February 26th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
At the Standing Committee meeting that heard, in some detail, what had gone terribly wrong with the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiative, Ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman did his best to get to see the Program Management Plan that was used to direct the creation and implementation of the CRM.
Executive Director Sheila Jones said it would be inappropriate to release that information. Sharman huffed and puffed and said he would meet with Jones privately.
The decision to stop the development for as long as 18 months until there was a Program Management Plan in place that could be delivered upon was quickly agreed upon at the Committee meeting. No blame was going to be put upon anyway. Whatever lessons there were to be learned would be taken up.
So – what came out of whatever meetings Sharman had?
A bit of context here: The city was working on the CRM program and at the same time ramping up for the Enterprise Resource Planning ( ERP) a much more ambitious and expensive ($10 million) initiative that impacts and involves every piece of technology used by the city.
Sharman decided to move his focus, and displeasure, from CRM to ERP and brought several Staff Directions which were approved.
Council was looking at an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) program update which they received and filed but not before adding the following Staff Directions:
Direct the City Manager to provide the Corporate Services Strategy Risk and Accountability Committee with an overview of governance and project management structures for corporate projects, including but not limited to, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Asset Management System (EAMS), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Business Intelligence (BI); and
An initial review to be brought to Committee in May 2020; and
Direct the City Manager to provide the Corporate Services Strategy Risk and Accountability Committee with regular reporting on project status including key deliverables and timelines, risk assessments, change management plans, and readiness assessments.
Councillors Sharman and Kearns have a solid understanding of what the technology is all about – they will now be able to keep their “noses in and fingers out” of the work Staff is doing.
And well they should. When City Manager said that the city will be spending $35 million on technology in the next few years Councillor Shawna Stolte almost gasped – she was having difficulty with a $10 million spend.
Taxpayers should have a clear, non technical explanation of the justification for spending the $35m, and equally important, what is the cost of not spending it. Why and why now.
I think Councillor Sharman was right to ask to see the plan and I think it is completely wrong for staff to refuse to show it to him, and by extension, to the public.
Agree Lynn. I also want the answers as a taxpayer.
What pressing problem is spending $35 million going to solve, because it isn’t obvious? Is this a must or a wan or a nice to have?