Transitioning from Web Content to Digital Service
Read about how we helped the City of Waterloo develop a Digital Services Strategy and kickstart a shift from web content focus to digital service focus.
The communications team at the City of Waterloo realized that the city website had become a service channel rather than a content service. They engaged Perry Group to help build upon this and develop a Digital Services Strategy that would provide the framework for delivering municipal services for the digital age.
With a joint project team from Corporate Communications and Information Management Technology Services (IMTS), and working with the City’s Senior Management Team we reviewed the current state of digital service delivery at the city and developed a strategy for a three-stage approach to becoming a digital organization, from Exploring Digital to Designing Digital to Being Digital.
The roadmap for Exploring and Designing Digital included the development of a vision, digital standards and a digital education program, alongside experiments in digital service design and business process optimization. A collaborative partnership between Corporate Communications and IMTS was established to manage the new Digital and Technology governance framework, with new digital resources and participation from senior leadership and key stakeholders.
The strategy was adopted by leadership and work has already begun on a number of the strategic recommendations.
Tiny: IT Master Plan
Read about how we helped the township of Tiny think bigger around IT with a 5 year IT Master Plan.
The Township of Tiny had been working hard over a number of years to simply keep the lights on. From an organizational perspective, however, they were not progressing as they had hoped or maximizing their technology investments. As a result, Perry Group Consulting was commissioned to develop an Information and Technology Plan (ITMP) that will help them continue to operate while at the same time strategically prepare for the future.
Aside from reviewing and making recommendations around how IT is coordinated, supported and planned at the Township - we also proposed organizational changes and clarified the various roles and responsibilities associated with managing municipal technology effectively. This is no longer an IT solo mission! Corporate engagement and agency must be in place to ensure that technology investments are optimally leveraged and generating value across the organization.
We are happy to report that Tiny has already activated the ITMP by making organizational changes and implementing our proposed recommendations around the IT organization, governance, mobility telecom improvements and vender management. Following our initial engagement, Tiny asked for additional help recruiting an IT Coordinator. This role is now in place, has provided good leadership to date, and is now ideally positioned to support progress by continuing to execute on the plan.
Tiny is an organization that was punching above its weight in a lot of ways while also trying to mitigate the myriad of risks linked to managing civic technology. It is a municipality that is in flux, quickly growing to meet the demands of the community. As a result, they needed advice on how best to develop technology rudiments and digital building blocks that will support future efforts along with a roadmap on how to get there.
The ITMP has already started to pay dividends for Tiny and will continue to guide the continuous improvement and evolution of technology to facilitate better decision making, make work easier for staff, and improve customer experiences for citizens.
Digital Services - Content Design / Re-design
Learn about how we helped a municipality improve their web content to be more user centred and action oriented, while providing training and support around ongoing web content operations - to ensure that it is data driven.
While lots of our strategy work focuses heavily on digital services - offering users the ability to pay, book, apply and request online - web content remains an important aspect of digital service.
“Give information” is an important digital service pattern - that municipalities need to get better at. The more we can have users self-serve on the web, the more they don’t have to contact the municipality to ask simple, easily answered questions - freeing up staff time for the more involved and complex questions.
So, we have built a new capability within our team to help municipalities with content design and content operations - in support of their digital objectives.
Redesigned Thunder Bay web content to support the launch of Digital Planning and Permitting
We recently worked with the City of Thunder Bay as they launched their new planning and permitting digital services to redesign their content, using user research and google analytics data to inform the redesign.
We helped redesign navigation and menus, worked with teams to rewrite content and collated metadata to improve fundability and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
The new approach is more action oriented, less department and team oriented, and puts the information that users need at their fingertips. We’ve also equipped the team with the training, playbooks and tools (wireframes, Google Analytics report) that allow them to actively manage content operations in a more data-centric manner going forward.
Service Transformation Strategy - Waterloo Region
Learn how we worked with a large Regional municipality to help them think through their approach to digital transformation, positioning the work ahead as central to their ability to scale to their growing community while delivering effective and modern services.
Facing numerous pressures, the Region of Waterloo was looking for help to understand how Digital could be used to drive transformation throughout its organization - and to build out a strategy to achieve that.
We worked under tight timelines, with a core project team led by the Region’s Strategic Initiatives, Customer Service, HR and IT leaders and with their Corporate Leadership to shift the focus from Digital to Service Transformation.
We helped to build a strong consensus and a strategy around a multi-track approach to incubating and evolving customer centred digital approaches through a series of lighthouse investments and initiatives.
The resultant strategy was supported by leadership, adopted by Council and work is actively underway on realizing many of the recommendations.
Cambridge: Fire IT Strategy
Read how we helped Cambridge Fire develop a focused IT Strategy for the department.
Perry Group has supported multiple Emergency and 24/7 Service departments within various municipalities develop their long-term information and technology master plans and strategies.
With Provincial funding from the second round of the Audit and Accountability Fund (AAF), the City of Cambridge wanted to review the technology that Cambridge Fire Department (CFD) uses and its service delivery processes with the goal of finding efficiencies and recoverable funds that can be used to provide improved and streamlined services.
Focused on becoming a data driven organization, powered by evidence based decision making we worked collaboratively with CFD and Technology Services department to produce a fire-focused IT strategy that maps out the immediate, mid-term, and long-term direction for CFD’s modernization of workflows, resource allocation and integration technologies.
We provided a range of detailed recommendations, including for the implementation of a robust, modern Fire-specific RMS platform that eliminates the non-optimized use of multiple software applications that do not interface with each other and reduces manual manipulation of data.
Waterloo Region - Development Tracking
Read about our work to help Waterloo Region identify their needs, procure a development approvals solution and support the implementation of the system and modern processes.
The Region of Waterloo identified some challenges with the systems that supported their development approvals processes.
Our consulting team of planning and technology specialists worked with the team at the Region of Waterloo to assess the existing systems landscape for development approvals and permitting, conduct a fit gap assessment, a marketplace assessment and then to lay out a go forward systems strategy and business case for investment.
With the business case accepted by leadership and Council, Perry Group were further engaged to support and facilitate the procurement process. Perry Group consultants worked with the Region’s multi-disciplinary team to develop the scoping, requirements, and RFP. They worked with the procurement team to facilitate the running of the procurement process and eventual selection of a chosen partner.
The same consulting team has been retained as an ongoing Project Advisor to assist with process reviews, project implementation activities and helping to ensure that the project realizes the vision.
Burlington - Land Management / Amanda Review
Learn how we helped the City of Burlington and its key Planning, Permitting and Licensing leaders determine their go forward systems strategy.
The City of Burlington had long used Amanda as its core business solution for planning, permitting and licensing activities - alongside a variety of other services and processes.
However, frustration at the pace at which advancements had been made, and pressures from SDAF and the Ontario housing crisis prompted a re-evaluation of the situation.
Perry Group’s team of planning, permitting and technology specialists were engaged to help determine the path forward.
Working closely with a working group consisting of stakeholders from across the organization, and funded by SDAF, and subject to tight timelines; our team conducted reviews of key processes and consulted broadly with stakeholders, systems users and those involved in managing the system. We conducted a broad market scan and talked to many municipalities that have recent experience of implementing new systems or enhancing existing ones, we talked with vendors and assessed the various options.
Our recommendations, provided a clear graduated path forward, with budget and resource estimates, timelines and ongoing product management and evolution strategies and tactics.
Hastings County - HR Systems Review and Strategy
Read how we helped Hastings County review its HR systems and processes and map out a future systems strategy.
Perry Group Consulting’s core business for many years has been information technology and digital strategic planning. In those years, we have also built extensive service offerings and expertise in:
Process reviews and process optimization.
Needs assessments and solutions requirements development.
Solutions reviews and systems planning.
Solutions architecture and integration design.
Procurement strategy and advice
Hastings County was looking for a thorough needs assessment and review of the current state of its HR processes and systems in an effort to address multiple issues identified by staff. We worked closely with the HR and IT teams to review and help standardize and streamline their HR business processes. Utilizing funding from the Province’s Municipal Modernization Program, we helped the HR department identify opportunities to simplify their processes, move to a self-serve model and increase visibility into operations and the workforce, we conducted a fit-gap assessment against their current systems and identified their target systems needs.
We also provided a recommended implementation strategy and a go-forward procurement strategy.
Thunder Bay - Digital Academy
Read about the digital learning that we are providing to municipal leaders in Thunder Bay.
Perry Group has developed a four module course designed to provide municipal leaders with awareness and knowledge about digital, what it is and what it means for municipal service delivery, as well as practical information and techniques that can be used to move to a more digital model of delivery.
Leaders with extensive municipal leadership experience from our team, including Susan Chase, Dana Clarke, Alrick Grange and Nasir Kenea delivered a series of engaging sessions with 14 Thunder Bay leaders - who found the course interesting and engaging.
The City has commissioned Perry Group to run the course 3 more times in 2023 to cover all leaders across the organization.
Innisfil - Cybersecurity Strategy
Read about our work developing a cybersecurity strategy with the Town of Innisfil.
Cyber threats are on the rise, as the sophistication of attackers evolves. Municipalities have unquestionably become a target and many municipalities in Canada have been severely affected by cyberattacks in recent years.
In addition, the IT landscape in municipalities is changing, with more cloud computing, a more mobile workforce, and more resident and business engagements through online and social media channels.
Our consultants have extensive experience in the municipal space in preparing and developing
Cybersecurity Multi-Year Programs
Cybersecurity Maturity Assessments
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans
We have been helping municipalities in this space thoroughly assessing, mitigating cybersecurity risks and creating cyber resilience.
We recently worked with the Town of Innisfil to help them assess their cybersecurity posture and develop a strategy and plan to improve it.
We took a holistic approach by conducting a holistic review which looked at all facets important to IT security. The cybersecurity maturity of the Town was assessed against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 1.1.
Using this baseline, a formal security program and strategy was developed for the Town containing a set of recommended initiatives that would initially upgrade the security posture of the Town, and then provide a set of ongoing tasks to facilitate continuous improvement.
Thunder Bay Digital Strategy
Read our case study on our work to help Thunder Bay develop a Digital Strategy
A City of Thunder Bay program and service review in 2019 identified the importance of technology to the effectiveness of a municipality. The city was not taking full advantage of technology to deliver its services and this necessitated creating a corporate digital strategy.
Perry Group worked with the City to develop its first Corporate Digital Strategy.
Read more about our work on the Thunder Bay Digital Strategy.
Middlesex County, Disaster Recovery Plan
How we helped Middlesex County build an update to date and “live” business continuity and disaster recovery plan.
Middlesex were looking for a Disaster Recovery Plan to complement their excellent information security program (also developed by Perry Group), with a view to improving their ability to recover from a major IT service disruption.
Perry Group consultants interviewed all department leaders to discover which services were critical and how long they could live without these services. The consultants also established what effect the loss of each service would have, taking into account factors such as health & safety, reputation and financial loss.
With this information, and using our online portal, the consultants were able to establish RTOs (Recovery Time Objectives) and what services were the most critical and which ones could be unavailable for some time without too much hardship.
The final plan includes an IT service catalogue, a prioritized order of restoration, business continuity plans and all relevant forms and documentation, all stored online in the Perry Group Portal so that they are always accessible even if the County has a data centre outage.
York Region - Regional Digital Planning and Development
How we helped the Region think through the future of digital planning and collaboration in York.
We recently worked with the folks in York Region and their 9 area municipal partners to review the opportunities for increased digitization of the planning process and for enabling improved digital collaboration between municipalities and agencies around handling development applications.
We evaluated current as-is processes between local municipalities and the Region. We looked closely at how school boards, conservation authorities and other parties, including provincial agencies fit into the process.
The level of duplication between agencies is significant - and this duplication contributes to delays in the process.
The consulting team built a set of recommendations around a future strategy focused upon digitization of the application process and the back office process in those municipalities that don't yet have digitization. But, at the centre of the concept is a data exchange hub that will automate data and document transfer between agencies. A clear business case was built that shows a very clear return on investment for all agencies across the Region.
Cambridge - IT Finance and Service Delivery Review
How we helped Cambridge review its IT financial management processes and re-think services from a digital-first lens.
As part of this AAF project we conducted a comprehensive review of Cambridge's IT financial management practices, including a close examination and analysis of budget management, cost management, benefits management and realization processes and practices. The review benchmarked the City's technology investments against peers, carried out a deep dive analysis of expenditure trends, and identified opportunities for savings and reallocation.
The second workstream of the project worked with service owners around re-imagining ten City services (including parking, special events, building and planning inquiries, development approvals and newcomer services) as fully digital-first services - identifying the people, process and technology changes required to realize digital service delivery.
Halton Region - Digital Strategy
How we developed a bold, digital-first plan for the Region of Halton.
During 2020 / 2021 we worked closely with the Region’s Management Committee and leaders of their Strategic Transformation Group to imagine how the Region would become a Digital First organization. By embracing a modernization agenda, product management, service design, and focusing on developing a new mode of collaborating through a revamped governance model - the Region began to learn how a digital approach was possible.
We worked with the Region to develop their targets for the strategy - 125 customer facing and 50 internal services moved to self-service, digitally enabled services by 2025 - and to lay out the initiatives that would help them get there.
We modelled the approach, by working with the Region on re-thinking and redesigning 10 services (including waste and water management services) to be digital first, digital native services - identifying over $1,500,000 in potential savings by doing so.
South Huron - IT Service Delivery Review
How we helped South Huron take a step back and review their IT setup and IT management practices through an IT Service Delivery Review.
The Municipality was looking for a review of their IT services with outcomes including improving efficiencies, optimizing business processes, looking for redundant IT solutions functionality and improving governance.
Our discovery work revealed a number of potential opportunities to address the desired outcomes of the review, and the consultants put together a set of recommendations that looked at IT resources, functionality duplication, manual processes and governance around evaluating and prioritizing projects and other IT-related activities.
Recommendations were prioritized and put into a work plan that would assist South Huron to move forward with a more effective IT environment resulting in improved service delivery.
Orillia - ECM Review and Business Process Optimization
How we helped Orillia review 28 business processes to determine high priority opportunities for process improvement, set out technology priorities and a roadmap for implementation. Also, how we helped them figure out whether they could use Office 365 for their document and records management needs.
PROJECT: ECM REVIEW AND BUSINESS PROCESS OPTIMIZATION
DESCRIPTION
Funded by the Province's Municipal Modernization program, the City of Orillia's project had two goals a) Review and determine whether Office 365 could meet their needs for a corporate Enterprise Content Management system replacement, and b) to conduct a BPO review of 25 business processes.
OUTCOME
On the ECM portion of the project we worked with the City's IT and Records Management staff and representatives from all business units to review records management practices and develop a set of business requirements. We assessed Office 365 against the requirements and confirmed that the vast majority of required features could be met, out of the box. The recommendation was to implement Office 365, without add-ons to replace their current ECM product.
The BPO portion of the project conducted as-is and to-be business process design against 28 services and processes, including Utility Locate Requests, Building Permits, Road Occupancy Permits, Complaints and Service Requests, and Tax Certificate Request Management.
The review identified over $900,000 of potential savings, significant customer service improvements and the elimination of waste.
Importantly, we identified the technology and people required to support the implementation of the process improvements, and a roadmap to follow for implementation.
PROJECT DATA
Population: 30,000
IT Team: 5
Budget: 150K
Timeline: 9 months
Town of Lincoln: Systems Review & BPO
How we helped the Town of Lincoln learn how to apply Business Process Optimization and how we helped them rationalize their IT Application portfolio.
DESCRIPTION
Digital transformation is driving municipalities to take a critical look at aging systems and technology infrastructure. While it is tempting to jump straight into systems planning and replacement, it is essential to step back and think hard and in detail about how services and processes are designed first.
Working with the Town of Lincoln’s leadership team, Perry Group helped them understand and embrace the criticality of Business Process Optimization before systems implementation.
Business Process Optimization (BPO) has already enabled The Town of Lincoln to begin transforming its accounts payable process, with many more processes to follow.
Georgian Bay: Online Services Review
How we helped Georgian Bay prioritize online services and develop a plan to implement their top 10 priorities.
PROJECT: ONLINE SERVICES REVIEW
DESCRIPTION
Georgian Bay is a small community of 2,500 in cottage country that swells to 18,000 over the summer. The Township wanted to identify which services it should move online, and how it should be achieved.
OUTCOME
We worked with the Townships team to identify a long list of 44 candidate services. Using a set of criteria, including transaction volume, suitability to online, customer impact and staff time saving potential we worked with staff and SMT to reduce the candidates, first to 22 and then to a top 10 list.
We worked next to identify the technology required to deliver the top 10, and then conducted a fit-gap analysis to determine what technology could be re-used and where there were gaps.
The recommendations provided short- and long-term actions. These actions would see the Township rapidly implementing new online services using some simple online forms and payments technologies, while addressing more strategic long-term actions - such as the replacement of their ERP.
PROJECT DATA
Population: 2,500 (up to 18,000 in summer)
Budget: $25k
IT Staff: 0
Timeline: 3 months
2020
Haldimand: IT Organization Review
How we helped Haldimand leaders determine their IT priorities and design an IT organization structure equipped for the next 5 years.
PROJECT: IT ORGANIZATION REVIEW
DESCRIPTION
County leaders recognized the importance of technology. They were making significant investments in business systems with an ERP replacement project, new work management systems, and planning, permitting and licensing systems implementation. Our review identified gaps in business systems management skillsets and a requirement to scale up the IT function to support the new systems being implemented.
OUTCOME
We worked with County leaders to re-imagine the role of the IT function as a partner, not a supplier. We designed a new IT organization that could respond to this new mandate. This meant renaming the organization, an elevated role for the leader of the division to CIO, and the creation of 3 separate teams. We identified and prioritized the addition of positions over a multi-year period. We developed revised job descriptions for all members of the IT division.
PROJECT DATA
Budget: $50k
Timeline: 4 months
2020