Value Governance- Police Case Study Jared Scott Val IT Case Study: Value Governance- Police Case Study Jared Scott

Value Governance? Val IT Goal: What is Val IT? “Val IT provides proven value management principles, processes and practices to enable enterprises to maximizes the delivery of business value from investments involving IT” (IT Governance Institute). Val IT Goal: “…is to help management ensure that organizations realize optimal value from IT-enabled business investments at an affordable cost with a known acceptable level of risk” (IT Governance Institute). Val IT accomplishes this by providing guidelines, processes and supporting practices to assist the board and executive management in understanding and carrying out their roles related to such investments.

Recognizing the Need for Val IT Typical tipping points or “trigger” events: Internal: Major IT project failure Serious budget overruns Company’s inability to absorb the changes delivered by new technologies Business executives not understanding the business value of IT External Influences beyond the enterprise necessitate the changing of the IT priorities. (mergers, acquisitions, major shift in marketplace with respect to competitors actions or economic conditions)

Four areas to determine if the IT component is a “means to an end”:

Context of Val IT at Police Case based on 5 yrs experience with value governance at a medium sized police service 1999 the Police undertook a large program of IT-enabled change to upgrade its aging infrastructure and better support its new business directions Large investment in time, effort, money Strict constraints- must seek renewed funding every 4-5 years, and return to government annually to request funds for following year Instituted value governance to select the right projects within the tight funding and resource constraints, and to report back to the government on the business outcomes of investment

What is value to the Police? As government agency, business value is NOT about financial return on investment (ROI) it is about: Reduced opportunity to commit crime, improved resolution of crime, safer driver behavior, improved community safety Streamlining business process (i.e. taking police officers away from administrative tasks and getting them back on the street Systems not failing in critical situations (i.e. aging infrastructure replaced, unsupportable applications replaced)

Circles: outcomes that are strategic to the Police Arrows: causal contributions of one outcome to another (ie: improvement in the outcome of “Better Intelligence” would, in turn, contribute to the next outcome in the chain “Improved Investigative Quality”, which would in turn, contribute to “More Apprehensions”, “Better Quality Briefs”, and “Improved Resolution of Crime”. All ultimately contributed to the Police mission of “ A Safer and More Secure Community”.

Police Strategic Plan cont. Sequence contributions would not happen by itself. Required other complementary initiatives to effect improvements. ie: implementation of the crime management system made a major contribution to “Better Intelligence”, however, turning this contribution to “Improved Investigative Quality” required further initiatives such as training the investigators in best practice use of the intelligence. Each implemented project also contained the necessary complementary initiatives required to achieve the benefits of the investment. This included making changes in management initiatives required for users, supervisors and managers to adopt system.

Police Business Outcomes Map with Projects Overall contribution of any project to Police strategy was assessed by: It’s contribution to its immediate outcomes, each ranked 1-5. An overall ranking of the outcomes according to their importance to the Police Projects also introduced process efficiencies which came from: time saving from specific business process from an IT project, staff savings where complete jobs are saved, and dollar savings.

Value Governance Life Cycle The cycle is split into three parts: Pre-project—Where ideas are received, assessed and qualified. If the idea is approved, it goes into the program schedule, assuming there is an availability of resources and funds. Project—Where a project team will design, build and implement the system. This may include necessary changes within management and the initiatives that are required to achieve the business outcomes Post-project—Where the benefits are realized, and a comparison of the benefits achieved against the business case is performed The life cycle is characterized by five ‘stage gates’, at which the investment is scrutinized and rescrutinized by the value governance body. At the final gate all information is presented to the governance body for feedback, forwarding to the government, and lessons learnt for future projects. The entire program is typically reassessed every four to five years, with an audit of progress thus far and a request to the government for more funds.

Business Case Approval In between Gate 1 and Gate 2 there is a very important Business Case Assessment: This assessment involves scoring the project from 0-5 according to its benefits, cost and risk. Benefits are viewed as a positive contribution of the project to Police strategic outcomes Risks are viewed as risk of technology (new technology? Dependable?) Risk on not delivering the project Risk of not delivering the benefits

Projects ordered by Descending Score This ensures that the best value projects within the budget are selected for implementation Scoring and selecting is done by the value governance body itself.

Benefits Realized Tracked Key to realizing benefits is active management of the post implementation phase. This involved the Police setting up a number of business system owners ( groups of senior officers) who took full responsibility for achieving the benefits. The members track progress using the graph above.

Results Still early to fully realize benefits of the projects. Early projects simply laid down infrastructure Positive results have been noted: Appreciable time and effort savings- equal to 89 staff Better targeted patrolling, leading to more crimes prevented Better quality court briefs, leading to more successful prosecutions More property returned to its rightful owner More timely information for officers-in-charge More crimes solved and perpetrators dealt with (crime rates dropped)

Conclusion A new Police culture has been created that respects the business value of the new system Project selection is objective and aligned to agency strategy Relevant affected area of business is accountable for the delivery of benefits Real value to the Police of the new IT system is about doing things better with fewer staff.

Questions: 1) Identify which is NOT a typical internal tipping point or “trigger” event for firms in the recognition for the need of Val IT:   A. Major IT project failure B. Serious budget overruns C. Company’s inability to absorb the changes delivered by new technologies D. Business executives not understanding the business value of IT E. Influences beyond the enterprise necessitate the changing of the IT priorities. (mergers, acquisitions, major shift in marketplace with respect to competitors actions or economic conditions) 2) Of the following, identify which answer is NOT how the “Police” recognize value ? A. ROI: Return on Investment B. Reduced opportunity to commit crime, improved resolution of crime, safer driver behavior, improved community safety C. Streamlining business process (i.e. taking police officers away from administrative tasks and getting them back on the street D. Systems not failing in critical situations (i.e. aging infrastructure replaced, unsupportable applications replaced) 3) Identify which is NOT a Positive results for the Police after implementation of Value Governance and various IT projects: A. Appreciable time and effort savings- equal to 89 staff B. Better targeted patrolling, leading to more crimes prevented C. More property returned to its rightful owner D. More crimes solved and perpetrators dealt with (crime rates dropped) E. Better quality pastries and coffee