Into the wild: Building a business case for a new enterprise technology project

We’ve all heard stories about organizations spending thousands on software projects, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Electronic Health Record (EHR), or Student Information Systems (SIS) that take longer than expected to implement and exceed original budgets. One of the reasons this occurs is that organizations often don’t realize that purchasing a large, Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) enterprise system is a significant undertaking. If the needs aren’t sufficiently defined, there can be many roadblocks, including implementation delays, increased cost, scope creep, and ultimately, unsatisfactory results (delayed or unfinished projects and cost overruns).

These systems are complex, and implementation efforts impact both internal and external stakeholders. Procurement often requires participation from different departments, each with unique goals and perspectives. Ignore these perspectives at your own peril. Here are key questions to consider for making the best buying decision:

1. Should we purchase software that similar organizations have purchased?
   As vendor consolidation has diminished the number of distinct COTS systems available, this question is increasingly common. Following this approach is similar to deciding to buy the car that your neighbor did, because they seem satisfied. How can you be sure that the systems purchased by similar organizations will meet your needs, particularly if your needs are undefined? One way to identify your organization’s needs—and to avoid costly mistakes down the road—is to identify requirements during the procurement process.

2. What are the functional and technical requirements of the system?Requirements are details that help describe a software system. There are two types of requirements and you need to understand and review both:
   
   Functional requirements. These define specific functions of a system to meet day-to-day needs of an organization or department. They describe the necessary system capabilities that allow users to perform their jobs. For example, “The vendor file must provide a minimum of four (4) remit-to addresses.” Functional requirements may also define the mandated state or federal capabilities required of a system, such as the ability to produce W-2 or 1099 forms.
   
   Technical requirements. These requirements identify criteria used to judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviors. They can be requirements that define what database the system must support. For example, “The system must support use of the client preferred database.” They may also describe security capabilities of the system, the ability to import or export data, or the ease of use and overall end-user interface.

3. Who should help define and document requirements for the new enterprise system?
   
   When it comes to documenting and revising requirements, work with your IT staff; incorporating technology standards into a set of requirements is a best practice. Yet it is also necessary to seek input from non-IT individuals, or business process owners from multiple departments, those who will use and/or be affected by the new software system.
   
   Help these individuals or groups understand the capabilities of modern software systems by having them visit the sites of other organizations, or attend software industry conferences. You should also have them document the current system’s deficiencies. As for those in your organization who want to keep the current system, encourage their buy-in by asking them to highlight the system’s most valuable capabilities. Perspectives from both new system supporters and those not so eager to change will help build the best system.
    
4. When do you revise enterprise system requirements? 
   It is always important to begin the software procurement process with a documented set of requirements; you need them to identify the best solution. The same goes for the implementation process where vendors use the requirements to guide the setup and configuration of the new system. But be prepared to revise and enhance requirements when a vendor solution offers an improved capability or a better method to achieve the results. The best way to approach it is to plan to revise requirements constantly. This enables the software to better meet current needs, and often delivers enhanced capabilities.

Be sure to document system requirements for an efficient process

There may be thousands of requirements for an enterprise system. To make the procurement process as efficient as possible, continually define and refine requirements. While this takes time and resources, there are clear benefits:

• Having requirements defined in an RFP helps vendors match the capabilities of their software systems to your organization’s needs and functional expectations. Without requirements, the software procurement and selection process has little framework, and from a vendor perspective becomes a subjective process — making it hard to get consistent information from all vendors.
• Requirements help determine specific tasks and activities to address during the implementation process. While applications can’t always meet 100% of the requested functionalities, it’s important to emphasize the requirements that are most important to users, to help find the system that best meets the needs of your organization.
• Requirements prove valuable even after implementation has begun, as they can help you test your system to make sure the software meets your organization’s particular needs before production use of the new system.

Our experienced consultants have led many software procurement projects and have firsthand knowledge about the challenges and opportunities associated with purchasing and implementing systems large and small. BerryDunn maintains an active database of requirements that we continually enhance, based on work performed for various clients and on technological advancements in the marketplace. Please contact us and we can help you define your requirements for large software system purchases.

Read this if your organization is planning on upgrading or replacing an enterprise technology system.

It can be challenging and stressful to plan for technology initiatives, especially those that involve and impact every area of your organization. Common initiatives include software upgrades or replacements for:

• Financial management, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems
• Asset management systems
• Electronic health records (EHR) systems
• Permitting and inspections systems

Though the number of considerations when planning enterprise technology projects can be daunting, the greatest mistake you can make is not planning at all. By addressing just a few key areas, you can avoid some of the most common pitfalls, such as exceeding budget and schedule targets, experiencing scope creep, and losing buy-in among stakeholders. Here are some tips to help you navigate your next project:

Identify your IT project roles and resources

While most organizations understand the importance of identifying project stakeholder groups, it is often an afterthought. Defining these roles at the outset of your project helps you accurately estimate the work effort.

Your stakeholder groups may include:

• An executive sponsor
• A steering committee
• A project manager
• Functional leads
• A technical team

Once you’ve established the necessary roles, you can begin reviewing your organization’s resources to determine the people who will be available to fill them. Planning for resource availability will help you avoid delays, minimize impact to regular business processes, and reduce the likelihood of burnout. But this plan won’t remain static—you can expect to make updates throughout the project.

Establish clear goals and objectives to keep your technology project on track

It’s important that an enterprise technology project has established goals and objectives statements. These statements will help inform decision-making, provide benchmarks for progress, and measure your project’s success. They can then be referenced when key stakeholders have differing perspectives on the direction to take with a pending decision. For example, if the objective of your project is to reduce paper-based processes, you may plan for additional computer workstations and focus technical resources on provisioning them. You’ll also be able to measure your success in the reduction of paper-based tasks.

Estimate your IT project budget accurately

Project funding is hardly ever overlooked, but can be complex with project budgets that are either underestimated or estimated without sufficient rationale to withstand approval processes and subsequent budget analysis. You may find that breaking down estimates to a lower level of detail helps address these challenges. Most technology projects incur costs in three key areas:

• Vendor cost: This could include both one-time software implementation costs as well as recurring costs for maintenance and ongoing support.
• Infrastructure cost: Consider the cost of any investments needed to support your project, such as data center hardware, networking components, or computing devices.
• Supplemental resource cost: Don’t forget to include the cost of any additional resources needed for their specialized knowledge or to simply backfill project staff. This could include contracted resources or the additional cost of existing resources (i.e., overtime).

A good technology project budget also includes a contingency amount. This amount will depend on your organization’s standards, the relative level of confidence in your estimates, and the relative risk.

Anticipate the need for change management

Depending on the project, staff in many areas of your organization will be impacted by some level of change during a technology implementation. External stakeholders, such as vendors and the public, may also be affected. You can effectively manage this change by proactively identifying areas of likely change resistance and creating strategies to address them.

In any technology implementation, you will encounter change resistance you did not predict. Having strategies in place will help you react quickly and effectively. Some proven change management strategies include communicating throughout your project, involving stakeholders to get their buy-in, and helping ensure management has the right amount of information to share with their employees.

Maintain focus and stay flexible as you manage your IT project

Even with the most thought-out planning, unforeseen events and external factors may impact your technology project. Establish mechanisms to regularly and proactively monitor project status so that you can address material risks and issues before their impact to the project grows. Reacting to these items as they arise requires key project stakeholders to be flexible. Key stakeholders must recognize that new information does not necessarily mean previous decisions were made in error, and that it is better to adapt than to stick to the initial direction.

Whether you’re implementing an ERP, an EHR, or enterprise human resources or asset management systems, any enterprise technology project is a massive undertaking, involving significant investment and a coordinated effort with individuals across multiple areas of an organization. Common mistakes can be costly, but having a structured approach to your planning can help avoid pitfalls. Our experienced, objective advisors have worked with public and private organizations across the country to oversee large enterprise projects from inception to successful completion.

Contact our software consulting team with any questions.

A version of this article was previously published on the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network. 

Editor’s note: While this article is not technical in nature, you should read it if you are involved in IT security, auditing, and management of organizations that may participate in strategic planning and business activities where considerations of compliance and controls is required.

As we find ourselves in a fast-moving, strong business growth environment, there is no better time to consider the controls needed to enhance your IT security as you implement new, high-demand technology and software to allow your organization to thrive and grow. Here are five risks you need to take care of if you want to build or maintain strong IT security.

1. Third-party risk management―It’s still your fault

We rely daily on our business partners and vendors to make the work we do happen. With a focus on IT, third-party vendors are a potential weak link in the information security chain and may expose your organization to risk. However, though a data breach may be the fault of a third-party, you are still responsible for it. Potential data breaches and exposure of customer information may occur, leaving you to explain to customers and clients answers and explanations you may not have. 

Though software as a service (SaaS) providers, along with other IT third-party services, have been around for well over a decade now, we still neglect our businesses by not considering and addressing third-party risk. These third-party providers likely store, maintain, and access company data, which could potentially contain personally identifiable information (names, social security numbers, dates of birth, addresses), financial information (credit cards or banking information), and healthcare information of your customers. 

While many of the third-party providers have comprehensive security programs in place to protect that sensitive information, a study in 2017 found that 30% of data breaches were caused by employee error or while under the control of third-party vendors.¹  This study reemphasizes that when data leaves your control, it is at risk of exposure. 

In many cases, procurement and contracting policies likely have language in contracts that already establish requirements for third-parties related to IT security; however the enforcement of such requirements and awareness of what is written in the contract is not enforced or is collected, put in a file, and not reviewed. What can you do about it?

Improved vendor management

It is paramount that all organizations (no matter their size) have a comprehensive vendor management program that goes beyond contracting requirements in place to defend themselves against third-party risk which includes:

1. An inventory of all third-parties used and their criticality and risk ranking. Criticality should be assigned using a “critical, high, medium or low” scoring matrix. 
2. At time of onboarding or RFP, develop a standardized approach for evaluating if potential vendors have sufficient IT security controls in place. This may be done through an IT questionnaire, review of a Systems and Organization Controls (SOC report) or other audit/certifications, and/or policy review. Additional research may be conducted that focuses on management and the company’s financial stability. 
3. As a result of the steps in #2, develop a vendor risk assessment using a high, medium and low scoring approach. Higher risk vendors should have specific concerns addressed in contracts and are subject to more in depth annual due diligence procedures. 
4. Reporting to senior management and/or the board annually on the vendors used by the organization, the services they perform, their risk, and ways the organization monitors the vendors. 

2. Regulation and privacy laws―They are coming 

2018 saw the implementation of the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) which was the first major data privacy law pushed onto any organization that possesses, handles, or has access to any citizen of EU’s personal information. Enforcement has started and the Information Commissioner’s Office has begun fining some of the world’s most famous companies, including substantial fines to Marriott International and British Airways of $125 million and $183 million Euros, respectively.²  Gone are the days where regulations lacked the teeth to force companies into compliance. 

With thanks to other major data breaches where hundreds of millions’ consumers private information was lost or obtained (e.g., Experian), more regulation is coming. Although there is little expectation of an American federal requirement for data protection, individual states and other regulating organizations are introducing requirements. Each new regulation seeks to protect consumer privacy but the specifics and enforcement of each differ. 

Expected to be most impactful in 2019 is the California Consumer Privacy Act,  which applies to organizations that handle, collect, or process consumer information and do business in the state of California (you do not have to be located in CA to be under the umbrella of enforcement).

In 2018, Maine passed the toughest law on telecommunications providers for selling consumer information. Massachusetts’ long standing privacy and data breach laws were amended with stronger requirements in January of 2019. Additional privacy and breach laws are in discussion or on the table for many states including Colorado, Delaware, Ohio, Oregon, Ohio, Vermont, and Washington, amongst others.      

Preparation and awareness are key

All organizations, no matter your line of business must be aware of and understand current laws and proposed legislation. New laws are expected to not only address the protection of customer data, but also employee information. All organizations should monitor proposed legislation and be aware of the potential enforceable requirements. The good news is that there are a lot of resources out there and, in most cases, legislative requirements allow for grace periods to allow organizations to develop a complete understanding of proposed laws and implement needed controls. 

3. Data management―Time to cut through the clutter 

We all work with people who have thousands of emails in their inbox (in some cases, dating back several years). Those users’ biggest fears may start to come to fruition―that their “organizational” approach of not deleting anything may come to an end with a simple email and data retention policy put in place by their employer. 

The amount of data we generate in a day is massive. Forbes estimates that we generate 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day and that 90% of all the world’s data was generated in the last two years alone.³ While data is a gold mine for analytics and market research, it is also an increasing liability and security risk. 

Inc. Magazine says that 73% of the data we have available to us is not used.⁴ Within that data could be personally identifiable information (such as social security numbers, names, addresses, etc.); financial information (bank accounts, credit cards etc.); and/or confidential business data. That data is valuable to hackers and corporate spies and in many cases data’s existence and location is unknown by the organizations that have it. 

In addition to the security risk that all this data poses, it also may expose an organization to liability in the event of a lawsuit of investigation. Emails and other communications are a favorite target of subpoenas and investigations and should be deleted within 90 days (including deleted items folders). 

Take an inventory before you act

Organizations should first complete a full data inventory and understand what types of data they maintain and handle, and where and how they store that data. Next, organizations can develop a data retention policy that meets their needs. Utilizing backup storage media may be a solution that helps reduce the need to store and maintain a large amount of data on internal systems. 

4. Doing the basics right―The simple things work 

Across industries and regardless of organization size, the most common problem we see is the absence of basic controls for IT security. Every organization, no matter their size, should work to ensure they have controls in place. Some must-haves:

• Established IT security policies
• Routine, monitored patch management practices (for all servers and workstations)
• Change management controls (for both software and hardware changes)
• Anti-virus/malware on all servers and workstations
• Specific IT security risk assessments 
• User access reviews
• System logging and monitoring 
• Employee security training

Go back to the basics 

We often see organizations that focus on new and emerging technologies, but have not taken the time to put basic security controls in place. Simple deterrents will help thwarting hackers. I often tell my clients a locked car scares away most ill-willed people, but a thief can still smash the window.  

Smaller organizations can consider using third-party security providers, if they are not able to implement basic IT security measures. From our experience, small organizations are being held to the same data security and privacy expectations by their customers as larger competitors and need to be able to provide assurance that controls are in place.  

5. Employee retention and training 

Unemployment rates are at an all-time low, and the demand for IT security experts at an all-time high. In fact, Monster.com reported that in 2019 the unemployment rate for IT security professionals is 0%.⁵ 

Organizations should be highly focused on employee retention and training to keep current employees up-to-speed on technology and security trends. One study found that only 15% of IT security professionals were not looking to switch jobs within one year.⁶  

Surprisingly, money is not the top factor for turnover―68% of respondents prioritized working for a company that takes their opinions seriously.⁶ 

For years we have told our clients they need to create and foster a culture of security from the top down, and that IT security must be considered more than just an overhead cost. It needs to align with overall business strategy and goals. Organizations need to create designated roles and responsibilities for security that provide your security personnel with a sense of direction―and the ability to truly protect the organization, their people, and the data. 

Training and support goes a long way

Offering training to security personnel allows them to stay abreast of current topics, but it also shows those employees you value their knowledge and the work they do. You need to train technology workers to be aware of new threats, and on techniques to best defend and protect from such risks. 

Reducing turnover rate of IT personnel is critical to IT security success. Continuously having to retrain and onboard employees is both costly and time-consuming. High turnover impacts your culture and also hampers your ability to grow and expand a security program. 

Making the effort to empower and train all employees is a powerful way to demonstrate your appreciation and support of the employees within your organization—and keep your data more secure.  

Our IT security consultants can help

Ensuring that you have a stable and established IT security program in place by considering the above risks will help your organization adapt to technology changes and create more than just an IT security program, but a culture of security minded employees. 

Our team of IT security and control experts can help your organization create and implement controls needed to consider emerging IT risks. For more information, contact the team. 
 

Sources:
[1] https://iapp.org/news/a/surprising-stats-on-third-party-vendor-risk-and-breach-likelihood/  
[2] https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/first-big-gdpr-fines/
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/#458b58860ba9
[4] https://www.inc.com/jeff-barrett/misusing-data-could-be-costing-your-business-heres-how.html
[5] https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/tech-cybersecurity-zero-percent-unemployment-1016
[6] https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/88833-what-will-improve-cyber-talent-retention

As the Project Management Body of Knowledge^® (PMBOK^®) explains, organizations fall along a structure and reporting spectrum. On one end of this spectrum are functional organizations, in which people report to their functional managers. (For example, Finance staff report to a Finance director.) On the other end of this spectrum are projectized organizations, in which people report to a project manager. Toward the middle of the spectrum lie hybrid—or matrix—organizations, in which reporting lines are fairly complex; e.g., people may report to both functional managers and project managers. 

Problem: Weak Matrix Medicaid System Vendors

This brings us to weak matrix organizations, in which functional managers have more authority than project managers. Many Medicaid system vendors happen to fall into the weak matrix category, for a number of different reasons. Yet the primary factor is the volume and duration of operational work—such as provider enrollment, claims processing, and member enrollment—that Medicaid system vendors perform once they exit the design, development, and implementation (DDI) phase.

This work spans functional areas, which can muddy the reporting waters. Without strong and clear reporting lines to project managers, project success can be seriously (and negatively) affected if the priorities of the functional leads are not aligned with those of the project. And when a weak matrix Medicaid system vendor enters a multi-vendor environment in which it is tasked with implementing a system that will serve multiple departments and bureaus within a state government, the reporting waters can become even muddier.

Solution: Using a Project Management Office (PMO) Vendor

Conversely, consulting firms that provide Project Management Office (PMO) services to government agencies tend to be strong matrix organizations, in which project managers have more authority over project teams and can quickly reallocate team members to address the myriad of issues that arise on complex, multi-year projects to help ensure project success. PMOs are also typically experienced at creating and running project governance structures and can add significant value in system implementation-related work across government agencies.

Additional benefits of a utilizing a PMO vendor include consistent, centralized reporting across your portfolio of projects and the ability to quickly onboard subject matter expertise to meet program and project needs. 
For more in-depth information on the benefits of using a PMO on state Medicaid projects, stay tuned for my second blog in this series. In the meantime, feel free to send your PMO- or Medicaid-related questions to me. 
 

Best practices for financial institution contracts with technology providers

As the financial services sector moves in an increasingly digital direction, you cannot overstate the need for robust and relevant information security programs. Financial institutions place more reliance than ever on third-party technology vendors to support core aspects of their business, and in turn place more reliance on those vendors to meet the industry’s high standards for information security. These include those in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Sarbanes Oxley 404, and regulations established by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC).

On April 2, 2019, the FDIC issued Financial Institution Letter (FIL) 19-2019, which outlines important requirements and considerations for financial institutions regarding their contracts with third-party technology service providers. In particular, FIL-19-2019 urges financial institutions to address how their business continuity and incident response processes integrate with those of their providers, and what that could mean for customers.

Common gaps in technology service provider contracts

As auditors of IT controls, we review lots of contracts between financial institutions and their technology service providers. When it comes to recommending areas for improvement, our top observations include:

• No right-to-audit clause
  Including a right-to-audit clause encourages transparency and provides greater assurance that vendors are providing services, and charging for them, in accordance with their contract.
• Unclear and/or inadequate rights and responsibilities around service disruptions
  In the event of a service incident, time and transparency are vital. Contracts that lack clear and comprehensive standards, both for the vendor and financial institution, regarding business continuity and incident response expose institutions to otherwise avoidable risk, including slow or substandard communications.
• No defined recovery standards
  Explicitly defined recovery standards are essential to ensuring both parties know their role in responding and recovering from a disaster or other technology outage.

FIL-19-2019 also reminds financial institutions that they need to properly inform regulators when they undertake contracts or relationships with technology service providers. The Bank Service Company Act requires financial institutions to inform regulators in writing when receiving third-party services like sorting and posting of checks and deposits, computation and posting of interest, preparation and mailing of statements, and other functions involving data processing, Internet banking, and mobile banking services.

Writing clearer contracts that strengthen your institution

Financial institutions should review their contracts, especially those that are longstanding, and make necessary updates in accordance with FDIC guidelines. As operating environments continue to evolve, older contracts, often renewed automatically, are particularly easy to overlook. You also need to review business continuity and incident response procedures to ensure they address all services provided by third-parties.

Senior management and the Board of Directors hold ultimate responsibility for managing a financial institution’s relationship with its technology service providers. Management should inform board members of any and all services that the institution receives from third-parties to help them better understand your operating environment and information security needs.

Not sure what to look for when reviewing contracts? Some places to start include:

• Establish your right-to-audit
  All contracts should include a right-to-audit clause, which preserves your ability to access and audit vendor records relating to their performance under contract. Most vendors will provide documentation of due diligence upon request, such as System and Organization Control (SOC) 1 or 2 reports detailing their financial and IT security controls.
  
  Many right-to-audit clauses also include a provision allowing your institution to conduct its own audit procedures. At a minimum, don’t hesitate to perform occasional walk-throughs of your vendor’s facilities to confirm that your contract’s provisions are being met.

• Ensure connectivity with outsourced data centers
  If you outsource some or all of your core banking systems to a hosted data center, place added emphasis on your institution’s business continuity plan to ensure connectivity, such as through the use of multiple internet or dedicated telecommunications circuits. Data vendors should, by contract, be prepared to assist with alternative connectivity.

• Set standards for incident response communications 
  Clear expectations for incident response are crucial  to helping you quickly and confidently manage the impact of a service incident on your customers and information systems. Vendor contracts should include explicit requirements for how and when vendors will communicate in the event of any issue or incident that affects your ability to serve your customers. You should also review and update contracts after each incident to address any areas of dissatisfaction with vendor communications.

• Ensure regular testing of defined disaster recovery standards
  While vendor contracts don’t need to detail every aspect of a service provider’s recovery standards, they should ensure those standards will meet your institution’s needs. Contracts should guarantee that the vendor periodically tests, reviews, and updates their recovery standards, with input from your financial institution.
  
  Your data center may also offer regular disaster recovery and failover testing. If they do, your institution should participate in it. If they don’t, work with the vendor to conduct annual testing of your ability to access your hosted resources from an alternate site.

As financial institutions increasingly look to third-party vendors to meet their evolving technology needs, it is critical that management and the board understand which benefits—and related risks—those vendors present. By taking time today to align your vendor contracts with the latest FFIEC, FDIC, and NCUA standards, your institution will be better prepared to manage risk tomorrow.

For more help gaining control over risk and cybersecurity, see our blog on sustainable solutions for educating your Board of Directors and creating a culture of cybersecurity awareness.
 

Law enforcement, courts, prosecutors, and corrections personnel provide many complex, seemingly limitless services. Seemingly is the key word here, for in reality these personnel provide a set number of incredibly important services.

Therefore, it should surprise no one that justice and public safety (J&PS) IT departments should also provide a well-defined set of services. However, these departments are often viewed as parking lots for all technical problems. The disconnect between IT and other J&PS business units often stems from differences in organizational culture and structure, and differing department objectives and goals. As a result, J&PS organizations often experience misperception between business units and IT. The solution to this disconnect and misperception? Defining IT department services.

The benefits of defined IT services

1. Increased business customer satisfaction. Once IT services align with customer needs, and expectations are established (e.g., service costs and service level agreements), customers can expect to receive the services they agreed to, and the IT department can align staff and skill levels to successfully meet those needs.
2. Improved IT personnel morale. With clear definition of the services they provide to their customers, including clearly defined processes for customers to request those services, IT personnel will no longer be subject to “rogue” questions or requests, and customers won’t be inclined to circumvent the process. This decreases IT staff stress and enables them to focus on their roles in providing the defined services. 
3. Better alignment of IT services to organizational needs. Through collaboration between the business and IT organizations, the business is able to clearly articulate the IT services that are, and aren’t, required. IT can help define realistic service levels and associated services costs, and can align IT staff and skills to the agreed-upon services. This results in increased IT effectiveness and reduced confusion regarding what services the business can expect from IT.
4. More collaboration between IT and the organization. The collaboration between the IT and business units in defining services results in an enhanced relationship between these organizations, increasing trust and clarifying expectations. This collaborative model continues as the services required by the business evolve, and IT evolves to support them.
5. Reduced costs. J&PS organizations that fail to strategically align IT and business strategy face increasing financial costs, as the organization is unable to invest IT dollars wisely. When a business doesn’t see IT as an enabler of business strategy, IT is no longer the provider of choice—and ultimately risks IT services being outsourced to a third-party vendor.

Next steps
Once a J&PS IT department defines its services to support business needs, it then can align the IT staffing model (i.e., numbers of staff, skill sets, roles and responsibilities), and continue to collaborate with the business to identify evolving services, as well as remove services that are no longer relevant. Contact us for help with this next step and other IT strategies and tactics for justice and public safety organizations.

If you’ve been tasked with leading a high-impact project for your organization, you may find managing the scope, budget and schedule is not enough to ensure project success—especially when you encounter resistance to change. When embarking on large-scale change projects spanning people, processes and technology, appointing staff as “coaches” to help support stakeholders through the change—and to manage resistance to the change—can help increase adoption and buy-in for a new way of doing things.

The first step is to identify candidates for the coaching role. These candidates are often supervisory staff who have credibility in the organization—whether as a subject matter expert, through internal leadership, or from having a history of client satisfaction. Next, you need a work plan to orient them to this role. One critical component is making sure the coaches themselves understand what the change means for their role, and have fully committed before asking them to coach others. They may exhibit initial resistance to the change you will need to manage before they can be effective coaches. According to research done by Prosci®, a leading change management research organization, some of the most common reasons for supervisor resistance in large-scale change projects are:

• Lack of awareness about and involvement in the change
• Loss of control or negative impact on job role
• Increased work load (i.e., lack of time)
• Culture of change resistance and past failures
• Impact to their team

You should anticipate encountering these and other types of resistance from staff while preparing them to be coaches. Once coaches buy into the change, they will need ongoing support and guidance to fulfill their role. This support will vary by individual, but may be correlated to what managerial skills they already possess, or don’t. How can you focus on developing coaching skills among your staff for purposes of the project? Prosci® recommends a successful change coach take on the following roles:

• Communicator—communicate with direct reports about the change
• Liaison—engage and liaise with the project team
• Advocate—advocate and champion the change
• Resistance manager—identify and manage resistance
• Coach—coach employees through the change

One of the initial tasks for your coaches will be to assess the existing level of change resistance and evaluate what resistance you may encounter. Prosci® identifies three types of resistance management work for your coaches to begin engaging in as they meet with their employees about the change:

• Resistance prevention―by providing engagement opportunities for stakeholders throughout the project, building awareness about the change early on, and reinforcing executive-level support, coaches can often head off expected resistance.
• Proactive resistance management―this approach requires coaches to anticipate the needs and understand the characteristics of their staff, and assess how they might react to change in light of these attributes. Coaches can then plan for likely forms of resistance in advance, with a structured mitigation approach.
• Reactive resistance management―this focuses on resistance that has not been mitigated with the previous two types of resistance management, but instead persists or endures for an extended amount of time. This type of management may require more analysis and planning, particularly as the project nears its completion date.

Do you have candidates in your organization who may need support transitioning into coaching roles? Do you anticipate change resistance among your stakeholders? Contact us and we can help you develop a plan to address your specific challenges.

Most of us have been (or should have been) instructed to avoid using clichés in our writing. These overstated phrases and expressions add little value, and often only increase sentence length. We should also avoid clichés in our thinking, for what we think can often influence how we act.

Consider, for example, “death by committee.” This cliché has greatly — and negatively — skewed views on the benefits of committees in managing projects. Sure, sometimes committee members have difficulty agreeing with one another, which can lead to delays and other issues. In most cases, though, an individual can’t possibly oversee all aspects of a project, or represent all interests in an organization. Committees are vital for project success — and arguably the most important project committee is the steering committee.

What Exactly is a Steering Committee?
It is a group of high-level stakeholders that provides strategic direction for a project, and supports the project manager. Ideally, the group increases the chances for project success by closely aligning project goals to organizational goals. However, it is important to point out that the group’s top priority is project success.

The committee should represent the different departments and agencies affected by the project, but remain relatively small in size, chaired by someone who is not an executive sponsor of the project (in order to avoid conflicts of interest). While the project manager should serve on the steering committee, they should not participate in decision-making; the project manager’s role is to update members on the project’s progress, areas of concern, current issues, and options for addressing these issues.

Overall, the main responsibilities of a steering committee include:

1. Approving the Project Charter
2. Resolving conflicts between stakeholder groups
3. Monitoring project progress against the project management plan
4. Fostering positive communicating about the project within the organization
5. Addressing external threats and issues emerging outside of the project that could impact it
6. Reviewing and approving changes made to the project resource plan, scope, schedules, cost estimates, etc.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Utilizing a Steering Committee?
A group of executive stakeholders providing strategic direction should benefit any project. Because steering committee members are organizational decision-makers, they have the access and credibility to address tough issues that can put the project at a risk, and have the best opportunities to negotiate positive outcomes. In addition, steering committees can engage executive management, and make sure the project meshes with executive management’s vision, mission, and long-range strategic plan. Steering committees can empower project managers, and ensure that all departments and agencies are on the same page in regards to project status, goals, and expectations. In a 2009 article in Project Management Journal, authors Thomas G. Lechler and Martin Cohen concluded that steering committees are important to implementing and maintaining project management standards on an operational level — not only do steering committees directly support project success, they are instrumental in deriving value from an organization's investments in its project management system.

A steering committee is only as effective as it’s allowed to be. A poorly structured steering committee that lacks formal authority, clear roles, and clear responsibilities can impede the success of a project by being slow to respond to project issues. A proactive project manager can help the organization avoid this major pitfall by helping develop project documents, such as the governance document or project plan that clearly define the steering committee structure, roles, responsibilities and authority.

Steer Toward Success!
Steering committees can benefit your organization and its major projects. Yet understanding the roles and responsibilities — and pros and cons — is only a preliminary step in creating a steering committee. Need some advice on how to organize a steering committee? Want to learn more about steering committee best practices? Together, we can steer your project toward success.