in their systems efforts.

Bringing state-local project participants together in an effort to map or outline the business process under consideration for improvement is critical to the success of an intergovernmental project. The information flows and process dependencies within and among organizations are complicated and seldom under the complete control of any one organization. Participants in these efforts certainly begin to understand the related processes in place in the other agencies, but in many cases they also come to better understand their own processes.Once participants are fully aware of the business process under consideration, the basis or rationale behind particular steps, and the effect of those steps on the overall process, they are then able to begin reviewing the process for improvement opportunities. If a particular step in the process results from a statutory requirement, then the step cannot be removed and the freedom to modify that step is limited. However, if a particular task is based on agency practice which has evolved over time and the rationale is no longer relevant, then the task may be considered for removal or refinement. Redundant and inefficient steps can be identified and removed. After this process improvement effort, a system design can go forward with greater likelihood of sucess.

Probation Automation: On-site "walk-throughs"

The Probation Automation Team conducted extensive "walk- throughs" of the seven local probation departments represented on the design team. They used a standard protocol to document the business practices of each department to determine whether their practices were similar enough to warrant a standardized process that could be supported by one new system. The Directors from all seven local agencies plus state staff (both technical and program) from the Division of Criminal Justice Services and the Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives took part in each site visit. Each local department received a written summary of the documentation for review, comments, and revision. The next step was a "cross-walk" among the seven write-ups to identify both similarities and differences among these local operations. The result was a flow chart and process element narratives that will be used to design the new system. These documents not only established the feasibility of standard business processes, they also turned out to be quite useful in other settings, such as orientation for new staff and input to other business process improvement activities like document imaging.

SALESNET: Every player at the table

In preparation for developing an automated system to record and report property sales, the NYS Office of Real Property Services (ORPS) organized a highly representative statewide Steering Committee which acted as both an advisory group and a communication conduit. In organizing the committee, the ORPS team invited representatives of the Bar Association, the municipal assessors, county clerks, title companies, county directors of real property services, and county IT directors. Through the contacts on the Steering Committee, stakeholders in the counties who deal with property sales and transfers were surveyed about their readiness for adopting an automated system. The survey results helped the developers choose the pilot site and it helped provide a realistic user perspective.

The team also operated in parallel with an overall core process improvement project underway at the Office of Real Property Services. The core process improvement effort produces maps that explain what users are doing in transactions that affect real property. One group of representative clerks, assessors, and lawyers were brought together in Orange County to determine every step of the sales process, including what happens in the prelude to a sale. A data flow diagram that resulted showed the process from beginning to end. This helped the development team focus on users needs in designing a friendly, functional system - and one that would make sense in the context of the overall core processes that support real property transactions all around the state.

"Often, much of the improvement we expect from a new system actually comes from understanding and improving business processes."

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