Office of the Chief Information Officer

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Best Practice in IT Consolidation
Byrnes
Presented by Byrne Huntley Associate
CIO for IT Shared Services US
Department of Transportation
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Agenda

• Does anyone have an update on who is leading the
  Masters?????

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Topics

• Change Nuggets
• Drivers to consolidation
• My 4 Opportunities
• What Ive Learned
• Why Johns Strategic Planning Assumption is so
  skewed (why do we fail?)

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• If you want to make enemies try to change
  something!

Woodrow Wilson
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• It is not the strongest of the species that
  survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one
  most responsive to change.

Charles Darwin
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• In times of change, learners inherit the Earth,
  while the learned find themselves beautifully
  equipped to deal with a world that no longer
  exists.

Eric Hoffer
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• If you don't like change, you're going to like
  irrelevance even less.

General Eric Shinseki
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• I cannot say whether things will get better if we
  change what I can say is they must change if
  they are to get better.

Georg C. Lichtenberg
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• Change is the law of life. And those who look
  only to the past or present are certain to miss
  the future.

John F. Kennedy
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• You can judge your age by the amount of pain you
  feel when you come in contact with a new idea.

Pearl S. Buck
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• We are not to expect to be translated from
  despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

Thomas Jefferson
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Drivers to Consolidation

• Generally by Executive Fiat
• Perception that there is money to be saved
• IO Budget 70 of enterprise IT budget
• Pressure to reduce costs
• Agility, Flexibility
• Standardization in products, services, process,
  security
• Promise of the Future Virtualization, Utility
  Computing
• Benefit mission by consolidating and realizing
  economies of scale
• Empire building

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Is the Road Smooth?

• Gartner Strategic Planning Assumption Through
  2010 fewer than 20 of governments pursuing major
  consolidations or shared services initiatives
  will achieve their intended benefits .
• Government Consolidation and Shared Service
  Efforts Will Continue to Struggle John Kost and
  Richard G. Harris Jan 2, 2008

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What Kind of Problem is IT anyway?

• Is the consolidation of IT a technical problem or
  an adaptive one?
• the process or state of changing to fit a new
  environment or different conditions, or the
  resulting change

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My Experience in Leading IT Consolidation

• 4 Opportunities
• Small Army business entity with decentralized IT
  control
• Army Tenant Installation with 70 tenants most
  providing their own IT support (potential for
  15,000 seats)
• Large (8000 seats) civilian agency with
  geographically dispersed user population
• Large (6000-12000) civilian agency, with HQ
  centralized in a single building and environment
  and regions currently outside

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Opportunity 1Small Army business entity with
decentralized IT control

• Challenge
• Bring all IT within the business entity under
  central control
• Factors bearing on challenge
• Perception that they were better than we
• No cost baseline exists
• No performance baseline exists
• Transition from dumb-terminals to client-server
• Unique Executive sponsorship

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Opportunity 2Army Tenant Installation with 70
tenants most providing their own IT support

• Challenge
• Consolidate IT on the installation under central
  control
• Factors bearing on challenge
• Perception that they were better than we
• Track record as the IT Mafia
• No cost baselines exist
• No performance baselines exist
• Installation faced with public/private
  competition
• No Executive sponsorship

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Opportunity 3Large (8000 seats) civilian
agency with geographically dispersed user
population

• Challenge
• Bring all IT except for Largest Divisions under
  central control
• Factors bearing on challenge
• Perception that they were better than we
• No cost baseline exists
• No performance baseline exists
• Services contract already in place wrong deal
• Executive sponsorship transitions out

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Opportunity 4Large (6000-12000) civilian
agency, with HQ centralized in a single building
and environment and regions currently outside

• Challenge
• Bring all IT except for Largest Divisions under
  central control
• Factors bearing on challenge
• Perception that they were better than we
• No cost baseline exists
• No performance baseline exists
• Services contract already in place wrong deal
• Executive sponsorship has known shelf life

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Some Metrics (post consolidation) from the Real
World

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So what have I learned?

• Common threads in each opportunity
• Consolidation is not about the technical problem
  nor is it a technology issue it is an adaptive
  problem or change issue
• Must understand and be comfortable operating in
  the political dimension
• Must articulate a value proposition that negates
  the impact of the fiat, or at least that you can
  repeat over and over
• Cannot over-emphasize the need for the executive
  sponsor to remain engaged throughout
• Revolution, not evolution (why prolong the pain?)
• To the extent that you can, hand the problem off
  to those who will be most effected by its
  outcomes, but dont let them deviate from the
  agenda and objective
• Prove the results!

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So what else have I learned?

• Clearly articulate a vivid vision for the future
• Responsibility, authority and accountability
• Communication
• Co-produce the plans, expectations and outcomes
• Consolidate blocking and tackling (seats) first
• Economies of Scale are real!
• Change is HARD!

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• The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to
  the stormy present.
• The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and
  we must rise with the
• occasion. As our case is new, so we must think
  anew and act anew.

Abraham Lincoln
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Survey (Gartner) Says

• These efforts fail because
• Ineffective or non-existent governance
• Cost goals that are overly aggressive or
  unrealistic
• Disengaged leadership
• Lack of agreement/understanding on the
  driver/objectives
• Insufficient investment
• Poor project management
• Lack of internal capacity and skills
• Distrust of the host agency (HQ)
• Unwillingness to eliminate headcount for
  political reasons
• Insufficient buy-in

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Bottom lines

• 1. The reasons consolidation efforts fail tend
  to be common
• 2. Too often we mistake the problem for a
  technical one!!!!!!
• Show me the MONEY!
• Negate the sense of loss Change management 101
• Measure everything!
• Consolidation requires leadership but BEWARE !

Leaders get Attacked!!!!
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• Change is inevitable
• .except from a vending machine !