JLMIT–Meeting Summary

 

Meeting Date/Time: 10/20/10 10:00 am -11:30 am

Location: Chinook Building, Conference Room 115 (1st Floor South side)

 

Attendees: Fred Bentler (DNRP), Trever Esko (OIRM), Bill Kehoe (OIRM), Gary Lemenager (OIRM), Jim Meith (OLR), Behnaz Nelson (IFPTE Local 17), Judy O’Leary (PH), Janet Parks (IFPTE Local 17), Matt Pope (DOT), Betty Sorbo (Teamsters Local 117), Peg Taglianetti (OIRM), Chris Ynzunza (OIRM)

 

Agenda

 

·          New CIO

·          JLMIT Charter

·          ABT/BRC

·          Microsoft Enterprise Agreement

·          Service Center – Special Meeting

 

Old Business - Meeting Summary

 

Members read through the last meeting notes and suggested changes to Michael Frawley’s role in ABT/BRC, and timeline for ABT/BRC position changes.  Those changes were incorporated.

 

New CIO

 

The new CIO, Bill Kehoe, was present and gave his impressions of his first few weeks at the County and his ideas and plans.  He has enjoyed meeting the new people and learning about the County’s groups and processes.  He wants to foster a stronger IT community and promote more knowledge sharing and collaboration.  He does not like walls.  He wants our processes to be more effective and efficient.  He would like tasks to be accomplished faster.  IT activities should become more flexible and nimble.  He would like to cut through some of the approval processes and red tape to get things done faster.  With respect to the message from the Executive Dow Constantine about creating 3% more efficiencies in all departments, Bill thinks IT can play a big role in accomplishing that.  IT can enable business to be more efficient.  He will be working on defining customer service levels to make customer services more efficient.  Performance metrics will be established in order to help demonstrate the value of IT to top decision-makers within our organization and to the public at large.  He highlighted several initiatives he is spearheading:

 

 

Peg asked if any new positions would come about as a result of these initiatives.  Bill said the Enterprise Architect is a new role that is needed.  As for other new positions, given the current County budget situation, the main focus will be on keeping existing IT positions in place.  Bill said he is working with the Council now to communicate about the need to maintain the IT staff.  The union reps offered to participate in that activity.

 

Judy asked if there would be ability for departments to customize the desktop image; for example, Public Health requirements for high security.  Bill said yes, that would be possible.  The idea is to have a basic set of office software tools available to all County users.  Then, each department may customize as they see fit.

 

Matt asked about the PRB (Process Review Board) and what was Bill’s impression of it?  Bill has started working on the PRB and is planning to effect some changes.  He would like the process to be more approachable.  His idea is to have discussions about projects before they are presented to the Board, in order to increase the prospects for success once they are put forward.  In line with this, he wants to focus on better project management in general.  Trever also described how they are looping in the Rapid Response Team for PRB improvements and will be implementing their suggestions.

 

JLMIT Charter

 

Bill has recommended more management participation in the JLMIT.  Matt House was to give input from his represented managers group.  He could not attend today.  Also, the group had not yet gone through all of the suggested changes for the JLMIT Charter document.  The unions will go through those, get consensus through email, then bring the document with track changes to the next regular JLMIT meeting Nov. 15.

 

ABT/BRC (Business Resource Center)

 

It has been communicated that 14 Central IT staff will be impacted by the proposed ABT/BRC implementation.  Gary Lemenager handed out the FAQs that OIRM had prepared about the pending change.  As of the presentation of the 2011 Budget to Council, the plan was to have 7 FTE positions moved as of 2001 mid-year from OIRM (ADSS) to DES (14 positions; but half for half of the year).  The 14 new positions in the BRC will be opened on a competitive basis.  The existing staff in OIRM will have an opportunity to apply for these positions.  Internal County staff will be given special consideration for any new positions that come available.  This overall plan will likely be altered, as the implementation of ABT/BRC has been moved to the 1st Quarter 2012 since the 2011 budget was presented.  Discussions are being held with OMB as to revisions of the 2011 budget, which will be affecting these plans.  Behnaz asked about getting information on the new positions.  It was considered that the existing ABT job descriptions, PDQs, and skillsets could be obtained; and that would provide some materials to aid in preparing for the new positions.

 

Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA)

 

Gary Lemenager handed out information on the new Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.  BPOS (Business Productivity Online Standard Suite) which includes: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting Online, and Office Communications Online.  This also provides more CALs (client access licenses) for a much larger number of users (about 11k estimated users) around the County.  Gary is working on a roadmap to get develop a schedule for when solutions can be deployed to be able to fully benefit from the provisions of the agreement.

 

More info can be found at:

 

http://kcweb.metrokc.gov/oirm/news/communication/1012.pdf

 

Fred and others asked about the Mac in that many County users are on Mac systems.  It was noted that Microsoft does have Mac software and interoperability.  However, some systems like this might be handled as exceptions and accommodations made for them.

 

The meeting adjourned around 11:35 am.

 

Follow-up Items

 

Union reps will discuss with Bill about IT staffing at the County – Behnaz, Janet, Betty

Provide Charter with track changes from unions’ review – Behnaz

Reserve room for Special JLMIT Meeting - Chris

 

Next Meetings

 

Special JLMIT - KCIT Service Center Nov. 2, 1-2 pm – Chinook Room 124

 

Tentative Agenda for Special Meeting

 

·          KCIT Service Center Plans

 

JLMIT Nov. 17 10:00 – 11:30 am Chinook Room 115

 

Tentative Agenda for Next Meeting

 

·          JLMIT Charter

·          Bill Kehoe

·          ABT/BRC

·          Other IT updates