Agenda - 11-08-2012 - 7b - Laserfiche WebLink

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32 Orange County Internal Operation's Technology Opportunities Description ofInitiatives PRIORITY LEVEL ONE Staffing Needs within IT Department: There is a clear need for additional staff within the IT Department. In order for the department to operate as a high-performing organization, sufficient staff is required to complete projects in a timely manner, as well as maintain operational level support. Without increasing the staff in the IT department, many of the projects requested and recommended in this plan will not be possible to implement. Key positions needed in the IT department include: 4 Senior Systems Analysts, 1 Applications Division Manager, 1 Network Engineer, and 1 GIS Addressing Coordinator. Additional detail on these needed positions can be found in Appendix C. One noted process area of improvement within IT staffing can be facilitated by establishing a key Business Relationship Manager roles within the Information Technology Department. In this model, specific IT staff will rotate between departments to assess business process, gain better working knowledge of daily operations, and partner with departmental staff to create technical solutions and enhancements to operational, tactical, and strategic issues. Essentially, the Business Relationship Managers will assist in developing proactive solutions to business unit problems or challenges, versus the often reactive process used currently. The adoption of this model does presume an increase of IT Department's FTEs in order to achieve the level of service expected by the departments. Information Technology Governance Structure: IT Governance is becoming an increasingly important topic in the public sector. The role of the governance is to ensure that IT is aligned with the business and delivers value, its performance is measured, its resources properly allocated and its risks mitigated. The IT Governance Council is not directly involved with traditional maintenance and infrastructure projects, but rather, addresses the various competing demands for IT staff time and IT investment dollars related to enterprise and/or departmental IT projects. For example, the Governance Council would assess all IT project requests from various departments during the budget process and then make recommendations for funding and project prioritization (related to IT staff commitments) in a manner that best serves the needs of the County as a whole, not the individual desires of competing departments. The IT Governance structure should be established by the IT Department, but the County should ensure that senior management is involved in the Governance process, serving as Governance 30