Report Highlights Problems with City Information Technology

A recent assessment of the effectiveness of the city’s information technology has found room for improvement.

The by Centurion Data Systems in July and recently released after a request by Waukesha Patch.

The reported will be addressed by the information technology advisory committee and the Common Council’s Finance Committee, according to a memo from Interim City Administrator Steve Crandell, who did not return a call asking for comment.

A number of problems were noted in the report, which says that the first priority should be to stabilize the information technology system.

The city should consider perform a complete assessment of the design and configuration of the city’s infrastructure, emphasizing system stability, and component and configuration compatibility, according to the report.

The report also suggests that the city consider implementing management policies on PC user to manage the integrity of the devices and perform a detailed review of systems implemented without IT involvement.

Last fall, an extended outage in caused problems for the city and city workers have also reported mystery problems.

All departments are experiencing sporadic, unexplained problems accessing key business systems and performing PC-based activities, according to the report. Usually these problems are not tied to a specific event, leaving users to wonder what and when the next problem will occur and the impact it could have.

Also, while an outage on the scale of the October 2010 has not occurred again, users do regularly experience problems that prevent them preforming their jobs. Outages range from PC-related issues to the inability to access key business systems, to system functionality and data loss. Continued small outages add to overall concern and frustration users have with the system, the report states.

The report also highlighted staffing concerns. With a staff of 13, the IT department is “spread too thin to support over 300 applications and technologies supporting more than 550 users,” the report states.

Several departments who have 24-hour, 7-day a week operations expressed frustration with inconsistent support they receive after hours, in some cases, causing problems for entire weekends, according to the report.

Another problem is the lack of an integrated IT strategy.

“Technology decisions are made and implemented with little or no feedback from the IT department,” resulting in an inefficient use of IT resources and causing IT staff to spend a great deal of time “trying to make things work” after a technology-related decision has already been made, according to the report.

Another problem is inconsistent technology management. The lack of PC management policies results in users accessing and installing unauthorized software, which creates a higher volume of IT support calls to resolve issues like virus infections, application conflicts and PC performance problems.

On the other hand, some policies are too restrictive, for example Internet filtering, resulting in the users being unable to access and utilize technology and data that would assist them in creating efficiencies in their job.

Processes, procedures and standards are not in place, resulting in a significant amount of work and sometimes re-work for the IT staff, according to the report.

Another area in need of improvement is training for department staff and communication within the IT department and among the IT department and staff.

Also a concern is the role of information technology advisory committee. Its project request process is viewed as a hindrance and obstacle to getting business done, in some cases causing departments to find workarounds on their own, according to the report.

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