1.   Introduction of Guests 

  2.   Presentation of Guest Speaker -- Chuck Porter 

  9. Correspondence

10. Other Comments

11. Adjourn

 NOVEMBER ASSOCIATION MEETING REMINDER

 

The next Association of Data Processing Managers Luncheon will be held in conjunction with the Forum on November 4, 1982, in Room 110 of the CAB at The Evergreen State College.

 

 

CHUCK PORTER TO ADDRESS ASSOCIATION AT

NOVEMBER 4, 1982 MEETING

Our speaker for the November 4th ADPM meeting is Chuck Porter.

In keeping with theme of the Fall Forum, Chuck will give a presentation on the "Programmer Work Bench". The workbench concept is a system development aid designed to reduce programmer / analyst days required for the project, make programmers more productive sooner, and reduce the technical risk of the project.

Chuck has been in data processing for 14 years, the last eight years with Arthur Andersen & Co. He is primarily responsible for the development of large scale, on-line, data base systems. Chuck has managed projects in the utilities and ship building industries, and in government.

Chuck is also responsible for Arthur Andersen's West Coast productivity practice; including productivity aids, programmer work bench, system design methodologies, and system prototyping.

If you are associated with, engaged in, responsible for, or simply want to know how large system development projects can be completed more efficiently, you should plan to attend.

Association of Data Processing Managers

Minutes for Meeting of

October 7 1982

The meeting was called to order by the chairman, Dick Applestone.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS:

·        Larry Seaberg introduced Sam Mayo who will be retiring from the Department of Licensing.

·        Barry Urin introduced Dorothy Speigel of Manus Services Corp.

·        Ruben Marti introduced Connie Williams who has recently been assigned additional duties to assist Ruben in coordinating data processing training.

·        Tom Bennett introduced Paul Smith, Manager of Offices and Services at the University of Washington and a member of the Office Automation Technical Committee.

·        Emory Kramer introduced Steve Reyda, Customer Relations Manager of the Washington Data Processing Service Center.

·        Peggy Smith introduced herself, from the Department of Revenue, Carolyn Peterson, President of the Word Processing Association, and Ellen Fredricksen of Employment Security

INTRODUCTION OF GUEST SPEAKER:

Cliff Cotey introduced the guest speaker, Mr. Bob Bailey, who has served on the DPA Board for several years. He was the chairman of the Adhoc Planning Subcommittee. That committee was abolished officially at the last DPA Meeting and he is now the chairman of the new Networking Subcommittee.

BOB BAILEY:

Let me begin my comments on the results of the Adhoc Planning Subcommittee by passing along a quote I think to be somewhat appropriate. "Kites rise against, not with the wind. No man ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm.'. And here's another quotation, "Necessity is the mother of invention"; and another, "It's an ill wind that blows no good." I have become convinced that really significant breakthroughs in any endeavor seem to occur under the most adverse conditions. Sometimes it takes a very stressful situation to cause us to do things that we really should have known to do before.

Lately there have been a lot of articles about the race for productivity between the United States and Japan. It is alleged that Japan's rate of productivity growth is considerably higher than ours. One of the key factors that is usually mentioned is the assertion that Japanese management has a way of listening to the workers well beyond what we do in this country.

The chief benefit of the current recession to the United States may be that it is forcing industries to take another look at their willingness to listen to views that are expressed by the people who are actually on the firing line doing the work.

The connection between this and the DPA is that the recession, which has put this State in a serious financial bind and which has resulted in the withdrawal of adequate funds to support the things that the DPA has been trying to do, has forced the DPA to take a careful look at what it has done in the past, and what it would like to do in the future. It has caused the DPA to conclude that instead of trying to operate as a separate entity, they are going to have to become more and more integrated with the data processing community in the State and draw upon its expertise as opposed to standing somewhere above it or off to the side. We are entering into a new era of cooperation and interdependence between the community and the DPA.

A couple of weeks ago the DPA held a planning conference and, unlike the previous ones, the heads of the various data processing agencies of the State were invited to participate. That was a significant change from the past. While time will tell if the recent efforts of that subcommittee will produce the kinds of results we would all like to see, I feel that, because of the help from the data processing community and in the expectation that that help will continue to be forthcoming, we're on the right track.

There will be a full report of the conference conclusions and planning committees conclusions published and so I won't go over the report in any great detail. But, quoting from the report, I'll go over the goals that were established. They represent a new direction for the DPA and the State.

1. It is a goal of the Data Processing Authority to develop and maintain an overall statewide plan for data processing and data communications which will insure a coordinated and optimum use of data processing resources in support of the basic missions of state government.

2. It is a goal of the Data Processing Authority to help assure that opportunities for effective use of application systems are identified and analyzed; that proposals for implementing application systems include the analysis of appropriate alternatives including common systems and common databases; that decisions to implement an alternative are reviewed and justified at the appropriate management level; and that the implementation is well managed and reviewed.

3. It is a goal of the Data Processing Authority to plan and coordinate the establishment and maintenance of a statewide network of information processing resources.

4. It is a goal of the Data Processing Authority to develop appropriate policies or strategies whenever opportunities or deficiencies are recognized within it's sphere of responsibility.

These may sound like a replay of God and Motherhood, but by reading the specific objectives under each, you will conclude that the DPA really is headed in a new direction. The cornerstone of that new direction is the continuing heavy involvement on the part of the data processing community. The data processing community is to; influence a statewide strategy for data processing and data communication, help the DPA overhaul the planning process, review and help improve DPA standards and policies.

There is a Common Systems Subcommittee which has been appointed and is chaired by Joe Taller. That subcommittee will draw upon the expertise of the data processing community. There is a Network Subcommittee of which Bob Bailey chairs and which will also draw upon the data processing community. The four main objectives call for a number of Adhoc committees to address office automation, feasibility of service center consolidation, architectural standardization, intergovernmental agency coordination, and other issues all involving the data processing community. The intention of my talk is to impress you with one fact, that collectively, you are becoming the Data Processing Authority.

Let me convey special thanks to Dennis Jones for the excellent staff work he contributed on behalf of the subcommittee. Dennis made a considerable personal effort and, in the process, demonstrated the value of tapping the intelligence of the community. I came away from the conference with a great deal of admiration for him. Among the things that Dennis recommended was the hiring of Will Wolfe, which was an excellent move and which will pay back dividends in the future.

Drawing attention back to the quote I started with, let me say we certainly had a lot of wind blowing in our direction during that last regular session of the legislature and most of it seemed to be ill. But at least it has blown us onto a new course in the DPA and I think its a better course. I ask for your continued help to get the data processing kite back into the air and have it set some altitude records.

QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE:

Tim Seth - What are some of the questions that are normally raised?

A good question to ask is, of those criticisms that were received during the last regular session, to what extent do we as a committee believe they were justified? I think we felt that a number of them were well justified and a number of them were politically motivated and served no real purpose at all. What we tried to do in the subcommittee was to look at the future as realistically as we could.

We made a number of assumptions. We assumed that there is not going to be any large appropriation made available to do the work of the DPA in the foreseeable future. The staff has been cut down to nine people and that is barely enough to keep administrative matters and the bare minimum of involvement between the DPA and the community. We simply assumed that if the DPA needs help to do its job, its going to have to get it by some means other than raising its appropriation.

We assumed the most we could hope to get is some modest increase in the foreseeable future. That meant to us that we would have to scale down our expectations. We would have to try to find those criticisms that where levied at us which were the most valid, the most important, and concentrate on putting together a plan which would enable us to do a job in such a manner as to not justify any continuation of that type of criticism.

We narrowed the matter down to a relatively few issues. We felt there was some justification for the criticism that the DPA has been preoccupied with acquisition matters and not spending enough time in any sort of meaningful involvement in applications questions. We have tried to point ourselves more in that direction which is not an easy thing to do.

There was a fair amount of criticism of the planning process, some of which we thought was probably justified. We have some notions and some rather innovative approaches to improving upon the planning process.

One area on which most current conventional wisdom says that everybody has a problem is on the matter of communications networking. It's generally conceded that equipment costs have been driven down. In some cases, due to the availability of packaged software, the developmental costs have even been driven down in spite of increases in labor rates. These things are tending to make it more practical to do things with data processing that a few years ago would not have been considered practical. The costs of communications however, are continuing to rise at an increasing rate. This area is one that the subcommittee concluded we'd better deal with and so we've established the Adhoc Committee on Networking. I can guarantee, since I'm the chairman, we're going to have to have a lot of help from you. I'm pleased with all the cooperation that I see between the DPA and the community these days. In this area I expect to see an extraordinary amount of cooperation since its completely obvious that it will be in everyone’s best interest.

Tom Bennett - You mentioned that the DPA was going to belong to the users more and more, but you didn't say anything about funding. Are the users going to pay for it?

We've talked about attaching every state agency to one of the service centers and establishing a network so each agency has one prime place to turn for help in data processing matters. If that's going to work, then you have to have effective networking between service centers because they don't all have equal services to provide. We feel that the only way that can happen is to have a spirit of cooperation between agencies. The DPA probably does have the authority, if it chooses to use it, to force a convention of that type.

That doesn't directly answer your question of where the money is going to come from. It's conditional to a second one which is that we are searching for a way to charge back, directly to the service centers, part of the cost of Will Wolfe's staff. That gets into a rather delicate matter because you have all kinds of nagging questions that come up. You have turf problems to worry about. How do you insure that a guy who's hard-lined to Will and is dotted-lined to Rick, won't pay too much attention to Rick and not enough to Will and visa versa.

Those aren't easy things. But faced with the necessity to find some solution to the funding problem, we probably are going to come closer to finding reasonable solutions than we would under almost any other circumstance. Maybe the recession will force us into doing what, down deep, we all know is really the right thing to do. That is, to figure a way to get along with one another.

Barry Urin - What enhanced role do you envision of OFM? Participating in the review and approval cycles? Budgetary cycles? Planning cycles? Do you see the formation of a check and balance there? More exercise of authority? Tighter coordination?

This is an area that Dennis and Will have given us a number of very useful suggestions. What we're searching for is a way to achieve an optimum integration of the separate plans of the separate agencies. I think it is the consensus on the DPA that it is neither possible nor desirable to devise a scheme in which the OPA attempts to impose its will upon the data processing community.

What we are searching for is a way to increase the cooperation between the data processing agencies in a way that will bring about the ability to make a proper, overall assessment of what is about to happen in data processing in the state without giving a stringent set of rules to follow. The way to do that is to get the heads of the agencies and their representatives together and ask them to figure out how to do that. We've conceded now that there isn't any cheep solution to the problem. It certainly didn't lie in the type of legislation that was proposed last time around.

We've re-examined the OPA's charter and most of us feel that, as far as authority to do the things that need to be done, it is adequate. The authority already exists. There is little, if any, need for new legislation. In order to agree with our assessment, you have to agree with the approach we are proposing to take. That there is no super staff that is able to decide all of these things in a vacuum. What we're expecting is for the planning process to get overhauled in ways that you people decide it ought to be overhauled. Presumably, that will not impose burdens upon you that are beyond those that you collectively feel you can handle.

Galen Schmitke -- In your statement of the goals, I didn't hear anything about the interface of office automation with data processing. Where are we on that?

About where everybody else is, at sea. We did talk about it and it certainly is not excluded if you go down to the specific set of objectives under the goals. It's just a massive problem to even try to define where you're going to draw the line of which is which and determine if there is a difference between them at all. There are some turf questions that get involved. I can only say we are not ignorant of the need. I would be wrong to say we think we see an easy solution or even an easy understanding of what's going to be involved.

Rick Stablein - Do you feel that the spirit of cooperation is shared by your colleagues on the Authority?

Yes. It's always dangerous to state somebody else's position, but I talked a good bit with the private sector members and I know that all three of us feel very strongly about it. I think all three of us feel that way because we've found in our own jobs that that's the way it has to work. All of us happen to be in industrial jobs that are not that much different from a OPA type of responsibility. We're all at some sort of an apex of an organization in a policy setting type of role and I think we have learned through hard experience that you can try to impose unreasonable things on people and it won't work. The best way to get cooperation is to involve those people and make them a part of the entire process. From the public sector there are at least two of the members that I think feel very strongly in the same direction. I don't know of anybody who would try to take exception to it.

Some of the members feel its more practical to have some sort of a strong central agency that lays down the law and then polices it. But the consensus, given the financial situation, is pretty clearly in the direction of doing it the way I've described today.

George Koch -- With regard to common systems, where does the OPA now see those decisions being made on developing common application systems?

We are appointing a subcommittee and the intent is for that subcommittee to draw upon the coml1lunity. This will let the community sort out what it believes are the logical candidates for common systel1ls. If we can get past that point, then our expectation is that getting people to agree to use them ought to be relatively sil1lple.

John Aikin -- You've repeatedly talked about working with the data processing community. I was wondering what vehicle you have in mind for contacting that community. Do you see the Association as the vehicle?

Yes. The Association has been very helpful to us up until this point. But in addition to that, I see appointments being made, either by the Association or by the people who make up the Association to Adhoc committees of various types.

 

ADPM BUSINESS MEETING

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

The minutes of the September 2, 1982 meeting were approved as distributed.

TREASURERS REPORT:

Reported in Sept . . . . . . . . .                $1,288.98

-     Forum flyers 183.45

-         Oct.. speakers lunch 8.88

-         Dividend, August 7.23

-         Forum presenter fees 1,188.88

Current Balance . . . . . . . . .                  $2,178.74

 

ADPM BOARD REPORT:

The board held one meeting on September 28, 1982. Items discussed:

-         Forul1l'82 – Twila will be giving a report later in the meeting.

-         Professional Series Classification Study -- Appy has contacted Tim Seth at the recol1lmendation of the Board. Tim will be the focal point on this project and was asked to give a report.

Tim reported on the recent salary survey results:

-         Average linear increase 17.5% in Washington.

-         7% keep-up set by OFM.

-         7% is supposedly funded.

And then on Professional Series:

- This effort was initiated by the WDPSC to satisfy their needs.

- Leonard Nord has okayed the effort as long as there is no cost to implement it.

- In 38 days or so, there will be an official announcement of the study.

- Tim is recommending that the study be confined to the CSA IV and above.

- The Department of Personnel will sponsor the proposal to avoid putting one group in a defensive position.

- Tim looks "to the Association to be the official technical advisory input. Agency input will come from the respective personnel officers.

Appy commented this will be one of the items on the next board meeting agenda. If anyone has any strong opinions or interest, please let Appy know.

Dennis Jones reported on the DPA Standards Subcommittee -- John Flanagan is really the person who is doing the work at this point. John and a subcommittee that is composed of volunteers are working to give us (Ron Pierce, Bob Payne and Dennis) an update on the standards. The work they have done so far looks very good. They have basically taken the work that was done about a year and a half ago and updated it. They are now proceeding to evaluate the guidelines. The idea is to have the standards not necessarily define the procedures to follow but rather define the necessary products. A final look at the standards part of it is scheduled by the October 22.

DPA Adhoc Planning Retreat -- Service center directors and Appy, as the chairman of the Association, were invited to participate in the planning conference. The objectives were solidified as was the budget. The planning document will be published as a blue book within a day or two. There was strong emphasis on seeking and using input and participation from the data processing community. This is going to be everyone's chance to influence the system.

Appy commented that there have really been a lot of changes in the DPA since Will Wolfe has become the Executive Director.

Future Speakers -- This will be discussed at the next board meeting.

DPA ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Jim Michal reported on the October 1st DPA meeting. Communications:

- Service Center #1 has announced a 13% reduction for CICS effective October 1st. Also a 1cent surcharge will be levied for Property Management System enhancements.

- Service Center #3 announced a 5y rate reduction for batch and real time services effective October 1st.

- Service Center #2 gave 98 day notice of rate changes which will result in a 2 ½% reduction.

- Department of Corrections has requested that a representative of the DPA accompany them to the State of Florida to look at their correction system and help in the evaluation.

- The DPA Executive Director, Will Wolfe, has been appointed to the AFRS Policy Committee.

- The Washington Library Network and Service Center #2 jointly notified the DPA that they would like to request approval for an acquisition. Presumably this will be the facilities management agreement that they have been working on.

- 23 of 50 data processing plans have been received by the DPA. Those who haven't sent in plans will be contacted by the DPA staff. They were due on October 1st.

Committee Reports:

- There are two new subcommittees, the Networking Subcommittee, chaired by Bob Bailey and the Common Systems Subcommittee, chaired by Joe Taller. The existing Service Center

Subcommittee and the Adhoc Planning Subcommittee have been abolished.

Acquisitions:

- Labor and Industries received approval for a system called MIPS, Medical Information Payments System.

- Service Center #3 had two acquisitions. One for replacing a string of existing disk drives and the other to upgrade their processor from a 1182 to an 1183.

Both were approved.

OLD BUSINIESS:

-         Personnel Liaison - Don Brown reported they have a subcommittee working on the CSA testing procedures. They will be meeting twice per month to try to get something developed that they can all agree on. They need more members for the committee so people should contact Don if they would like to participate.

-         Office Automation - Tom Bennett reported they're still working on things earlier reported. They're tentatively planning to have an office automation workshop and vendor display. There have been a lot of requests from state government for some sort of training and a chance to see what things are available. The timing has not been determined. It was suggested that Spring would be a good time.

-         Forum '82 - Twila Perry drew attention to the Forum flyers which are on the tables today. The regular Association meeting is going to be at the Forum at Evergreen. Even though the various vendor presentations will be in one large room, people will be able to move from one presentation to another and see, for example at 3 P.M., the same presentation that was given at 18 A.M. Bob Bailey will be one of the keynote speakers at the forum.

Rueben Marti - The fliers on the table are the ones that have already been mailed out. Also, there are others which contain the schedule.

NEW BUSINESS:

Galyn Schmitke - A couple hundred of us are getting together on October 22nd to send Sam Mayo on his way. If you haven't heard about the retirement party, contact Jerry Wolfson at DOL. fliers are available at the head table.

John Aiken - The Evergreen State College is going to have a once a month colloquium in computer science beginning this month. Some fliers have been left at the head table announcing the first one which will be held in one week at 3 o'clock in lecture hall 5.

An expert in the field of computer based medical imaging will talk primarily on computerized X-ray systems. Meg Lewis from the Department of Radiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center will be the guest speaker. John urged us to come. They will try to do this once a month. and have people come to talk on various aspects of applications of computer science.

CORRESPONDENCE: None.

NEXT MONTH'S SPEAKER:

The regular luncheon meeting will be at the Forum with the students at Evergreen. We get a jump on them; we get to go through the line 15 minutes before they do.

The topic of the Forum is System Development Tools and the speaker at the luncheon meeting will be Chuck Porter from Arther Andersen who will speak on that topic. Chuck has been engaged in several large systems development projects that range in the area of 15 to 28 thousand man days. As a result of his experience, he has developed a process that he says will reduce the man days required, will make programmers more productive sooner and will reduce the technical risks of the development process. He will be sharing that with us at a 38 minute presentation at the luncheon.

The meeting was adjourned.