By Amy Kennedy

Client Profile
Universal Advisor, 2004 Issue No. 1

Today, Washtenaw County’s Information & Technology Services (ITS) department is a well-oiled machine, but its 35 employees will tell you this wasn’t always so. This is the story of a reorganization — an IT department that grew up by slimming down. And although most people equate “reorganization” with a visit from the Grim Reaper  removing workers with severance packages rather than a scythe and leaving the remaining employees with more work for the same pay — this reorganization was done the right way. Although difficult at times, and not entirely painless, it was devoid of the usual negativity and bitterness. Instead, what’s emerged is an efficient, effective ITS department with satisfied employees and constituents.

A Little Background

Washtenaw County is situated in southeastern Michigan, approximately 30 miles west of Detroit. Four cities (Ypsilanti, Saline, Milan, and county seat, Ann Arbor) and four incorporated villages (Chelsea, Manchester, Dexter, and Barton Hills) comprise the county, which spans a distance of 30 miles east to west and extends 24 miles north to south. The current population is about 350,000, and it’s one of the few Michigan counties that continues to grow at a moderate rate.

Washtenaw County Information & Technology Services (ITS) is a part of the County’s Support Services organization, which provides and supports all major technology investments for Washtenaw County employees and its customer citizens. Its areas of responsibility include:

• Desktop PC support

• Network services

• Application development and maintenance

• Telephones (both landlines and mobile)

In December 2002, David Behen assumed leadership of the Washtenaw County IT Department. Washtenaw County Administrator, Bob Guenzel, and Washtenaw County COO, Frank Cambria, understood that the face of government was changing and investments in technology were necessary to succeed. However, the organization had not been thoroughly reviewed in about 15 years. This, coupled with the budget crises that plagued most government entities, resulted in an ITS department that attempted to meet technology requests from each of its more than 22 county departments and, in doing so, deployed more technology than it could ever hope to support or adequately understand in depth. “With each new addition to the infrastructure,” said Behen, “we realized we couldn’t manage the enormous amount of technology and were struggling to meet the needs of our customers.” Often projects would be started but never finished because of a new priority request; technology plans weren’t adhered to because they were obsolete or didn’t match the customer department’s request. Worst of all, confidence in the ITS

Department was rapidly declining. “It was then that we began to face some stressful decisions about our budget and future direction,” said Behen.

The Reorganization

From January to June 2003, Cambria, Behen, and Gordon Burger (Director of Strategic Planning & Budget) worked on the reorganization process with Plante & Moran consultants, the entire ITS Department staff, focus groups, and Washtenaw County’s Labor Management Team. “We knew we needed to be focused on customer service,” said Behen. “We needed to be there for all departments providing service to Washtenaw County constituents, but accomplishing this goal while simultaneously controlling expenses and technology was difficult.”

Consultants from Plante & Moran’s Technology Consulting & Solutions team performed an IT assessment and gap analysis, from which they made recommendations centered on the organization, the technology, constituency perception, and administration. Recommendations were ranked as either “high priority” or “important.” The Washtenaw County Team made decisions based on these recommendations, keeping in mind their vision and long-term goals.

“We felt strongly that the ITS department’s primary role was to provide the necessary core infrastructure for departments,” said Behen. “Therefore, we consolidated vendors and modified the direction we were taking with some of our technology investments. Moreover, we realized that the reorganization would only be as strong as the staff to support it. We realized we’d need a number of skilled people (or capable people who wanted to be retrained) in new technologies, as well as candidates with superior people skills.”

The team included the existing ITS staff in all aspects of the reorganization — interviews, meetings, focus groups, discussion of labor issues, work groups, and core technologies to be supported. Even after it became apparent that a number of the employees may not continue to be employed with ITS, the majority of the staff remained involved through completion.

The team created a new staffing and service-level model. The reorganization eliminated all original 45 positions and created 32 new ones. The result is a smaller staff with more technical depth; a county with more emphasis on training; and fewer operating platforms, associated tools, and programming languages — in short, a much more manageable environment.

The Benefits

The reorganization is more than 98 percent complete (as of press time, there is still one open position), and many of the benefits have already become apparent:

• There is a new management team in place, along with a number of newly created, leading-edge positions such as a Web Lead and a Knowledge Manager.

• Technology planning has increased, and departments are encouraged to adhere strictly to these plans. To ensure this occurs, the County formed an Infrastructure Resource Allocation Board, where every department is encouraged to submit two-year, technology vision plans. Changes to these plans aren’t readily accepted unless there is a significant change in the business or in the leadership of the department, and even then it would have to change the way a department inherently performs its business tasks or benefits constituents. Finally, all proposed projects must have a total cost of ownership completed, and cost efficiencies must be demonstrated before approval.

• All new ITS staff have undergone project management training to learn to appropriately manage the project requests that come into the department. As part of the reorganization, and in light of the modified technology direction, the ITS Department reviewed all of their purchasing contracts and are now saving more than $250,000 a year.

Other significant changes have occurred to the county’s Web site, eWashtenaw.org, which was voted the best government Web site in Michigan by cyberstate.org. Because of the new approach involving the Web Lead and three Java programmers, the site boasts seven different e-commerce applications for use by constituents and internal employees: an events calendar, a map store, e-permitting, vital records, property parcel suite, legal description lookup, and human resources applications. The Help Desk Support team has been reduced, and two or three staff members can now support most of the technology issues at the County since there are fewer platforms and tools.

In addition, a Knowledge Manager position was created to take information from the Web site and the help desk and use that data to make more informed decisions for the ITS department and the County as a whole — truly a remarkable advance in turning information into usable knowledge. Gordon Burger, Director of Strategic Planning for Washtenaw County, says he’s most excited about this part of the reorganization. “Creating a Knowledge Manager to integrate the data from our Web site and the other portals, such as the help desk, is a real way to take ITS beyond being just a technical resource to a real strategic asset to the County,” said Burger.

Embracing the Future

Customer departments have indicated that customer service has improved dramatically, even though 11 positions were eliminated. The staff of the Washtenaw County ITS Department has much to look forward to; Doug Perlin, a Security Officer who’s been with the department for 19 years, puts it best. “I’ve seen it all,” he said. “And I’m happy to report that we’re moving in the right direction.” The County and its constituents are embracing a future of which they can be proud.