Information Systems Strategic Planning
Managing the rapid pace of information technology (IT) change and the costs associated with its implementation has risen to the forefront of management consideration. The realization that as IT moves to the core of businesses, planning is essential if systems success and leverage are to be achieved. Strategic Information Plans (IT Master Plans in the airport industry) provide executive management with a prioritized road map and master plan for implementing systems and technology.
DCG has developed many such Plans for public sector entities, and utilizes a structured approach which includes:
- Assessment of the existing information systems environment, which includes inventory of the applications, platform, desktop and network environment
- Review and assessment of the direct IT organization and other support resources
- Critical Success Factor analysis
- Analysis of IT costs/spending against industry benchmarks
- Technical assessment of key applications
- Evaluation of technology directions/alternatives
- Special emphasis review of key areas critical to management
- Comparison of IT practices and trends against a group of industry peers
The Plan results in recommendations in the areas of Planning & Control Strategy; Network/Telecommunications Strategy; Hardware/Platform Strategy; Desktop Strategy; Applications Strategy; IT Organization Strategy.
DCG then works with management to prioritize study results and develops a comprehensive Action Plan, which prioritizes the specific agreed-upon projects resulting from the Plan. Finally, DCG uses its proprietary a modeling tool which provides a detailed three (3) year implementation schedule that includes cost and resources required to implement the Plan.
Representative projects include:
Houston Airport System
DCG originally developed a comprehensive Information Technology Master Plan for the Houston Airport System ("HAS") in 1993, and has completed several updates to the Plan since that time. HAS is one of the largest airport systems in the U.S., operating three major airports (IAH; HOU; EFD) and a heliport facility.
Highlights of the Plan included inventory of 230 existing software applications, current hardware platform and network environment and peer comparison survey of the information systems capabilities and directions at 11 other major airports in the U.S.
Reprentative recommendations resulting from recent updates include:
- Outsourcing aspects of Information Technology functions
- The vision and conceptual architecture for a consolidating independent data and voice networks into a single, redundant, managed high bandwidth network infrastructure with shared tenant service (STS) offerings capability
- Recommendations for expanded Internet services, including FIDS and collaborative extranet applications
- An application focus on better integration of the existing environment, including the establishment of data warehouses for the six major operating divisions of HAS
- Implementation of Microsoft Exchange/Outlook and an Intranet as the enterprise messaging and executive information system infrastructure
- Establishment of a Chief Resource Officer ("CRO") position to lead the Information Technology organization under an outsourcer environment
DCG continues to work with HAS to implement and update the Plan on an on-going basis.
City of Houston - Dept of Public Works & EngineeringDCG developed an information systems strategic plan for one of the largest water and wastewater utilities in the country which has an IS budget of $15 million. The Department operates three major data centers, more than 60 LAN servers, and provides billing/CIS support to the City's more than 360,000 water and sewer service customers. Highlights of the SIP included conceptual design of a wide area network architecture supporting more than 40 physical sites and the multiple data centers, and recommendation of the City's first Chief Information Officer (CIO) position. Application architecture recommendations included data integration, standardization, and upgrades involving mission critical applications including work management, SCADA, billing/CIS, building inspection, capital projects, accounting, and executive information systems (EIS).
City of Houston - Municipal CourtsDCG completed and delivered a Strategic Information Plan for the City of Houston Municipal Courts. The City of Houston Municipal Courts is the largest municipal court in the State of Texas, handling more than 1.4 million traffic, non-traffic, and parking cases per year. The Plan calls for $6.3 million of information systems and technology improvements over the next three years, including:
- Legacy extension of the existing mainframe ADABS/Natural Municipal Courts System to two/three tier client server architecture, utilizing the existing mainframe for back end server processing.
- Implementation of a document imaging management system.
- Development of hand held technology to support traffic citation issuance.
- Introduction of Internet services to the public.
City of Houston, TX
DCG developed the first City-wide information systems strategic plan for the City of Houston. The City's IT budget exceeds $53 million. The scope of the plan included inventorying the existing applications, hardware, and network environment, evaluation of the existing technical environment, evaluation of strategic architectural direction alternatives, selection of a structured systems development methodology, and a recommended Central IS organization structure. DCG also surveyed nine (9) other major cities to determine current data processing/information services ("IS") practices and trends to provide a comparative framework of findings. The cities included Atlanta; Dade County; Detroit; Kansas City; Los Angeles; Los Angeles County; San Antonio; San Diego; and, San Francisco.
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