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HomeMy WebLinkAboutResolutions - 2004.01.22 - 27515MISCELLANEOUS RESOLUTION #04013 January 22, 2004 BY: -GENERAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE, WILLIAM PATTERSON, CHAIRPERSON IN RE: DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY / EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND PREPAREDNESS - TECHNOLOGY IMPROVEMENTS DESIGNATION To the Oakland County Board of Commissioners Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen: WHEREAS the Oakland County Emergency Response and Preparedness Division is responsible for providing planning, response, recovery and mitigation services for natural, technological, national security and nuclear emergencies or disasters affecting Oakland County, Michigan;, WHEREAS Oakland County has recognized that information technology can play a key role in these activities and is an integral part of the County's Homeland Security strategy; WHEREAS to fully leverage the capabilities of the County's information technology infrastructure during preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation activities, the County must implement several technology improvements in the Emergency Response and Preparedness Division (ERP) and Emergency Operations Center (EOC); WHEREAS improvements to the technology used by the County's ERP Division and EOC will include, but not be limited to, WebE0C enhancements, GIS application development, hardware upgrades, messaging applications, and communications; WHEREAS attached is the Oakland County Emergency Operations Center Technology Upgrade Plan which outlines the improvements to be made in the Emergency Response and Preparedness Division - (ERP) and Emergency Operations Center (EOC); WHEREAS $250,000 has been designated in the County's General Fund for ERP and EOC Technology Improvements; and NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Commissioner's approves for use, the previously designated $250,000 to improve technology in the Emergency Response and Preparedness Division and EOC. Chairperson, on behalf of the General Government Committee, I move the adoption of the foregoing resolution. GENERAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE General Government Committee Vote: Motion carried unanimously on a roll call vote. Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan November 2003 Oakland County - Emergency Operations Center Information Technology Upgrade Plan The Oakland County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Information Technology Upgrade Plan describes the tasks and schedule for upgrading current technology systems and completing the application development that supports EOC operations. This plan assumes that the staff of ERP is using and supporting the upgraded technology and as such is an integral part of the EOC. Because the EOC must be functional at all times, a spiral development approach has been proposed for EOC applications. This means that there will be multiple passes of requirements gathering and application development, each resulting in deeper functionality for more users. This plan focuses on first year tasks and activities. Out year tasks and activities are described, but are not scheduled. This plan of action has been divided into four work areas. Documentation and Management - These are the administrative tasks as well as the overall project documentation. This is broken out as a separate category because implementing this plan will require change management within the EOC. The Requirements assessment is included in this work area because it occurs early in the project and will contribute to the overall vision, scope, management and strategic plan for the EOC. WebE0C - The WebE0C technology solution has already been purchased by ERP and is an ongoing implementation. To avoid any delays in this deployment it has been pulled out as a separate work area, recognizing that the steps for the WebE0C deployment will be followed for other technology implementations. Hardware Upgrades - This is the base system configuration and technology upgrade. This work area will involve coordination with Oakland County's Information Technology standards and systems. Application Development - The technology solutions other than WebE0C are addressed in this work area. Some of these technologies have been implemented previously. The tasks in this work area will address integration or enhancement of existing technologies as well as deployment of some new applications. Documentation and Management The documentation and management tasks include gathering existing operations documentation, reviewing "best in class" from other E0Cs and emerging technology, and providing project management documents. Requirements Page 1 Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan - November 2003 assessment tasks in this work area will include functions and activities that are impacted by WebE0C, Aloha, CATS, DTN Weather Application, Reverse 911 and geographic information system (GIS) related applications. The requirements assessment will include individual interviews, workshop meetings and other needs collection methods to define the full range of requirements, expectations, and success measures. Familiarization - This task will gather existing EOC operations documents, hardware configuration plans, and other plans to provide background, requirements and project "fine tuning" information. Case Studies and Educational Materials - This task involves compiling the "best in class" information for similar E0Cs across the country, identifying emerging technology, and describing the state of the art for information technology in an EOC. The educational materials will include some scenarios and drills that will illustrate the use of the current technology. Additional grant opportunities will be identified if discovered. Project Team Meetings - A kick off meeting with EOC and IT staff will further refine the plan. The Case Studies will be reviewed with key EOC staff members at this meeting. Regular team meetings will monitor the progress of the plan implementation and keep communication lines open. Develop EOC Technology Implementation Plan — This is to be an appendix to the overall EOC Plan. It will contain a vision for the role of technology in the EOC, including applications that are already implemented (Aloha, Cameo, etc.), and future plans. Technology goals should be established and reviewed every six months. Management Documents - The existing IT Scope and Approach document as well as other management and administrative documents will be updated as needed to reflect the actual work and progress. Change Management and Team Building - Given the scope and breadth of the EOC and the potential for the new technology, such as WebE0C, it is anticipated that new groups within Oakland County will be participating in future E0C operations. This task is included to identify the potential need for education and outreach to these related groups. Requirements Kick Off Meeting — This meeting will involve all the stakeholders in the EOC (public safety and non public safety). It will serve as the first educational opportunity, as well as an introduction to the project team. At this time the case studies and the Technology Upgrade Page 2 Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan - November 2003 Plan will be presented. A preliminary schedule will also be discussed. This meeting will begin to identify the broadened participation in the EOC. Individual Interviews - These will be interviews of single or small groups of staff conducted to educate stakeholders and gather background on activities, requirements, and business processes. Each quarter a different group of stakeholders will participate in these interviews. Requirements Documentation - This will be an implementation plan for each application and will summarize the needs, the timing, the configuration, and training for each deployment. The requirements documentation will include the development priority for each application. The needs will be staged so that the most critical requirements are addressed first. The requirements documentation will continue to grow as interviews and workshops with customers are completed. We bE0C The WebE0C product rollout is a major component of the technology enhancements at the EOC. This is a separate work area to reflect the level of effort and focus. Taking the lessons learned from the recent TOPEX Exercise, there will be some initial enhancements, followed by training on the enhancements in the first quarter of implementation. From there on, each of the tasks below will be repeated quarterly with a new group of stakeholders to continually improve the WebE0C product. The steps for the WebE0C are the same steps that will be followed for each of the applications deployed in EOC. Note that the technology configuration is completed prior to these steps. WebE0C Workshop Meetings - These will be review groups of the software requirements gathered through the individual interviews. The software specifications documentation, which is part of the implementation plan will ultimately be gathered in this format. These workshops will help identify the priorities for development as well. Develop appropriate WebE0C Boards and Reports - Based on the results of the implementation plan, the appropriate boards and reports will be developed to support response needs. From the experiences completed to date, one of the components of the WebE0C implementation will be to incorporate EOC contact information. Testing and Acceptance Plan - This is the plan for validating that the needed functionality has been incorporated into the WebE0C boards and reports and that the performance, necessary connections and backup are running as expected. Page 3 Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan - November 2003 • Document the use of the WebE0C Boards - This will include user and developer documentation. Training materials and plans - These will be the materials to support ongoing training for users and will include the plans for continuous training and improvement. Customer Training — Individual or group training sessions on how to use the customized WebE0C product. Technology Upgrade (Hardware) Technology Review - This is a review of the technology plan by the Information Technology staff to assure compliance with Oakland County standards and the ability to interoperate with, and connect to, County IT facilities. Procure Hardware - Technology purchases including the testing and configuration of newly acquired technology and upgrades. Hardware Installation and Staff Training - Once tested and configured, new hardware can be installed at the EOC. EOC staff will be trained on the use, care and operation of the new hardware. Design and Implement a WebE0C Redundancy Plan - This is a specific technology requirement identified in the recent testing. Other Technology (Applications) The function of the other technology applications including Aloha, CATS, DTN Weather Application, Reverse 911 and geographic information system (GIS) related applications will be laid out in the EOC Technology Plan. Specifications will be developed through the requirements assessment. Application Workshop Meetings — Groups will review the existing software functionality and compare with the desired software functionality gathered through individual interviews. These workshops will result in the identification of functionality gaps and the development of software specifications documentation. Perform necessary customization - Based on the results of the implementation plan some application customization may be necessary to support response needs. Page 4 Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan - November 2003 Testing and Acceptance Plan - This is the plan for validating that the needed functionality has been incorporated into each application and that the performance and necessary connections and backup are running as expected. Document the use of the each application - This will include user and developer documentation. Training materials and plans - These will be the materials to support ongoing training for users and will include the plans for continuous training and improvement. Customer Training — Roll out the new technology and applications in conjunction with the field collection devices in individual or group training sessions. For some proprietary software products this may be an offsite training class provided via the original software vendor. Page 5 Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan - November 2003 Participants The level of effort has been broken down into five types of roles. The type of participant required for each task is noted in the schedule, as is the level of effort required by the participants. These are County staff primarily but may be supported by contracted assistance. As an example, Nancy von Meyer will be assisting the GIS Utility staff and a contract programmer may be used in some applications. The five types of participants are defined as follows: Project Management Team (PMT) — This team will consist of staff from ERP and IT. Specifically, Mike Sturm, Scott Oppmann, Tammi Shepherd, and Steve Iannucci will be the members. This team's role will be to guide the implementation of the plan, and approve and implement change management. IT Analyst — Responsible for gathering and documenting requirements, translating those requirements into software requirements, acceptance testing, training, roll out and technology deployment. Programmer — Responsible for customization of software applications, primarily WebE0C. Their role will be to provide interfaces and functionality to meet customer requirements. Their skill sets will range from HTML programming to GIS software development skills (ArcObjects, Avenue). IT Specialist — Responsible for hardware requirements gathering, selection, procurement, configuration, installation and any required user training associated with hardware. Customer — These are members of the EOC and the eventual end users of the applications. They will be responsible for articulating requirements, conducting acceptance testing, and participating in training and drills. Deliverables The tasks described in this document have been tentatively scheduled by quarter. These are broken down by the work area. Deliverables by Quarter 15t Quarter Documentation and Management Case Studies and Educational Materials EOC Technology Implementation Plan Requirements Documentation from TOPEX WebE0C First Quarter Boards and Reports (from TOPEX) Training materials Page 6 Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan - November 2003 Customer Training Technology Upgrade (Hardware) Technology Review _ Hardware Installation and Staff Training _ 2nd Quarter Documentation and Management Second Quarter Requirements Documentation WebE0C Second Quarter boards and reports Training materials Customer Training Technology Upgrade (Hardware) _ Design and Implement a WebE0C redundancy plan 3 rd Quarter Documentation and Management Third Quarter Requirements Documentation WebE0C Third Quarter boards and reports Training materials Customer Training Other Technology (Applications) Customized Applications Training materials Customer Training 4th Quarter Documentation and Management Fourth Quarter Requirements Documentation WebE0C Fourth Quarter boards and reports Training materials Customer Training Level of Effort A matrix has been developed based on the tasks described in this document, and the participants in the project. This shows the estimated number of hours necessary for each task by quarter and participant. Level of Effort in Hours by Participants Et Quarter Participants 1st Quarter 2nd Quarter -3'd Quarter 4th Quarter PMT(per 50 50 50 50 member) _ IT Analyst 200 • 280 290 180 Programmer 140 120 130 90 IT Specialist 140 70 80 50 Customer (per 20 10 10 10 customer) Page 7 I r. Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan - November 2003 Task Schedule First Quarter (October — December) Documentation and Management Familiarization Case Studies and Educational Materials Project Team Kick Off Develop EOC Technology Implementation Plan Requirements Documentation from TOPEX WebE0C Develop Boards and Reports (from TOPEX) Testing and Acceptance Plan _ Document the Use of the WebE0C Boards Training Materials and Plans Training Technology Upgrade (Hardware) Technology Review Procure Hardware Hardware Installation and Staff Training Second Quarter (January — March) Documentation and Management Project Meetings Requirements Kick Off Meeting Individual Interviews Requirements Documentation WebE0C WebE0C Workshop Meetings Develop Boards and Reports Testing and Acceptance Plan Document the use of the WebE0C Boards Training Materials and Plans Customer Training Technology Upgrade (Hardware) Design and Implement a WebE0C redundancy plan Third Quarter (April —)une) Page 8 Oakland County Emergency Operations Center - Technology Upgrade Plan - November 2003 Documentation and Management Project Meetings Individual Interviews Requirements Documentation WebE0C Workshop Meetings Develop appropriate boards and reports Testing and Acceptance Plan Document the use of the WebE0C Boards Training materials and plans Customer Training Other Technology (Applications) Perform necessary customization - Aloha, CATS, DTN Weather Application, Reverse 911, and GIS Testing and Acceptance Plan Document the use of the each application Training materials and plans Customer Training Fourth Quarter (July — September) Documentation and Management Project Meetings Individual Interviews Requirements Documentation WebE0C Workshop Meetings Develop appropriate boards and reports Testing and Acceptance Plan Document the use of the WebE0C Boards Training materials and plans Customer Training Page 9 Resolution #04013 January 22, 2004 The Chairperson referred the resolution to the Finance Committee. There were no objections.