London Borough of Merton IT strategy review

'This is a very good way of analysing and thinking about what you are doing and how you do it.'

Roger Paine
Director of Finance

'Merton could never have done this exercise themselves within the timescales set.'

Mike Glarvey
Consultant to London Borough of Merton

Introduction

As part of an internal assessment of London Borough of Merton's IS/ IT strategy a service plan identifying the future development needs of IT was produced. From this, senior management felt a need to understand the true cost of IT investment throughout the authority.

Merton therefore decided to conduct an authority-wide review within each department into the current IT requirements, future development needs and alternative options, in order to identify areas for rationalisation.

To achieve this objective, they felt the exercise would need a structured decision-making process. It was a time-critical exercise as the Merton management team wanted to get to grips with this issue before the next budget-setting process began. In addition, the team wanted to be sure that proposals for a new finance system, due to go to committee in October, fitted into the overall IT requirements.

Merton therefore contacted International Computers Limited (ICL), who provided a total of ten decision conferencing workshops throughout September 1994.

Service delivery

Over an intensive four week period, nine departmental workshops were held, consisting in each case of the respective departmental management team (DMT). The EQUITY modelling tool was used to help the DMT agree a number of alternative IT options and focus on those areas offering the greatest benefit.

These workshops culminated in a final consolidation workshop for Merton's senior management team. Again, these used the EQUITY modelling tool.

At this event, the chief officers also evaluated the best way of allocating the available resource across all the departments.

Results

As a result of the decision conferencing process, Merton were able to investigate alternative options highlighted by the workshops. An independent consultant had been commissioned to coordinate the process and develop the outputs of the workshop into a new IS/ IT strategy that more closely aligned IT with service and business objectives.

The proposal for the new finance system was revisited as part of the IS/ IT strategy and the Policy and Resources Committee agreed both in December 1994.

Benefits

A number of benefits were identified by Merton in using decision conferencing services:

• It provided a structured approach, which enabled management teams to identify all the IT options in defined timescales
  
  
• It created a better sense of IT awareness across the authority
  
  
• The service helped to put everything into context by clarifying the current situation, highlighting issues and developing service criteria against which IT options could be evaluated
  
  
• It provided senior management with a path forward and a strategic framework within which to further develop their IS/ IT aspirations

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