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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Read Before Packet - 1/16/2024 - Email From Tyler Marr Re: Agenda Item 3 On January 16 Council Meeting Agenda – Draft Council Finance Committee Minutes From December 14, 20231 Sarah Kane From:Tyler Marr Sent:Friday, January 12, 2024 3:48 PM To:CCSL Subject:Attachment for Item 3 - Draft CFC Minutes for Change Management Appropriation Attachments:Draft Partial CFC Minutes 121423.docx Mayor and Council, I’m sending a missing aƩachment for Item Number 3 on your agenda next Tuesday. The draŌ parƟal minutes from the December Council Finance CommiƩee meeƟng were not included in the packet due to an error of mine. They’re aƩached here for your reference and we’ll ensure the online agenda gets amended too. Thanks and sorry for the miss, Tyler ……………….. Tyler Marr Deputy City Manager City of Fort Collins, CO 303-519-3756 mobile Finance Administration 215 N. Mason 2nd Floor PO Box 580 Fort Collins, CO 80522 970.221.6788 970.221.6782 - fax fcgov.com Council Finance Committee Zoom Meeting December 14, 2023 4:00 - 6:30 pm Council Attendees: Emily Francis, Kelly Ohlson Members Absent: Julie Pignataro Staff: Kelly DiMartino, Tyler Marr, Travis Storin, John Duval, Dave Lenz, Randy Reuscher, Marc Virata, Dean Klingner, Sheena Freve, Brad Buckman, Monica Martinez, Jill Wuertz Blaine Dunn, Randy Bailey, Renee Reeves, Meaghan Overton, Jo Cech, Jen Poznanovic, Kendall Minor, Lance Smith, Victoria Shaw, Jill Wuertz Zack Mozer, Carolyn Koontz Others: Kevin Jones, Chamber Brian Duffany and Christian Carroll from Economic & Planning Systems; Colin McAweeney from TischlerBise A. Change Management Resources Tyler Marr, Deputy City Manager Appropriation request regarding change management resources for two digital transformation projects. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Staff is recommending a one-time appropriation totaling $500,000 from General Fund Reserves to support dedicated change management resources for two digital transformation projects - Legislative Management Software and Recreation Registration Software replacements. The split is $375,000 for Legislative Management and $125,000 for The Recreation Registration project. These resources will go directly to contracted change management resources with PROSCI, whose methodology the City is using for a broader Enterprise Change Management effort. GENERAL DIRECTION SOUGHT AND SPECIFIC QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED Does Council Finance Committee recommend moving the appropriation to the full Council in January? BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION: The City organization is actively pursuing at various stages a number of projects that seek to modernize our digital footprint for the community and the internal operations of the organization. These projects span many city services, including: • Customer information system for utility billing • Licensing, permitting, and inspection software. • Recreation registration system • Legislative management software - including council agenda packets. • Enterprise Resource Planning Taken individually, each of these projects represent different degrees of resourcing, both in terms of dollars and staff time, complexities and process or operational changes that will be required to be successful. A critical component staff believes applies to each project is our ability to effectively manage the change from current state operations to the future state under new tools and systems. Previous examples where we have not invested in adequate change management support and a holistic project management approach have resulted in suboptimal outcomes. While the City has invested in staff capacity and in creating positions for change practitioners to some degree, it is leadership’s opinion that each of the projects above will require dedicated change management support which simply does not exist in the organization today. Both the Recreation registration and legislative management systems are near term projects reaching critical milestones that have significant change requirements not currently able to be absorbed in the project costs that were originally budgeted primarily for software costs alone. Both projects are detailed below in addition to what the appropriation would provide for. Recreation Registration (Daysmart) The City’s current recreation registration software – known as RecTrac – is a pain point in resident experience when it comes to accessing the City’s class and program offerings across facilities and offering type. Council appropriated $89k in funds to replace the software in the 2023/2024 budget and staff has completed a Request for Proposals (RFP) and selected Daysmart as the new vendor who will provide that software. Given the change a new system represents to the community and staff, and the vast amount of public interaction that our residents have with this particular system, executive staff selected the project as one that should receive dedicated change management support, especially to meet the timeline of working to launch for the April registration process. The appropriation request amount of $125,00 would cover dedicated support for a change practitioner provided through Prosci to assist in project execution alongside the City’s project manager. Legislative Management Software (LMS) Legislative management software is a tool to improve efficiencies and transparency of the legislative process which includes Council agendas and minutes, in addition to materials for boards and commissions and Council subcommittees. Council approved a 2023-2024 Budget Offer for $300k ($150k in each ’23 and ‘24) to fund implementation of a new LMS. This proposal was included in the larger Digital Transformation RFP to include a new citywide website. Staff wanted to consolidate multiple applications into a single, streamlined resident and community experience. Staff are currently in the final stages of selecting a vendor. Executive leadership felt that this project was a critical one to provide dedicated change management support to; given the scale of the project, the number of staff that interact with the LMS, the critical functions pertaining to agenda management, record keeping, and the associated risks to public trust if the project does not go successfully. The requested appropriation of $375,000 includes dedicated support for project execution, training in change management to upskill impacted groups across the organization and building capability in change management execution for the organization more broadly. For both projects, staff is planning on exercising an existing contract option with Prosci to provide these services. Prosci is a locally based global thought leader in the practice of organizational change management. With over twenty years of research backing its industry leading methodology, their advisors have extensive experience both leading change initiatives and developing organizational capabilities related to organizational change management to successfully deliver results for organizations. The proposals Prosci has provided the City offers project execution support to successfully implement solutions that will assist staff and the community in engaging with City organization. In addition, the experienced Prosci Change Advisors will develop staff’s ability to manage change on an ongoing basis through coaching and training. This additional service supports the City’s enterprise-wide capability in organizational change management. GENERAL DIRECTION SOUGHT AND SPECIFIC QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED Does Council Finance Committee recommend moving the appropriation to the full Council in January? DISCUSSION / NEXT STEPS; Tyler Marr; I did have a conversation with Julie Pignataro earlier and she did offer that I could share some of that with you. She asked, ‘Why Prosci specifically?’ Prosci is a world leader in this, and we do have an existing relationship with them, but we know they aren’t the only provider. We have a different company providing change management resources for the CIS Utilities Billing System project and we would anticipate for both ERP and licensing, permitting and inspection software because we have more runway and will be going through a full RFP process with that instead of using this toggle option. We also talked through the sticker shock and the shifting philosophy in these projects. I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but I think she was more comfortable with it. She is hoping that we, as an organization are investing resources so that staff can do this ourselves instead of using third party vendors. That is a separate but parallel workstream here, that we are investing in staff to understand our change management philosophy and principles so they can provide some of these resources. When we look at best practices, especially around software implementation, some of these bigger ones will probably always need some supplemental change management. Emily Francis; I think it is smart to invest in our people, especially with software updates, making sure our folks are comfortable using them. This provides good services to our residents. There is quite a bit of sticker shock with this. Why is this coming out of the General Fund and not out of the strategic area of government where we normally fund these types of things? Travis Storin; when we talk about the two projects in question; The Recreation project for Daysmart - that fund is really not equipped with the reserves needed for this appropriation. Emily Francis; when I think of change management, it is like training staff. We have staff training and development funds allocated in High Performing Government. So, I am wondering why this is coming out of the General Fund? Tyler Marr; in terms of the parallel path that is, how do we get staff better at this and certify staff, that is traditionally, where we would look to training budgets first, and then if needed supplement. Because these projects came out of the General Fund, and these are supplemental resources do the projects we just kept the same path there. Emily Francis; in the future when we have software changes, will the budget offers include this change management, if we think it meets the criteria? Tyler Marr; I think we are setting an expectation that this is how we will budget projects moving forward is considering and making part of an RFPs, change management is a key component and it will also include things like staff backfill when needed to maintain two systems at the same time until we are ready for launch. I do think it is a wholesale philosophy shift and we are in the infant stages of figuring out what that looks like. Travis Storin; criteria, etched in stone that we will have change management in the budget offers. when they come forward. These two projects came forward as offers before we embraced this as a priority. We are going all in on this for projects of a certain size or reach. Kelly Ohlson; legislative management software - Utilities is a big part of the organization and its enterprise funds – why aren’t the enterprise funds contributing to the cost instead of all General Fund? Tyler Marr; I don’t’ think we have thought through this with that level of detail, but I will commit to is that before bringing this forward as an appropriation, having a conversation with Travis and the Utilities folks. We will see if we can come up with a proportional component of the software, if that is something the committee is interested in. Kelly Ohlson; it is not a make for break for me, but I think it is a valid question as I think we usually break things out that way. We break some management salaries out that way – between Utilities and General Fund. Travis Storin; there is something to unpack there, I would say that the Utilities are ahead of the rest of the organization in terms of change management. They have a person on staff. Kelly Ohlson; slide 5 (see below) Can you translate the Bottom Line for me? Tyler Marr; historically, we have brought you the costs that a new software package would entail. It might have some implementation dollars, but likely will just be ongoing subscription costs and then staff would absorb the time and resources needed to get that across the finish line. For projects that meet that big criteria and represent legacy, multi decade system that take years (and not these two projects) but could take millions of dollars to shift. We think the risk is too great to only focus on the software itself. The change in philosophy is saying, what else is required to make these projects work, given that there is a good track record in the city organization. We need project management, change management and staff backfill capacity. We hope they are few and far between, but we know we have a few of them. Kelly Ohlson; does our website search engine fall into this category? Tyler Marr; because we are going with the single vendor approach, I anticipate we will get some co benefits out of the resourcing for the legislative software. We are actively working on changes there too. Kelly Ohlson; I am fine with this. Tyler Marr; I viewed these numbers as caps, given that they are on different timelines, we will only spend what is needed which is a general operating assumption. Kelly Ohlson; my trust level is very high with the organization -I know when you bring these items, you are presenting the best and most accurate information – trust does matter to me in this role.