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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCORRESPONDENCE - RFP - 7414 TECHNICAL CONSULTATION & PROGRAM MGMT FOR SUPPORT & INTEGRATION OF SMART GRID SOLUTION & RELATED SERVICES (4)City of F6rtom , Utilities 700 Wood Street PO Box 580 Fort Collins, CO 80522 970.221.6700 970.221.6619 - fax fcgov.com Scope of Work — PO# 9126229 IT Strategic Plan Development — City of Fort Collins Utilities Background/Overview An IT Strategic Plan for the City of Fort Collins -Utilities was developed in the fall of 2009 and since that time, while some projects still remain to be completed, IT and the Utilities have completed many projects described in that original plan. The Utilities wishes to refresh the plan at this time. The City of Fort Collins emphasizes sustainability and has undertaken significant effort across the Utilities and other City functions to become one of the best cities in America in which to live and work. Some of those efforts include sustainability program leadership, adoption of progressive energy and water policies, receipt of a DOE grant for deploying advanced metering infrastructure and technologies, improvements in water and wastewater facilities as well as other Utilities' leading activities. Along with its Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO) process, the Utilities recognizes the strategic nature of linking technology and communication systems to support the growing demand of long-term information intelligence while recognizing financial constraints faced by all municipalities. The goal of the IT Strategic Plan is to determine a vision and direction that aligns internal and external stakeholders while helping expectations across the Utilities and City departments to coalesce. The goal of the IT Strategy Plan is to identify elements of technology and IT infrastructure that will shape the future of the Utilities operations, customer interface options, and the City's sustainability focus. The plan should provide a strategic view of choices placed along a continuum extending out 8 —10 years to facilitate decision making. The IT Steering Committee, comprised of Senior Utilities' managers, is chartered with setting priorities and supporting the BFO process as well as building necessary alignment amount the several Utilities organizations. The IT Strategy Plan should include a roadmap that allows current projects to be set as the baseline with future desired outcomes arranged on a time and budget line. This approach should give visibility to total cost, help develop an understanding of expectations and will uncover opportunities for capital budgeting optimization. Following is a list of tasks to be completed: 1. Proiect Kick-off and Strategic Plan Communications Initially discover all of the various IT projects currently underway at the Utilities, including electric, water, stormwater, and wastewater. Getting a timely response to this request will be F°of �CityCollins essential in order to deliver the proposed plan in a timely way. Data needs should be ascertained and reviewed. 2. Exiting Plans and Programs A condition assessment should include current capital plans and scheduling. The assessment should depict where the Utilities is today, the investments made, and being made. It should feature a high level review of the rationale/business cases supporting the decision process. 3. Engaging Stakeholders Key stakeholders from the various Utilities and IT should be included in order to build a shared direction. This stakeholder process should be part of the continual feedback loop that begins with the opening Condition Assessment and concludes with a Final Report, detailing the IT Strategic Plan. IT professionals within the City organization should be included in the interview process to gain their insight on newer technologies and technology directions that the Utilities could benefit from such as use of Sharepoint sites, service oriented architecture, mobile computing solutions, GIS tools, and other newer technologies. These technology tools, if desired by Utilities' leaders should be included in the IT Strategic Plan deliverables along with associated costs and time commitments. Approximately 25 one -hour interviews with key stakeholders should be conducted. These should be in person or occasionally by telephone depending on schedules and availability. Some interview sessions could include multiple interviewees. Interviewees should include a mix of stakeholders including senior managers, IT system users, and influencers/leaders. The result of the interview process will be development of the fundamental needs, desires, and visions held by the stakeholders. The information gathered by these interviews should be presented in a couple of facilitated workshops in which the various inputs are presented as a starting point for further discussion. The initial workshop should include presentation of findings, educational/background materials and industry trends. These would be intended to expand the discussion of other ideas as the stakeholders help define the future state. The open discussion should assist in the development of priorities. A second workshop should be conducted toward the end of the project cycle to review direction and make modifications as needed and to build preliminary support. 4. Technology Roadmap The technology roadmap should depict the desired outcomes along a timeline along with capital and O&M budget expectations. The desire is to not view any individual technology as an endpoint but to see it as a portion of a larger process. So, tasks 2 and 3 above should be merged into a timeline continuum. of F�`o`trt�Collins The process should focus on envisioning where the Utilities wants to be ten years into the future and describe how to get there. The roadmap should portray the path to the future state. Gaps should be identified and quantified. The roadmap should be either altered or gaps bridge. A high level capital plan to correspond to the specific elements of the roadmap should be included. 5. Final Report — IT Strategic Plan A final report should be created to document the steps followed to create the plan. This report must make high level recommendations and should build a basis for implementation. A presentation should be created for use with internal and external audiences in the review of the IT Strategy Plan. The report should include the timeline and capital budget expectations and relate them to the capital budget over the same time horizon. Project Deliverables Specific project deliverables include the following: • Interview findings • Vision and direction statement • Itemization of identified goals and objectives • Compilation of existing technology investments and plans • Matrix on areas of agreement and divergence between existing conditions and the vision and goals. • IT technology roadmap describing the current state, the future state, and the transition issues that defines the path to enable the vision. • Final Report — IT Strategic Plan Project Schedule The Utilities would like much of this effort to be completed during Q1 of 2013 with the Final Report completed by April 30, 2013.