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PARTICIPANTS
1. Elysee Niyondagije / ICT Manager / Burundi2. Henricus Muley / ICT Manager / DRC
3. Biftu Kuma / ICT Manager / Ethiopia
4. Patrick Maina / ICT Manager / Kenya
5. Chantal Nyirahuku / ICT Manager / Rwanda
6. Andrew Mutua / ICT Manager / Somalia S. Sudan
7. Salah E. Bilal / IT Officer / Sudan
8. Jacqueline Mwinyimvua / ICT Manager / Tanzania
9. Mohamed Hamisi / IT Officer / Tanzania
10. Apollo Kitaali / ICT Manager / Uganda
11. Teresa Kamara / DRD ECARMU / ECARMU
12. Antoine Yawo / ICT Manager / SWARMU
13. Laurent Bwanali / ICT Manager / SWARMU
14. Vida Durant / CIO and VP Technology / CARE HQ
15. Enver Cordido / Senior IT Manager / CARE HQ
16. Amitabha Datta / IT Director (Global Support & Operations) / CARE HQ
Absent with apology
Farah Gurhan / ICT Manager / Somalia S. SudanPURPOSE OF THE GROUP AND EXPECTATIONS OF THE MEETING
Deputy Director-Organizational Development for East and Central Africa, Teresa Kamara, opened the gathering with introductions, and then shared her motivations for starting the group and organizing the meeting. Overall, there was a strong desire to support ITC managers in CARE COs to “come out of the server rooms, and into the core business of the organization.” As part of her presentation, she reviewed CARE USA’s Strategic Plan, the internal driver that has greatest impact on our work. While participants identified areas where technology could support all 5 strategic directions and their 16 action points in the plan, there were two directions and implementable actions of particular relevance to the group:
Strategic Direction #1. Enhanced Country Office Support. Key Action # 1- Improve CO Program Support. Enhances Finance, HR, IT, and Admin support in COs and provides additional resources to COs to enhance impact and financial viability
Strategic Direction #3. Quality Management and Leadership. Key Action # 10 - Advance Technology Agenda. Makes CARE a connected NGO working with and through technology to deliver value in communities we serve, and to enhance organizational effectiveness
By working together through this network, the participants could better contribute to the goal of ensuring that technology is an integral part of CARE’s business, making us a fully connected organization, improving operational efficiency, and enhancing our programming and resource development efforts.
Expectations articulated by the organizers and participants can be summarized as follows:
Ø Exchange and learning. Gain better understanding of our COs and HQ priorities, share best practices in analysis and follow-up on audits, etc.
Ø Peer support. Through this network, we should be able to share common challenges and support each other in tackling them.
Ø Staff development. While it is critical to focus our attention on the organizational priorities, and supporting our colleagues, we must also remember to take care of ourselves as individuals. We must do a personal skills inventory, assess our strengths, identify our gaps and in collaboration with our supervisors, craft creative development plans to enhance our effectiveness and attain our career goals.
Development of Global IT strategy
The CIO & VP Technology, Vida Durant, gave a presentation on Development of a Global ICT strategy. The department is in the process of developing a strategy which will run parallel with the business strategy i.e. CARE USA’s Strategic Plan. The initiatives that have been implemented in order to building the strategy are:
1. Formulating an IT Strategy Committee. Participants are Director-level representatives identified by the EMT and CI Secretariat
2. Formulating IT Strategy Teams. Participants are ICT and business representatives across CARE identified by management and team members.
3. IT Global Council – the first conference call will be held in the week of 25th October. Participants are representatives that support ICT from regional, country and CI locations.
The strategy will enable CARE to be a new ICT organization which is fully connected, and maximize the potential and power of technology to operate more efficiently and effectively.
Regional IT Network Groups
Senior IT Manager in CARE USA, Enver Cordido, serves as the focal person for Regional ICT Network Groups. His presentation was on the benefit of Regional ICT Network groups and their impact on CARE’s program work. He shared his experience from the Latin and Central America Region, as well as Southern and West Africa. He pointed out that for the network to be functional:
· RMU’s sponsorship is critical for forming the ICT regional team. Without it, the team cannot survive.
· Country Directors and CO SMTs must understand the concept and benefits of a regional ICT team and provide support for ICT Network Group initiatives.
Invited participants Antoine Yawo from CARE Gulf of Guinea and Laurent Bwanali from CARE Malawi contributed their experiences with the ICT Network Group in Southern and West Africa, which was formed last year and it is still functional. It serves as a positive example of what it takes for a form a viable network and offers ways to operate effectively as a virtual team.
Senior Vice President Global Strategic Support Services
Patrick Solomon, Senior Vice President for Global Strategic Support Services addressed the group about the “bigger picture” of CARE. He applauded the group for coming together to find creative and collaborative ways of working and providing mutual support, and encouraged participants to become business partners instead of simply service providers in the organization. Complementing the presentation given by Vida Durant, he reinforced that the intent for an ICT strategy was to complement the CARE USA Strategy as a blueprint to help the organization move into the future. He stressed the importance for CARE to put information and communication technology at the forefront of the business and not as an afterthought.
EXPERIENCES, CHALLENGES AND EXPECTATIONS
Gallery Walk -- Each participant prepared a profile of his/her operating environment. The display boards included facts about their countries, structures of their Country Offices, and diagrams and pictures of their ICT departments’ offices and staff. Participants walked to each station and engaged actively in a question/answer session with the presenters.
Group Work – After the gallery walk, participants identified some of the most pressing issues that needed to be addressed in order to enhance the effectiveness of ICT professionals in the COs:
1. Budgeting
2. Self Perception and Attitudes
3. Infrastructure
4. Organizational Structure
5. Staffing
6. Change and Transition
Participants then formed three groups, each of which discussed two of the challenges, and recommended ways to address them. The report outs are summarized below:
1. BUDGETINGPeople don’t value what they don’t pay for. ICT is not free, and must be budgeted for across the organization.
a. Cost every item/service e.g. creating an email account, all periodic, routine and remedial maintenance and let be known to projects to be budgeted.
b. Involve IT Managers in CO and Project budgeting to make sure all costs related to IT are accurate and available in CO budget.
c. Maintain constant communication to all users, management and projects.
d. Income generated from the sale of depreciated/disposed equipment should go to IT
Amitabha offered to share a budget template and a project proposal template to serve as a guide on what to budget and how.
2. SELF PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDES
a. Communication using all available channels
In order to communicate effectively with a view to changing poor self-perceptions (low confidence) and negative attitudes of clients, the group identified the following areas for quarterly reporting to senior management.
· Number of requests and resolutions
· Percentage of uptime in a given quarter
· List of services provided
· Key achievements
· Plans
· Budget requirements
· Service effectiveness – e.g. through Customer Satisfaction surveys
· Provide a ‘heads up’ on the system through prior communication of what is being done, e.g. periodic maintenance that would be happening in a given period
· Categorization of layer to communicate to, e.g. Senior Management Team.
Frequent communication in layman’s terms can improve image, and enable the ICT Manager to market him/herself as well educate and sensitize customers
b. Core systems and services must run without a glitch
c. Build partnerships with others, especially Program staff
d. Support to IT staff has to be provided by all especially the top leadership in CO
Director of IT Global Technology and Operations in CARE USA, Amitabha Datta, emphasized need for ICT Managers to constantly communicate through quarterly reporting.
ICT Manager in CARE Uganda, Apollo Kitaali, offered to avail to participants a copy of the Hardware Asset Management (HAM) and Software Asset Management (SAM) format he uses for reporting.
3. INFRASTRUCTURE
There are many impediments to CARE becoming the most connected global network. Some steps to take regarding infrastructure include:
a. Connectivity
Vendor Agreements – share information on ISP and if same vendor is used CO must negotiate for favorable conditions as another CO.
Bandwidth (speeds) standards
Services – VoIP, Video conferencing and remote services
b. Security
CARE USA to assist on providing minimum standard requirements so that all CO have basic minimum requirements.
c. Equipment Services
CARE USA to coordinate with global ICT vendors for discounts and/or direct purchase.
CO to evaluate local vendors and share findings with CARE USA if the vendors have agreement with CARE for discounts and special agreements.
4. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Most of ICT managers in the region are not members of SMT or are not involved in decision-making in COs. This has resulted in IT not being mentioned or considered as important for the CARE’s core business. Therefore, ITC has no or limited budget for its operations in COs, and ICT managers have little power to influence or change decisions. In order to address this challenge it was suggested that participants help put ICT at the forefront of the core business by:
a. Advising management on every IT component of policies made before they become operational.
b. At a minimum, ICT Managers should report to ACD Program support
c. Process re-engineering .CARE USA & CI relationship on IT related matters. CARE USA should take a lead in all IT issues.
d. Language is a barrier as the region has two languages (English and French) that are commonly used. To address the challenge, self development initiatives must be taken by individuals. It can also be addressed by providing remote support
e. Build a team of super users to become IT focal points.
5. STAFFING AND SELF DEVELOPMENT
a. IT Staff Vs number of users. It was established that most CO have more users per IT staff than the recommended number to be served. Therefore for better service to users one must conduct research on the number of users per IT staff. Identify industry benchmark for an acceptable ratio. The criteria for determining this depends on:
· The connectivity e.g. remote access to a CO computer for troubleshooting
· Capability or skills of IT staff
· Workload
· Scenario based planning
· Business expectations (What ICT is expected to deliver)
· Setup and size of business operation
· The number of offices and geographic proximity of sub-Offices to be supported
b. IT Skills & Training
A list of foundation skills that are necessary to be available in a CO IT team:
· Network setup and configuration
· Database administration, management & capacity planning
· MS Windows Applications & MS Exchange
· Basic hardware installation and troubleshooting (servers, personal computers and printers)
· Vendor management
· Communication technology e.g. VoIP
· Project management
· People management & Organization skills
· Hiring, developing and retention skills
· Communication skills
· Administration skills
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In order to address the challenges on acquiring IT skills and training, the following must be done:
· ECARMU should provide IT staff advanced training for the new software and initiatives, such as Serenic
· COs should provide a training and development policy for IT staff.
· Training for both end users and IT professionals should be part of COs operations budgets
c. Self Development
· Arrange cross visits with other COs
· Network with other organizations or country offices
· Subscribe to and read IT online publications or industry magazines
· Influence CARE Academy to include more IT courses for IT professionals
· Support initiative to recognize, reward, and develop staff.
d. Salaries
· Where the ICT position fits into the organogram should be considered
· Competitiveness of salary in the ICT industry should be considered during hiring and when salaries are reviewed.
· Salary surveys will improve salaries and help to retain staff
6. CHANGE AND TRANSITION MANAGEMENT
· There should be management buy-in if they are to accept the changes to be introduced in a CO by IT team
· There must be training on how to introduce, accept and implement change.
· The IT specialist has to play a role as a change agent
· For major changes, there should be a clear transition plan which communicates when it starts and what end users should expect
· Expectations must be set by sponsor.
REGIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLABORATION
Deputy Director-Program Support in ECARMU, David Little, led a discussion on Regional Opportunities for Collaboration. Participants explored ways the RMU and CARE USA IT department can work together to provide support to the Country Offices.
1. Challenges
Participants identified challenges in arranging TDYs to support COs with critical IT problems.
· No IT coordination at CO level for the country that needs support.
· There is no consideration/negotiation on how to support the CO while their ICT manager is away on a TDY.
· Perdiem paid is too small to cover actual costs when one is away from home.
· There are no incentives for the one who will be providing the support to CO.
· COs have no IT standards, systems and policies that would enable to provide basic standards for a CO to operate with minimal problems.
· Because of budget constraints, minor IT problems are not addressed in a timely fashion and become major ones after sometime.