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Innotas Customer Success Stories

 

The City of Roseville Leverages Innotas IT Governance PPM Capability to Align 180+ IT Projects with City's Growth Plan

Tom Freeman, City of Roseville"We now have a technology governance process in place, along with the Innotas on-demand IT Governance solution, which enables us to track progress and accountability. By streamlining the process, we've been able to reduce technology projects that have minimal impact on the city's overall growth, and we're now focusing our resources on projects that are aligned with the city's strategic objectives."Tom Freeman, CIO
The City of Roseville

Opportunity

As a full-service city with 17 different operational organizations, the City of Roseville's IT department has more than 180 projects in the works to support critical city services such as the city's electric department, public works, fire department and police departments. As a result, the city's CIO Thomas Freeman is faced with daily decisions that impact residents. For example, he may be asked to approve and implement an enterprise asset management software solution to improve the city's infrastructure, while at the same time he's being asked to review and approve a system that directly impacts the safety of the city's residents — a computer-aided dispatch system for 911 calls.

"Human nature is to move forward with the projects that are perceived to have the highest sense of urgency. In many cases, sense of urgency is defined by the departments pushing the hardest for action," said Freeman. "We were lacking a technology solution that enabled us to assess and prioritize the projects that are most important to the city council and Roseville citizens."

Freeman and his team were under pressure by the city council to get a governance model in place for technology, and they didn't have much time to do it. The city council identified five organizational goals to continue the city's economic growth, and they expected the IT projects to map to these strategic initiatives:

  • Safe and Healthy Community
  • Transportation Planning and Investment
  • Enhance Community Services
  • Economic Vitality
  • Downtown Revitalization

"To make decisions about where to spend dollars, and to understand work loads, we needed to look at the city as a whole," said Freeman. "To determine which projects took priority — whether it was a homeland defense surveillance system or a voice communications system that seamlessly integrates with surrounding public safety agencies — we needed to break down the silos and gain a big-picture overview of the needs of our city government."

Solution

Freeman and his team reviewed IT Governance solutions from on-premise vendors and eliminated them due to cost, time to implement, and functionality. The City of Roseville selected the Innotas on-demand IT Governance solution because the functionality was well aligned with the city's requirements. Plus, Innotas' on-demand delivery model was affordable, and it enabled the city to implement the solution in days instead of months.

"Now we have accountability to the constituents," said Freeman. "With the Innotas on-demand IT Governance solution we're able to quickly and easily prioritize the projects that are aligned with the city's strategic growth plan, while best serving its residents."

The City of Roseville's most pressing pain point was prioritizing its 180 projects, and aligning them to the overall goals and objectives of the city. Next, Freeman is focusing on resource allocation. The Innotas solution provides him with a consolidated view of all projects, teams and resources. He can now show the city council and management where the IT department is spending its time and moving toward accomplishment of desired results.

Results

By selecting the Innotas on-demand solution, the City of Roseville was able to get its governance process in place six months ahead of schedule, and achieved a 6.68 percent savings on existing and planned projects for the year. "We were under pressure to get an IT decision-making process in place, fast," said Freeman. "Not only were we able to get Innotas up and running in just days, we were able to immediately begin using the on-demand IT Governance solution to prioritize IT projects."

The City of Roseville now has a structured approach in place for acquiring information technology. Departments now identify needs, submit proposals, and present a business case before projects can begin. All of this critical information is captured in the Innotas solution, enabling Freeman and his team to make more informed IT investments. "We are able to capture time and attendance information for our payroll system," said Freeman. "We are now more accurate in our indirect charge-out allocations for resource usage because the guesswork of what projects the staff is working on is taken out of the equation."

"We now have a technology governance process in place, along with the Innotas on-demand solution, which enables us to track progress and accountability," said Freeman. "By streamlining the process, we've been able to reduce technology projects that have minimal impact on the city's overall growth, and we're now focusing our resources on projects that are aligned with the city's strategic objectives."

For example, the number-one goal of the city council is to provide the residents with a safe and healthy community. "A project that got pushed to the top of the list was a public safety project giving police officers high-speed wireless transmission in their patrol cars," said Freeman. "Meanwhile, we moved a downtown revitalization project lower on the list — although it's still a key priority and remains on this list, it falls below the public safety projects in terms of priorities."

In terms of ROI, the City of Roseville has had savings in a few areas. By using an on-demand solution, the city saved approximately $400,000 to $500,000 in hardware and setup costs. The city has also saved money by not having to dedicate administrative resources to keep operating systems, databases and applications patched and working properly. Training time and start-up costs were significantly reduced. Additionally, Freeman projects an estimated savings of $250,000 during the next five years in annual maintenance fees which had been eliminated with the Innotas on-demand solution.

Customer Profile

Roseville is a progressive city with its eye on the future, but all the while retains and celebrates its rich historical railroad roots. Located in Placer County along the eastern edge of the Sacramento Valley at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills, Roseville is a mere 16 miles from Sacramento, the state capital. Typical of other California cities, Roseville's climate ranges from hot, dry summers to mild winters. What started as a town developed by disappointed miners from the famed Gold Rush has blossomed into a thoroughly developed, independent city boasting an estimated population of 104,655 residents (as of January 1, 2006). Roseville incorporated on April 10, 1909, and is a charter city operating under a city manager-council form of government.