POWERWEEK for the city of Blumberg
Cities are largely responsible for the quality of life of their residents. Alongside electricity, gas and water supply, digital infrastructure has long been one of the basic needs of residents. However, digitization presents many cities with a major challenge. A good IT infrastructure is a basic prerequisite for mastering tasks such as broadband expansion and fast, easy-to-use Internet. Our customer - the city of Blumberg in Baden-Württemberg with more than ten thousand inhabitants - has set itself the goal of municipal digitization. Considerable efforts have therefore been made in recent years. By using modern and efficient means, the city administration wants to secure its future viability.
POWERWEEK
Focus on IT service management and information security
The mayor and the city council perceived the situation in the area of IT as insufficient. Primarily due to the lack of an overview of expenditures and activities of the IT managers, dissatisfaction arose regarding the existing IT infrastructure and costs incurred, despite detailed budget planning. In order to give this perception an objective basis, the city decided to look at the problem "from the outside". As external consultants, we conducted a detailed inventory of the IT infrastructure (as-is status) as part of a POWERWEEK and then drew up recommendations for action and a roadmap for implementation, including a package of measures, to achieve the outlined target status.
Day 1 and 2
CONNECT & EXPLORE: Kick-off - pick up the ball and define clear goals
The first day was all about team building and orientation. To get an overview of the status quo of the infrastructure as well as any stakeholders, we started POWERWEEK with an initial walk-through of the central infrastructure and familiarized ourselves with the IT organization and user representatives. To make sure we were all heading in the same direction, we clarified the respective objectives with the relevant duty bearers.
Passing the ball - every detail counts
We then compared the status quo at the process level with best practice "ITIL" and in the area of IT security with the cyber security requirements for small and medium-sized enterprises (VDS 3473). This allowed us to assess the current situation and clearly define the success factors for the customer's IT.
Day 3
REVIEW: Mid-term analysis - Are we still on track?
In the middle of the week, the collected information was fed back to the responsible parties. In this way, we ensured that all accompanying circumstances and contexts were recorded and that no contextual errors were caused by misunderstandings.
Day 4
INNOVATE: Attack - now it's all about tactics
In the last two days, we developed a package of measures based on the information. The individual measures correct the recorded undesirable developments and ensure that the development of IT, including the entire infrastructure, is in line with the development of the city administration.
Day 5
COMMUNICATE: Exploiting opportunities - the vision becomes a concrete implementation plan.
As a result, we proposed three types of measures: short-term, medium-term and long-term.
Short-term measures
Short-term measures can and should be implemented immediately. These included dissolving the personnel union of the IT officer. In the past, strategic tasks were always interrupted by highly reactive tasks that caused failures in the IT infrastructure. The proposed measure led to the establishment of an internally staffed service desk, which is already gaining initial experience with a proof-of-concept ticket system. Furthermore, field service activities as well as larger problem areas were outsourced to an external service provider. In addition, an IT manager has been appointed, creating greater predictability and allowing managers to have a stronger strategic focus.
Medium-term measures
Medium-term measures are to be implemented within one to two years. On the one hand, they take up the results from the short-term measures, such as the experience gained from the PoC ticket system. This will allow the ticket system that has been introduced and the service desk to be further expanded as a central point of contact. On the other hand, they also initiate independent projects, such as the introduction of an information security management system (ISMS).
Long-term measures
Long-term measures extend the time frame of the medium-term measures to two to three years. For example, the medium-term installation of a ticket system for the IT workflow is to be extended in the long term to include a ticket system for the building and public order office. As always, the measures taken must then be re-evaluated to ensure their effectiveness. All in all, ASTRUM IT has proposed a coordinated package of 20 actionable items that are now being implemented by the city. To ensure a continuous improvement process, we from ASTRUM IT will accompany the city of Blumberg in the next years during the implementation of the packages.