Can anyone assist me in finding out if any states in the U.S. have
successfully implemented a structured enterprise project management
methodology to increase efficiency throughout the diverse Agenciesy
that comprise state government?  Have any measurements or metrix been
put in place to determine the ROI or efficiency?  I'm looking for
periodicals and articles that have case studies.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 16 Jan 2003 17:01 PST

I guess a lot of the answer to your question depends on what you mean
by "successfully".

Before he was tapped to head the Office of Homeland Security, Gov. Tom
Ridge was widely acknowledged to have turned Pennsylvania into one of
the country's leading states in terms of both promoting and making use
of high tech.  He initiated an ERP project, "Imagine PA" that is
described as:

http://www.imaginepa.state.pa.us/imaginepa/cwp/view.asp?a=6&Q=82694&PM=1&imaginepaNav=|2022|

"What is Imagine PA?"

"During the past few years, a number of state administrative offices
requested upgrades to their computer systems used for managing
accounting, budgeting, human resources, payroll and procurement
functions. Rather than address these requests individually, it was
determined that significant advantages could be gained by responding
in a more coordinated fashion with a view to long-range benefits. This
idea became Imagine PA.

Imagine PA is Pennsylvania's pace setting project to streamline and
standardize key business processes in:


Accounting 
Budgeting 
Payroll 
Human Resources 
Procurement

The Commonwealth chose mySAP.com Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
software, which incorporates best business practices from around the
world, to improve its internal business operations. mySAP.com is the
ERP software package the Commonwealth will use to integrate these
processes onto a single computer system. "

So, they've definitely adopted the aims you mentioned:  improving
efficiencies across the board.  How successful have they been? 
Clicking on "Benefits" gets you:

"The Imagine PA project is expected to eventually touch every
Commonwealth employee.Whether you will be among the employees directly
affected or just interacting with the SAP software a few times a year,
it’s important for all employees to understand the impact of this
project. The Commonwealth will implement SAP software statewide over
the next three years and is expected to finish by January 2004. This
will change the way some people do their work, removing obstacles such
as:

Dealing with lots of paper 
Spending hours on the phone trying to get information from others 
Having to get numerous approvals 
Reconciling data from many sources
The benefits in these specific functional areas will speed transaction
processing, provide more accurate data, and reduce or eliminate
redundancy."


In other words, even for one of the leading states in the nation, the
data ain't in yet in order to measure ROI or any other metric of
improvements (if, indeed, improvements there are...).

I'd be glad to flesh out the details of Pennsylvania's program, and
the program in a few other states, if that would be an acceptable
answer.  But I suspect you're looking for something a bit more
definitive.

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Clarification of Question by barbe03-ga on 20 Jan 2003 17:13 PST

Sorry for the slow response and thank you for your help.  I am looking
for case studies or info surrounding the governance structure of IT in
the Government.  More specifically, how do states manage IT efforts to
gain efficiencies across agencies and have any been able to realize
ROI?

The challenge is diverse agencies have often have their own IT and
their is often a central IT group to manage IT.

The SAP ERP is a good example (I used to sell SAP)of one project. 
(How do multiple agencies leverage a finance package)  I'm looking at
how does a state manage all projects/initiatives.

Your question made me recall the debacle of Oracle implementation for
the California DMV. I can't remember the details, but the project was
in the papers for weeks.

http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/17_4/cover/18289-2.html
Oracle scandal puts IT on ropes

I think you're wise to get help before you begin. Good luck.

czh

Hi,

I work in ERP and used to work for a consulting company heavily
involved with public ERP implentations. My understanding is that there
is no requirement and little guidance for agencies to go with one ERP
package or with specific methodologies. The strategy or qualitative
buying decision is on an agency level. Above that is only the
household and budget reglementations and decisions which is only on a
quantitative level and in some cases general requirements (i.e.
security standards) but unfortunately no general strategy. Unless a
politician, like Tom Ridge (see above) decides to push for it.

Morgenlandfahrer