To marshal their support, Reed and his team had to make both the government and public value proposition clear to the stakeholders. The team asked the County Auditors what record series was in highest demand in their counties. Making them available in digital form and Web accessible would free server space and relieve significant foot traffic in county offices. Secretary Reed and his team also worked to enlist state agency support by highlighting how the WSDA could relieve state agencies of growing digital record management and preservation responsibilities. The public value message was carried to the Heritage Caucus, a group of state legislators and other elected officials, state heritage, cultural and lands agencies and non-profit organizations that meets weekly to discuss local and state history. Local historical societies and genealogy researchers were enlisted to lobby for the greatly improved access and preservation the WSDA would provide for their activities. Genealogist became particularly strong supporters, many of whom currently volunteer to help archive family history records.

The WSDA team was required to deal with most agency stakeholders through two boards of the state’s Department of Information Services, the Information Services Board (ISB) and the Customer Advisory Board (CAB). Approval of the 15 member ISB, composed of state legislators and executives from state agencies, was necessary for the WSDA and all large state IT projects. The CAB brings customers and stakeholders together to review and advise on projects, particularly in the planning and design phases. The WSDA team was thus required to first convince stakeholders in the CAB of the project’s value, and then present a full project plan to the ISB for ultimate approval.

Working with the CAB was where the value of the WSDA came into conflict with the potential costs of transforming the archiving process. The initial plan presented to the CAB was for the WSDA to choose a digital content management system for the sending agencies to use in collecting and preparing digital records for the WSDA. That plan met with substantial resistance. The counties and state agencies did not want to have a new system imposed on them, with all the attendant costs of the new systems and changeover. Neither did they want to take on responsibility for the archiving process. Some agencies said they would go to the legislature to have the program abolished, or simply delete the records rather than deal with some new, high cost archiving system. After months of deliberation, the WSDA team agreed to avoid any new technology that would require the agencies to install any new systems or make radical changes to their current record keeping processes. Whatever the new technology would be, it would place the burden on the WSDA of accommodating its intake process to the existing record systems in the agencies. This concession to maintain the WSDA’s value to the agency partners, while reducing the cost to them, allowed the planning and legislating process to move forward.

Some important issues that arose during the WSDA project team’s work with the stakeholders through the ISB and CAB are shown below in Table 1. State regulations required that all large IT projects, like the WSDA, be evaluated by the Department of Information Services DIS). This review examines benefits to stakeholders and risk management. Table 1 includes examples of the policy, technology, and management risks identified and the WSDA project team’s plans to mitigate these risks.¹¹

Table 1. Examples from the WSDA Risk Management Plan
Risk	Impact	Likelihood of Occurring	Mitigation Plan Example
Local and state government client agencies may demonstrate some resistance to archiving of electronic records	High	Medium	The state legislation governing archives will be revised with participation from all stakeholder groups to ensure their understanding of requirements for archiving electronic records and that the requirements are doable. With client agency involvement in development of the rules, we anticipate a sense of ownership on their part and an additional desire to participate. The Secretary of State will meet with management of state and local agencies, working with them to determine which records are of archival value and the method by which they will be transmitted to the Digital Archives. Processes will be established to allow for transmittal of records with a minimum of manual intervention, and instead focus on automated processes that will require initial set up only.
There is no universal content management system used by state and local government client agencies. Lack of a universal system necessitates more manual and less automated systems for capturing, managing and preparing data for inclusion in the archives so that the data can be easily searched and retrieved.	Medium	Medium	The agency will not immediately impose universal use of a content management system. The Digital Archives will utilize a combination of off-the-shelf applications, sound data structure and processes, use of content management software at the Digital Archives and manual processes to manage and prepare the data. The agency will continue to work with client agencies in how to manage their content.
Inability to import and use legacy data due to outdated technology	Low to Medium	High	At a minimum, the Digital Archives will be able to convert data to the lowest common denominator (ASCII). The Digital Archives plan also includes a legacy equipment lab that can be used for conversion and/or use of outside commercial conversion services if necessary. The percentage of unreadable data will decrease over time.