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Strategic IT Workshop - Minutes

April 2003

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) hosted an Information Technology (IT) workshop at the IMF headquarters in Washington, D.C. on April 24 and April 25, 2003. Participants included George Brookings, Alain Coune, Michael Handelman, Patrick Hinderdael, Tom Howard, John Johnson, Adolf Limarzi, Robert Russell, and Brian Stuart (IMF); Guido Maccari, Ian Hunter, and Lester Rodriques (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development); Rakesh Asthana, Hinda Kada, and Le Anh Vu (World Bank Group); and Luiz Enriquez, Richard Herring, Bernal Jimenez, David Ryan, and Erico Silva (Inter-American Development Bank).

The purpose of the workshop was for the various organizations to share insights, experiences, and strategies, and engage colleagues in discussions of shared concerns.

The main topics for discussion were as follows:

  • Key strategic IT issues;
  • Performance measurements, benchmarks, and indicators;
  • IT Governance;
  • Strategies, architecture, and business cases for portals, content management, and the x-nets; and
  • Infrastructure key issues: storage, configuration management, remote access, and IP/PBX.

Key Strategic IT Issues

In opening the discussion, Mr. Stuart (IMF) said that the current IT budget situation in the IMF was adequate, but conservative. While the capital budget covered most well-articulated projects for the period ahead, a decline in budgetary support could be expected over the next year or two as major enhancements to current IT systems were put into production.

The Executive Board of the IMF was increasingly vigilant about the need to demonstrate the value of IT investments, which called for cost/benefit analyses for all new projects. This kind of analysis was nearly impossible for IT systems that supported overall staff productivity—a factor that was difficult to quantify in knowledge-based organizations.

While the IMF had several examples of successful projects that had been sponsored by user departments as business projects, rather than IT projects, in the past, it would be difficult to replicate such cost/benefit analyses on a cross-departmental, organization-wide basis.

The IMF was trying to develop systems for measuring the efficiency of IT. Toward that end, it was developing a number of performance indicators that could be used as management tools. It was also considering taking a balanced scorecard approach for measuring the implementation of its strategic IT program.

He wondered what budgetary environment characterized other intergovernmental organizations and how they were measuring the value of IT projects.

Although the IMF had taken a strategic approach to IT investments, it had had a tendency to segment information in the past. It was now working on the development of information architecture for the institution as whole. This entailed looking at the information used and generated by the organization in an abstract way in order to identify operations—categorizing, metadata tagging, storing, accessing, searching, and securing—that could be applied to information across a range of applications. The IMF was also looking at the relationships between information and key work processes (along the lines of the enterprise architecture framework mandated for U.S. federal government agencies). Once the information architecture was put in place, it would be important to establish a governance model that could ensure that the framework was implemented and adhered to over time.

He wondered whether other intergovernmental organizations were looking at information management in similar ways and what value they saw in the enterprise architecture framework. He also wondered what governance structures were in place in other organizations and the extent to which they were effective in implementing information systems.

The IMF was currently conducting a pilot of a Plumtree portal with a small group of country desk economists to provide ready access to key information. The size of the pilot was expected to increase gradually as its value was demonstrated and the technology could be rolled out to larger numbers of staff. In addition to improving access to information, the IMF hoped that the development and implementation of the portal would provided greater insight into the information needs of its staff and that the portal would highlight redundancies, inconsistencies, and other problems among various information stores currently in the IMF.

He wondered whether other organizations were deploying portal technologies and how they had approached the development and implementation of those systems. Had they begun by focusing on communities of interest or taken an organization-wide approach?

One of the major challenges currently facing the IMF was the need to ensure the reliability of remote access to the IMF network by staff members working in the field or at home. This problem was a particular cause for concern among staff in small overseas offices and travelers who did not have access to high-speed Internet connections. The Fund was currently using Outlook Exchange, which did not provide the same quality of support as other systems for remote access in terms of data compression and synchronization. Also the need to have in place multiple access methods and technologies for different types of users made managing the system difficult. The need to address issues related to remote access was critical, given the important role of home computing in IMF disaster recovery and business continuity plans.

He wondered whether other intergovernmental had faced similar problems with remote access had how they had addressed those problems.

While one-third of the IT staff in the IMF were “regular” staff members, approximately two-thirds were from external vendor companies.[1] The IMF was currently consolidating the number of vendor companies it worked with from about 35 to 3, covering approximately 200 employees. These “external” staff members were hired on a “time and materials” basis and managed by on-site vendor company supervisors. In the period ahead, the IMF planned to explore the advantages of moving to a performance-based outsourcing arrangement for its help desk and other first-tier IT support. This would cover an additional 80 to 100 positions managed by two vendor companies.

He wondered whether participants could comment on the outsourcing trends in their organizations. What kinds of IT functions were being outsourced and was this being done on a “time and materials” or performance basis? In this respect, which arrangements had worked well and which had not?

Mr. Brookings (IMF) commented that one of the greatest challenges in steering IT investments was the rate at which changes were taking place in the IT marketplace. Some described the current environment of IT strategic thinking as “trying to change a tire while the car is in motion.” He wondered how other organizations were reconciling the need for fixed planning with the radically changing IT market.

Mr. Maccari (OECD)[2] said that he agreed with Mr. Brookings about the challenges presented by dynamic changes in the IT marketplace. It was nearly impossible to gain a full understanding of growing technologies and put in place strategic plans in an environment where critical IT systems had to be maintained and fully operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In that respect, it was important to bear in mind that technologies represented only the “tools” needed for knowledge-based organizations, like the IMF and the OECD, to achieve their goals. Thus, it was critical to find ways to work closely with senior managers and operational staff to ensure that IT development was closely aligned with business goals. For intergovernmental organizations, it was also important to take into account the needs of the ultimate “end users,” namely member country governments, in the design of IT systems.

The OECD was faced with demands for higher productivity against a backdrop of increasing budget constraints. The IT budget, in particular, had been cut an average of 5 percent a year over the most recent period. In this environment, technology and process reforms had to be closely linked with productivity improvements. At the same time, member country governments were looking to intergovernmental agencies, like the OECD and the IMF, to create a model for transparency and information management. In the circumstances, it would be important for senior management to take a more decisive role in setting the overall vision for the organization and in defining the role of IT in meeting business goals.

At the OECD, demands for enhancements to the IT and information management systems typically exceeded expected budgetary resources by at least 50 percent. Therefore, all projects were presented to the Board of Directors for Computers and Communications Technology Strategy for review. This Board assigns the relative priority of various IT initiatives as the basis for the final preparation of the IT budget.

Mobility was a major issue for the OECD, which had a fundamental need to keep its staff linked, informed, and “in touch” in the face of growing geographic dispersion and a mobile Secretariat. At present, the OECD was conducting hundreds of projects offsite each year and numerous meetings took place away from headquarters. This emphasized the need for stronger communications systems, like video teleconferencing, to keep people informed and able to conduct their work literally on an “any time, anywhere” basis. The need for continuous linkages with member countries was also critical, as 30,000 to 50,000 representatives of governments, businesses, and social groups interacted with the OECD each year, and its analysts were called on to provide information and advice to governments every day. In that respect, the OECD had truly entered the “electronic age.”

For the OECD and other cooperative international institutions, it would be important to foster closer contacts among member countries and provide the means for continuous communications, so that country representatives could regularly discuss issues that move beyond national boundaries.

There was also a need to reform statistical processes throughout the OECD and its member states in order to harmonize statistical information and make it accessible on a more timely basis.

Given the number of joint operations the OECD conducted with other intergovernmental organizations, like the IMF and the World Bank Group, it would be mutually beneficial to develop better inter-agency information sharing systems. Toward that end, the organizations could consider the establishment of a common portal or computer network to facilitate information sharing on specific operations, Executive Board agendas, and other topics of mutual interest.

With respect to internal IT systems, managers and staff increasingly expected to be able to “search” for information within their organizations they way they would search the Internet. Therefore, one of the primary goals of information architecture should be to make it easy for staff members to find information and conduct transactions through the Internet, especially for human resources transactions, administrative systems, institutional documents, budget issues, and financial and statistical work. This required not only better “search” capabilities, but also better corporate structures for preparing, storing, and retrieving information.

Given the pervasive role of information security in the organization, there was a need to create a “security” culture that would promote information sharing, while preserving appropriate confidentiality throughout the institution and its member governments.

The OECD had recently reorganized its IT functions. At present 75 percent of its IT staff were “regular” staff members, while 25 percent were contractual. Following an outsourcing study in 2001, the OECD had carried out a selective outsourcing of telephony and software development functions. While it had found that the one-off costs of outsourcing entire IT operations could be very high and entail losses in service continuity and core skills and competencies, it would continue to examine the possibilities for achieving cost savings through the outsourcing of specific activities in the period ahead.

In attaining IT goals, it would be helpful for the intergovernmental organizations to work together to establish best practices and create corporate systems that met the needs of each institution. Toward that end, it might be helpful to ask the Gartner Group or another external consultant to conduct a benchmarking study among the international financial institutions.

Mr. Asthana (World Bank Group)[3] said that IT governance in the Bank had benefited from the active involvement of senior management, which had brought clear direction to IT planning and close alignment with the business strategy of the organization. Every initiative in the Bank had to be supported by a tangible business case in order to get funding. IT strategic planning in the Bank was governed by the Information Policy Council, which was chaired by a Managing Director and included business consultations with a variety of groups, including the Business Sponsors Group, the Finance Technical Steering Committee, and the IT Services Board, among others.

The World Bank had just completed a five-point IT program, which had been implemented in the period 1996-2002. Under that program, it had moved to a single “24x7” global support desk, standard enterprise-wide computing services, high-speed global communication services, and integrated enterprise information systems (including for human resources transactions, payroll, budgeting, and accounting). The Bank had also put in place a knowledge management system comprising a Statistical Information Management System (SIMA), an electronic document management system with over 40,000 Bank staff reports on line, live databases, and improvements in its libraries.

The increasing delegation of decision making responsibilities to staff in field offices had necessitated the creation of reliable centralized IT systems. While the World Bank Group had 6000 staff at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., it had another 4000 staff members assigned to field offices around the world. Thus, a global IT network was essential to ensure a high quality of work and decision-making.

Over the period 2002-06, the Bank would put in place another five point plan, focused on the following main areas:

  • IT performance management
  • Decentralized global operations
  • Risk management
  • Internal simplification, and
  • E-business partnerships.

In the past, the Bank’s IT systems had been inward looking to bolster information sharing and productivity within the organization. The Bank was now moving toward more client-focused systems to provide clients with a “one-stop shop” for services and information related to Bank operations. This would improve the Bank’s partnerships with individual member countries and increase institutional transparency. In the creation of new extranet systems and E-portals, the Bank would continue to rely on Netegrity and the use of smart card, SecureID systems, especially for Web-based transactions.

The creation of the Executive Directors’ portal within the Bank had been driven by information security policies to enable Directors to access all the information they are authorized to view through the Web. Indeed, the portal within the Bank determines individual access rights (based on the function of the individual) upon login.

In a similar vein, the Client Connection Portal, which will run through the Extranet, will identify users’ access rights on login. This portal will give users immediate access to individual projects and status reports, including loan disbursements, repayments, and procurement bids. A pilot of that portal would be launched in early May 2003.

As part of the IT planning process, the Bank had adopted a regular cycle of “bulldozing.” Under that process, all computing equipment in the Bank was upgraded at once every four years.

With respect to IT staffing, the Bank had an offshore IT development center in Chennai, India. As that offshore center was networked to the World Bank via fiber optic cable, there was no significant security risk. The Bank estimated that the offshore approach to sourcing realized savings of approximately 40-50 percent.

Mr. Herring (IDB) said that, although senior managers at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) were visionary about development issues in Latin America, they were not actively engaged in IT development. Technologies were generally seen in the IDB as critical tools needed to support operational work.

One way the IDB had garnered support for its IT development program was by demonstrating the value of technologies to its Board of Executive Directors. To support the work of the Board, the IDB had created a portal for Executive Directors that provided immediate access to Board agendas, IDB documents, and the translation request system. Directors were also able to communicate with government representatives of member countries on a real-time basis through an Extranet.

Given current budget constraints at the IDB, a thorough cost/benefit analysis was required for every IT project. While these analyses were generally successful in securing the needed funding from the capital budget to put new IT systems in place, the IDB often had difficulty securing resources from the administrative budget to support and maintain systems over time.