State IT assessment behind schedule

The out-of-state firm that won a $499,000 contract with the state to conduct an assessment of state government information technology is behind schedule.

TPI of Stamford, Conn., which describes itself as the largest sourcing data and advisory firm in the world, was to have completed work on 35 “deliverables,” or sets of tasks, by Nov. 25 for the Vermont Department of Information and Innovation. Two-thirds of those deliverables are behind schedule. An additional 34 are due next week.

Under the contract with the state of Vermont, TPI is performing an independent assessment of desktop, infrastructure and networking technologies in all state agencies and departments.

According to a press release from the company, it will “compare internal costs and performance with data from the public and private sectors,” and identify options for “best practices for reducing costs, improving service delivery and enhancing data security and IT governance.”

The state agency inked the half-million dollar contract with TPI in September. The original schedule called for an August start date, but that was pushed forward to Sept. 21.

The project, which includes about 80 separate sets of tasks, is now due by Dec. 18, according to department documents.

David Tucker, the new commissioner of the Department of Information and Innovation, says he will present the data collection and assessment information from TPI to the Legislature as part of proposed recommendations for changes to the state’s IT system. Tucker wouldn’t say what he thought those recommendations might be: He says he is waiting for TPI to “give us a variety of options,” a cost-benefit analysis and “a road map if the state should choose to go in any particular direction.”

Tucker says he anticipates that the project will be completed on Dec. 18.

“We do not revise project plans every time there is a minor change in schedule. There is a lot to the data collection piece of the project, and that has taken a bit longer than originally planned.

“Project due dates are designed to serve as check points in the planning process,” Tucker says. “It is not unusual for there to be minor date changes, and it is acceptable project management practice to allow for those, provided the overall final project due date doesn’t slip. We have no reason to think that it might. The fact that we have detailed project plans reflects best practice for management of IT projects.”

Under the contract with the state, TPI is conducting an independent assessment of the state’s two data centers, mainframe, local and wide area networks, desktop support, server and system support, security and purchasing and funding. Four company officials have been collecting data from agencies and departments throughout state government; they are working out of an office in the Chittenden Bank building on State Street, Tucker says.

The Department of Information and Innovation has 82 employees in all and provides IT support for a handful of state agencies and departments including the tax department, the Agency of Human Resources, the Department of Commerce and Community Development, the Agency of Agriculture, the Public Service Department and the Agency of Administration.

“We started to pick up smaller agencies and departments where we’re providing direct support but a lot of the information technology is still spread out,” Tucker says. “Count the number of departments and that’s how IT’s been delivered. That’s one of the things this assessment is looking at: Is that the best way to provide IT services in state government. I don’t know what the answer is but that’s one of the things they’re looking at.”
The department doesn’t keep track of the number of information technology staff that work outside the department who implement IT programs for individual agencies and departments, Tucker says.

The Vermont State Employees Association has criticized the decision to hire TPI to do the work, asserting that state workers could have done the job.

Tucker disagrees. In his view, one of TPI’s most attractive features as a corporation is its ability to provide “benchmarks” for the state, or comparison data with other municipal entities and states of comparable size.

TPI announced on Nov. 3 that Vermont was the third governmental entity to hire the firm in a month; the State of Washington and Houston were the others. The company has also provided services for the governments of Australia, Sweden and Singapore, according to a press release from TPI.

A section of the company’s Web site highlights its expertise as an outsourcing services provider.

Tucker says TPI’s independent review will compare Vermont’s IT system to other governmental entities.

TPI was selected from a pool of eight respondents to the state’s request for proposals, which was sent out last May. No Vermont companies responded to the department’s RFP, which was placed on a state bidding billboard, according to Tucker.

Rep. Floyd Nease, D-Johnson, says the agency should have made more of an effort to find an in-state firm.

“My concern is that we’ve gone out of state again, and it seems like with that particular contract there would have been companies in-state that should have been considered, and it’s not clear that they were,” Nease says.

TPI Project Status Report

TPI Schedule with Pricing

TPI Deliverable Acceptance Form

TPI Project Schedule