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IPMA News : February 2005
Edited By Christy Ridout and Shelagh Taylor
IPMA News : February 2005Edited By Christy Ridout and Shelagh Taylor |
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ContentsGary Robinson appointed new DIS Director Washington Electronic Business Solutions (WEBS) Department of Printing receives national Best Practices Award Summary of January 13, 2005 IPMA Board Meeting Summary of January 27-28, 2005 IPMA Board Annual Planning Retreat |
"Sponsor's Corner"(Editor's Note: No contributions were provided for the Sponsor's Corner this month.) |
On February 16, Governor Gregoire announced the appointment of Gary Robinson as director of the Department of Information Services (DIS). Robinson served as acting director of DIS in 2001 and 2002, and currently is senior assistant director at the Office of Financial Management. The governor said she asked Robinson to aggressively provide information systems that will improve state agency accountability and performance. She also challenged him to provide innovative and creative leadership that will move Washington to the next level in information technology.
The same day Mike McVicker, Interim DIS Director, sent the following e-mail message to all DIS staff:
I want to let you know that this morning the Governor announced Gary Robinson as her permanent appointment to head this agency.
I have found my time as Interim Director to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career. I have always been proud of the excellent work we do here at DIS. While I've found myself challenged in new and unexpected ways, the job has been easier because of the creativity and professionalism shown by each of you. I've said this before; this is the best agency in Washington state government, and our record of success and leadership is because of you. Thank you for your efforts and your support.
I am pleased that we are now finishing up the transition to support the goals of Governor Gregoire and look forward to ensuring a smooth and successful transition to our new Director. I look forward to continuing to work with Gary and you in our efforts to keep Washington state a leader in using technology to transform government services. Please join me in welcoming Gary Robinson as our new director.
--By Phil Grigg, IS Manager, Department of General Administration
Introduction: Washington State Department of General Administration's (GA) new website provides greater access to government contracting opportunities.
WEBS provides vendors with automatic email notification of new opportunities when a bid for one of their commodities is posted. It provides state agencies and other government entities online access for their staff to post their own bids.
It also takes us one step closer to one stop shopping convenience when doing business with the state.
Background: September, 2004 marked the initial roll-out of the first phase of WEBS, an internet based on-line system which will ultimately allow both vendors and state government purchasing personnel complete contracting in an automated manner. The vision was created by the Department of General Administration and supported by the Office of Financial Management, Department of Information Services and other members of the state's Roadmap initiative. Bill Joplin, the Assistant Director for state procurement, is the Executive Sponsor for the project.
The ultimate concept is to provide a place where vendors can come and take care of all their business with the state. The long term vision is to allow vendors to register with the state, obtain their state UBI number, obtain L&I licensing, bid for contracts, submit billings and obtain payment for their work in one place. There may eventually be links to facilitate payment of their state taxes.
A major marketing plan by GA's purchasing staff allowed the first vendors through a pilot program to register electronically with the state. Each vendor filled out electronic registration forms to register with the state. The old system had over 10,000 vendors registered with the state who supply our agencies, local governments, colleges, school districts and non profits with everything from ferries to bathroom supplies and food.
We did not electronically convert the old vendor files because we desired a fresh start and clean data. Many companies want to register with the state, but fail to keep their information up-to-date and often do not let us know when they are no longer doing business. Large mailings often resulted in letters and email being returned as undeliverable. This impaired our ability to post bids and award contracts in a timely manner.
The new system allows vendors to register electronically and decide which goods and services they would like to receive bid notifications and other information. Email addresses and other mandatory state requirements are verified before they are placed on an authorized list of companies who will receive information about the bid. Periodic electronic validations will be conducted on the vendor files to ensure that they are still in business and desire to be kept on the system. Vendors who do not respond to updates or are no longer in business will eventually be purged from the system.
To date, 6,900 vendors have electronically registered in the new system. They are receiving electronic notifications of bid opportunities and downloading bid documents from WEBS.
New Process for State Personnel: State government purchasing personnel have also begun to reengineer the way they conduct business when looking for a supplier of goods and services.
When a state agency decides to use the system they register on the system by designating an agency administrator who is responsible for placing all agency information on the system including the maintenance of user accounts for their agencies. Purchasing staff are setup with login accounts and permissions authorized by each agency administrator.
Once an agency is setup it can begin to organize bid opportunities and post them on to the system. The system will match up bid opportunities with vendors who have registered for those commodity codes. Each vendor will receive a notification and the bid opportunity is also published on the WEBS bid calendar. The bid calendar is made available to potential vendors who have not registered so that they can quickly register and respond to the bid.
To date, 54 government organizations have signed up to use WEBS. They include Evergreen State College, Western Washington University, Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction, Department of Transportation, Department of Information Services, Office of Financial Management, GA, Department of Corrections, Pierce County and many others.
There have been 122 bid notifications listed on WEBS so far. Many of those have not only been for goods and services, but also for services such as IT professional services.
Other Benefits and Advantages of WEBS: There are many reasons why state government should use WEBS for bidding opportunities.
The new service is free to government entities and vendors and includes:
Technology: The WEBS implementation met a number of priorities for GA. GA was interested in an application that could be implemented in a reasonable period of time, yet would be flexible to meet the long term vision which has been defined above. GA had defined the ASP.Net environment as a strategic initiative for its application development environment during a Gartner study that was completed in early 2003. GA technical staff had no knowledge in this area and we were concerned about the learning curve for our staff.
WEBS was developed using a hybrid approach. The first phase of the system was developed by NovuSolutions out of Florida with heavy functional design and testing completed by GA's procurement staff. The code migration and systems software support was completed by GA's Information Systems staff. Facilities management was provided by the DIS staff in the A La Carte floor of the state's data center.
Novus developed the system in ASP.Net using C Sharp for coding. The contract included technical training for GA Information Systems staff and, of significant note, the handoff and ownership of the source code to GA once the system has been in production for a year. That handover will occur in August of this year. At that time, GA staff will take over responsibility for full support of the system.
Next Phase: The next phase of WEBS will be to receive submitted bids electronically, award them and to manage contract activity. It will also incorporate some contract document management The next phase is dependent on a current companion bill (House Bill 1439/Senate Bill 5373 – Electronic and Web Based Bids) which is under consideration at the Legislature. Its passage will make electronic submission of bids legal for the State of Washington.
Conclusion: The first phase of the system implementation has been a success. Feedback from the vendor community and government agencies has been positive. Suggestions for modifications from those groups have frequently been incorporated into the system or defined as a requirement for a future phase of the project.
For further information on the system: Contact Kathy Costello, WEBS Implementation Manager at (360) 902-7294, or Phil Grigg at (360) 902-7452. You can visit our website at http://www.ga.wa.gov/webs/.
--By Kelley Kellerman, Department of Printing
The Washington State Department of Printing (PRT) received the Best Practices Award from PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, at the 2005 PODi Applications Forum on February 10. The agency and their customer partner, the Employment Security Department (ESD), received the prestigious award for the development of the Internet ordering application PRTonline.
Each year, the Best Practices Award honors innovative applications that demonstrate the business potential of digital printing. This year the Department of Printing was honored in the "Collateral Management & Fulfillment" category, and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts received the award in the "Direct Mail" category. An independent panel selected the winning applications from over 60 submissions from around the country.
About PRTonline
PRTonline is a Web-based application created by the Department of Printing in partnership with ESD. The application was designed to enable state agencies and political sub-divisions such as cities, counties and school districts to order a wide variety of printed items, including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, newsletters, brochures, and ad specialty items, more quickly and cost-effectively.
PRTonline allows users to customize the text, images and formatting used in documents, view and approve proofs on screen before ordering, quickly re-order documents, and track the status of orders. The application's online catalog includes both static items and documents that may be customized before ordering with text and graphics from an image library associated with the document.
Since its release in June 2004, PRTonline has saved Washington State agencies and political sub-divisions an estimated $15,000 in prepress costs by eliminating typesetting, file pre-flighting and hardcopy proofing. In addition, the application has dramatically reduced inventory waste, decreased turnaround time, increased print production efficiency, and helped PRT customers maintain consistency and control over documents ordered through PRTonline.
Designed for powerful, long-term benefits
Working closely with ESD, the PRT project team began work on PRTonline by gathering customer requirements with a focus on ensuring the solution would be applicable to all of PRT's customers and provide enterprise-wide benefits.
The team modeled successful e-commerce systems in order to create an application that was self-supporting, easy to use, and consistent with PRT's existing IT infrastructure. During this time, PRT discovered .EDIT from Pageflex Corporation, an XML-based technology that allows PRT to design templates, post the templates to the Web, and then output to high-resolution PDFs.
Managing the project core goals was vital to the project team's ability to keep the project within scope and ensure the project was a success. "We were very cautious in what we added to the requirements. We did not want to create a software maintenance nightmare. This application had to be a sound long-term solution that met the needs of all our customers. By keeping to a simpler solution, we were able to effectively manage the project, ensuring the project was delivered on time and that it exceeded the customer's expectations," said Ron DeRose, IT Application Services Manager at PRT.
2005 PODi Applications Forum
Ron DeRose, IT Applications Manager at PRT, accepted the Best Practices Award on behalf of the Washington State Department of Printing. Following the award acceptance, DeRose presented an overview of PRTonline and the project objectives. Following the presentation, DeRose was approached by several attendees who were very complimentary of the application. "They said the presentation confirmed what many had felt--that this type of online service is a cost-effective and powerful way to do business and they wanted to know how we did it," commented DeRose. "It is certainly a reflection of the skill and hard work of the entire project team and the dedication of the project sponsors in both PRT and ESD."
About PODi
PODi is a not-for-profit industry consortium whose mission is to foster the growth of the digital printing industry through market development activities and promotion of software standards. Over 230 companies are members of the initiative, including EFI, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, NexPress, Pitney Bowes, Quark, Xerox, Adobe, and Canon.
PODi promotes interoperability of digital print applications through the Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML) suite of open software standards, test suites and certification. PPML is an XML-based language that streamlines the way production equipment processes print files, making it possible to process variable-data printing jobs quickly and efficiently.
5 Years Ago -- February 2000 IPMA Newsletter
10 Years Ago -- February 1995 IPMA Newsletter
15 Years Ago -- February 1990 IPMA Newsletter (not available at this time)
20 Years Ago -- February 1985 Association of Data Processing Managers Newsletter
25 Years Ago -- February 1980 Association of Data Processing Managers Newsletter
30 Years Ago -- February 1975 Association of Data Processing Managers Newsletter
Members Present: Jim Albert, Mary Ellen Bradley, Thomas Bynum, Phil Grigg, Sheryl Hall, Dennis Jones, Dennis Laine, Andy Marcelia, Christy Ridout, Darrel Riffe and Allen Schmidt. Phil Coates, CFO, and Jim Andersen, Forum Events Manager, were also present.
Christy Ridout, IPMA Chair, opened the January 2005 meeting of the IPMA Board of Directors at 7:35 a.m. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: The minutes from the December 2004 Board meeting were approved.
SECRETARY/TREASURER'S REPORT: The Board approved the December 2004 financial status and activities reports.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Forum 2005: Jim Andersen reported that the committee was a little behind schedule due to time devoted to the development of the marketing plan. He sees little trouble in getting back on schedule.
Communications: Mary Ellen Bradley reported that the January issue of the IPMA News was posted on the web and notifications sent out January 12th. Bob Monn asked her to report that the Listserv list has been generating a number of "undeliverable message" errors for known good email addresses. He is pursuing a solution with the listserv host and DIS.
Mary Ellen reminded Phil Grigg that he is up for the article to go in the February IPMA News.
Professional Development: Sheryl Hall reported that the January 19th event, "The Vision of What's Possible for Delivering Citizen Service through Mobile Government" is ready to go. Seventy-five people have registered to date, in spite of the undeliverable mail problem that Mary Ellen alluded to earlier.
Planning for the March event is underway. Sheryl and Allen are working with Xerox Company on a program outlining their use of "Lean Six-Sigma" to optimize the delivery of services. The State Printers office may also be involved in the program.
A Technical Round Table on Security is being planned for the April session. So far, Microsoft, Novell and Washington Computer Incident Response Center (WACIRC) representatives are confirmed to join in. Dave McComb, of Semantic Arts Inc., has agreed to moderate the session. It is hoped that IBM and HP will be included as well.
Neal Witten has been engaged for the August Professional Development event. The session will have a Project Management focus and will be titled "No Non-sense Advice for Successful Projects."
Sheryl noted that Allen Schmidt's addition to the committee has made a world of difference to the program with his enthusiasm and insight.
Jim Andersen reminded the Professional Development Committee that they need to book Saint Martin's dates further out to 2006-2007. Sheryl and Allen will work on that. Also Sheryl and Allen will submit marketing materials to Jim for the Forum Publishing to help promote Professional Development, hopefully by mid March.
Executive Seminar 2004: Phil Grigg reported that serious planning for the 2005 Executive Seminar at the Ocean Shores Shilo Inn has not gotten underway yet. He reported being contacted by Campbell's at Lake Chelan regarding plans to return there in 2005. Based on his conversation with Campbell's, as well as other locations, Phil suggested that it may be necessary to schedule facilities five or six years in the future to ensure the desired dates. The board will consider the issue at its planning session.
MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM: Dennis Jones reported that the committee is now working on sourcing the planned training. Thus far it has been talking with representatives from the University of Washington in an attempt to get a rough estimate on cost. Dennis expects to have something by the end of the month, in time for the planning session.
OTHER BUSINESS:
Annual Planning Retreat: Thomas indicated that it would begin at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, January 27, 2005, and would adjourn at noon on Friday.
Annual Report: Christy reminded all the board members that their input for the annual report should be sent to Thomas Bynum for compilation and submission to the web master for posting.
Next Meeting: March 10, 2005 The meeting was adjourned at 8:25 a.m.
Members Present: Jim Albert, Mary Ellen Bradley, Thomas Bynum, Phil Grigg, Sheryl Hall, Dennis Jones, Dennis Laine, Andy Marcelia, Christy Ridout, Darrel Riffe, Allen Schmidt and Shelagh Taylor. Phil Coates, CFO, and Jim Andersen, Forum Events Manager, were also present.
Christy Ridout, IPMA Chair, opened the 2005 annual planning meeting of the IPMA Board of Directors January 27, 2005, at 1:30 p.m.
Review and Revisit Mission and Goals of IPMA: No changes to the mission or goals of the IPMA were presented at this time. It was agreed that if changes became necessary, as a result of decisions made during the meeting, they would be dealt with at the end of the meeting.
Election of Board Officers:
Chair - Thomas Bynum
Vice-Chair - Andy Marcelia
Secretary/Treasurer - Mary Ellen Bradley
Christy Ridout passed control of the meeting to Thomas. Thomas thanked Christy for her leadership throughout the year.
Reviews of Committee Plans:
Executive Seminar: The 2005 seminar will be held at the Shilo in Ocean Shores. The theme will be a combination of technology related issues and current government issues. Twenty-six actively participating corporate sponsors will be the maximum allowed for 2005.
There was a discussion of the desirability/necessity of reserving sites for the seminar three or four years in advance. Various potential locations were discussed. The board directed Phil and Darrel to determine the feasibility of reserving Skamania Lodge for the 2006 & 2007 seminar and Campbell’s resort for the 2008 & 2009 seminars. They will bring a proposal to the March board meeting.
Forum: Plans and preparations for the 2005 Forum were reviewed. The committee is working on getting the governor, or the governor’s chief of staff, as the keynote speaker at the first day of the Forum. They are also trying for Rob McKenna as the Executive Lunch speaker.
There was a discussion of the corporate sponsorships; what the IPMA’s expectations are of sponsors and what sponsor’s expectations are of the IPMA. The board directed the Vice-chair to work with Jim Andersen to develop a Corporate Sponsor Contract to clarify those issues.
Communications: Mary Ellen Bradley reported that the recruitment of a consistent flow of newsletter articles is a challenge. The board agreed to continue the practice of a board member providing an article a month on a rotating schedule. The schedule will be distributed at the March board meeting.
In response to the incident that caused the loss of the IPMA event registration database last August, the IPMA web master Bob Monn, proposed a manual backup procedure during the critical registration period for the Executive Seminar. The manual method would only be used until an automated solution could be implemented. In addition to the Executive Seminar registrations, the board directed Bob to use the backup procedure during registration of Professional Development activities as well.
The web master is working with various agencies and the web/listserv service provider to resolve the “Undeliverable Mail” to valid addresses problem.
The board determined that the development of the IPMA Marketing Plan would fall under the responsibility of the Communications Committee.
Professional Development: Sheryl Hall and Allen Schmidt presented the objectives for the committee for 2005.
Deliver a new format in 2005. The April session will be in the format of a Technical Round Table. The session will be conducted with an experienced moderator, several vendors, and participants from the state IT community.
Develop a Professional Development vendor and panel participant expectations and responsibilities sheet. This will be developed in sync with the proposed marketing products to ensure a common look, feel and consistency.
Update and enhance the Professional Development Co-Chair “desk manual.”
Develop a Contract template for securing presenters and speakers.
Contact St. Martin’s and book ahead through 2006 and 2007.
Work more closely with the Forum planning committee to tie programs, sessions, topics and themes together.
Develop Professional Development marketing materials with a consistent look and feel; including color schemes for handouts, agendas, evaluations, etc.
Plan and provide six seminars during 2005.
In reviewing the proposed budget, the board directed the committee to explore the possibility of charging a fee between $50 - $100 for the August program with Neal Whitten as the speaker. Dennis Jones volunteered to approach DOP about partnering with the IPMA on this event and manage the registration and fee collection process.
The proposal to purchase a projector was removed from the Professional Development budget request. The board felt that the purchase of a projector should be an organization administrative expense as it will be available to be used by all committees. Jim Anderson was assigned the task of gathering the requirements from the IPMA committees to present at the March board meeting. The cost of the propose model should not exceed $3,500.
IT Leadership Development Program: Dennis Jones presented a status report on the progress to date. The proposed program will be provided as a series of three modules lasting four months each, to be completed in a one-year period.
The UW Evans School estimates that the program would cost between $5,000 - $8,000 per student. The board authorized Dennis to expend up to $10,000 of “seed money” to continue the development of the course.
The board determined that the effort required to bring this program into being is such that it should be an official committee of the IPMA with it’s own organization and budget.
Business Planning:
IPMA Committee Assignments:
Forum Co-Chairs - Dennis Laine and Jim Albert
Communications Co-Chairs - Christy Ridout and Shelagh Taylor
Executive Seminar Co-Chairs - Phil Grigg and Darrel Riffe
Professional Development Co-Chairs - Sheryl Hall and Allen Schmidt
IT Leadership Development Co-Chairs - Dennis Jones and Jim Albert
Vendor gifts: After a discussion, the board determined that the policy of not permitting vendor gifts to individual attendees at the Executive Seminar will be continued. Forum vendors would be allowed to contribute to a fund that would be used to purchase an attendee gift, such as the folders distributed the past two years.
Financial Status Review: Phil Coates went over the 2004 year end financial reports. With the proposed budgets developed by the committees in preparation for this meeting, Phil will present a draft budget for board approval at the March board meeting.
Marketing Plan Development: Jim Albert walked the board through the plan input provided by board members. It was obvious that the plan needs input from all the committees and further work from an organizational perspective. The task of developing the plan was assigned to the Communications Committee. One thing that was clear from the input provided was that it is imperative that the board have significant representation of IT leadership from progressive, influential and larger agencies. In preparation for dealing with this issue, Andy Marcelia, the Vice-chair, will lead the development of a recruitment plan for new board members.
Annual Reports: Committee input to the 2004 annual report needs to be to Thomas Bynum by the March board meeting.
2006 Board Planning Retreat: The 2006 board planning retreat will be held at a place to be determined by the Vice-Chair, January 26 & 27, 2006.
Next Board Meeting: The next board meeting will be held February 10, 2005, at the Shipwreck Café.
Thomas Bynum, the new board chair, adjourned the meeting at 11:55 a.m. January 28, 2005.
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