I had to step out for another meeting and so missed two sessions at the conference, but I arrived back just in time for a case study on an information management system at NZ Aid.

Presented by June Ralston (Ex-Manager, NZAID; now running her own firm, JR Consulting) and Mark English (General Manager, Hindin Communications).

Key ideas from June:
– “software comes in a box, but the solution does not”.
– roll out of a contracts management system at NZAID, part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT)
– needed a contracts management system … took 5 years to get senior management buy-in. Key drivers: to manage compliane around financial and legal regulation. The agency wanted a centralized and consolidated contracts management system. Support for contract selection, through to contract management. There are about 1200 contracts per year.
– key functionality: to encourage the following of good process, tracking of current process, reliable reporting, access to all of the agency financials and policies, a robust and reliable auditable product
– the product: decided to go for an off-the-shelf product, and through competitive tendering, went for the Hindin product. It didn’t meet all of the requirements, but it was the best fit. There was customization capabilities for workflow, etc., directly inhouse, rather than having to rely on Hindin for everything.
– the people: Contracts Team (procurement advisors), Financial Team (financial advisors), uptake and mandate usage by operational teams after the first two years.
– the process: develop the system with core people, roll out to the contracts people, roll out to the finance team, roll out to the wider user base, roll out to overseas users
– the original desired outcomes: (a) consistency in practice, (b) show adherence to government (audit) compliance requirements, (c) provide evidence of due process (eg, to prove that we were doing the right thing to Select Committees), and (d) demonstrate service level performance of contract and finance teams.

Commentary from Mark:
– at the start of the process, Hindin felt the change management approach wasn’t right. Eg, very in your face requirements, “we are going to change the way you work”, inertia to change
– went for a flexible approach to implementation. Wanted the change to come from the end users, that they would become excited and be willing to make a change. Wanted to get away from imposed change.
– started with user analysis. Who will be affected by the new system? Which teams are affected? How do things work today, and what will happen in the new system? Wanted to explore the relationships, to separate stories from history. Sought to model the ongoing stakeholder analysis.
– approach: get everyone involved, in a collaborative approach (more than “consultation”), identify the influencers and champions (to push it forward, or to pull it back).

More commentary from June:
– MFAT is an old organization, and staff can be too busy in their own silos to look around and see what’s happening. This led to misunderstandings between people and teams.
– Implementation of the change process: to the entire organization, not just the initial user groups.
– (a) Promotion … printed off the computer screens, and posted them in common areas (socialize what it is going to look like); posted some of the process flow charts for informal review and feedback; application naming competition; branding; and movie poster campaign. Aimed to cultivate a gentle introduction, rather than a big bang go live.
– (b) consultation … two user groups: (1) the formal working group (validating policy and practice), and (2) informal end user group (testing prototypes … kept people engaged in the process; challenged the accepted thinking from the formal working group, kept them thinking about how the system could be used).

From Mark:
– the aim with consultation was to hand over from it being a Hindin solution to being part of the organization.
– some other obstacles to change: low IT ability from some people, poor sight (font is too small — buy bigger monitors), change fatigue, everyone wanting to drive changed requirements (“go away” to some of the requests)
– effective collaboration is based on common objectives, controlled venting and emotional release, and managing discussions towards expressing what should be done not what people thought used to happen.
– management of sessions / meetings: embraced an approach to keeping meetings on focus, on process, and on point. Upfront rules of engagement. Minutes for meetings.
– embraced a development methodology. Wanted to deliver to the 80% level; delivery every week; testing with users every week.

June rounded off the session with a review of the outcomes:
– NZAID showed that it was a learning organization.
– the model has been embraced for ongoing learning.
– relationships between the different parts of the organization were strengthened.
– strong IT solution and effective business tool
– high level of ownership
– simplicity and streamlined processing
– end users were more satisfied.
– customer-vendor collaboration … the vendor has to understand the business requirements, the vendor should offer expertise beyond the product
– remember Pareto … 80%-20%