Information Technology Management Committee

September 30, 1999

Meeting Minutes

Attendees: George Covert, Marty Deaton, Greg Fay, Larry Grund, Rich Jacobs, Judy Pawell, Leon Schwartz, Dianne Smith, Lorrie Tritch, Mike Bacino, Roger Bailey, Jeff Barske, John Boccella, Dave Cook, Glen Dickinson, Erwin Erickson, Matthew Oliver, Russ Rozinek, Sanford Scharf, Gregg Thompson, Kevin VandeWall, Mike Riche, Nancy Haigh, Jim Strait, Kevin Meier, Ross Dickinson, Chad Ray

Agenda Item #1 - Welcome and Introductions

Minutes were accepted as written.

Lorrie Tritch took this opportunity to inform the members that the September meeting would mark the final meeting as Chair of the ITMC. Lorrie thanked the group for their support and commented on the success of the ITMC. With her new responsibilities as Deputy Director for Administration for Department of Human Services, Lorrie indicated she would remain interested and involved in technology matters as they affect the state.

Pending a decision on the selection of future chair, Rich Jacobs will continue as Vice Chair of the ITMC.

Agenda Item #2 - Information Technology Services

Rich Varn reported on several items of interest to ITMC members:

1. Procurement Process - Rich indicated he was extremely interested in improving the process for procurement of IT resources. He will be visiting with both the Attorney General and the Director of General Services to identify ways in which the legal review of procurements can be accelerated. Rich believes that a key to achieving improvements would be to demonstrate the costs incurred when delays are incurred by agencies. If members have examples of how delays in purchasing have affected the agency, please send them to Rich.

2. IT Grants - Rebecca Walsh has been hired as the Grant Writer for ITS. Agencies interested in pursuing grant funding for technology should contact Rebecca.

3. Legislative Liaison - ITS is attempting to fill the position of Executive Officer 3 to function as Legislative Liaison.

4. IowAccess - Rich reported that a contract for the next year has been signed with IowAccess. In addition, a new project manager has been hired, Barry Balker. Rich indicated that IowAccess would continue to perform services for agencies and, at the same time, efforts would be made to acquire application services through other resources. An example is the Department of Commerce Project, where the state is using IBM resources to develop, in conjunction with Commerce, a licensing application for land surveyors and engineers. Rich indicated that the goal would be to create a common licensing application for multiple licenses.

5. Rich announced that the Governor had appointed the members of the Iowa Information Technology Infrastructure Advisory Committee. The committee is one of two committees which compromise the Iowa Infrastructure Advisory Council. The charge to the Infrastructure Advisory Committee was contained in Executive Order 3 and includes:

1. To oversee the inventory and assessment of the information technology infrastructure owned or under control of the state.

2. To make recommendations annually to Governor regarding the use of the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund for the technology infrastructure needs of the state and its political subdivisions.

The technology infrastructure under the control of the Board of Regents shall remain the responsibility of the Board of Regents.

1. Messaging Standard - Rich announced that the decision had been made that Exchange and Lotus Notes would be a dual standard for messaging and e-mail within state government. The selection of alternatives would require that agency accept support requirements including addressing issues relating to interfaces with other e-mail systems.

2. Quality Assurance Activities - Rich indicated that further study is being done of the process that ITS will wish to follow in insuring quality assurance occurs. The strategic direction includes selection of CMM or ISO 9000 as the direction the state wishes to follow. Rich indicated that he will be interested in discussing this strategy with vendors prior to making the decision

Russ Rozinek reported on the plans that are occurring within ITS for the rollover of dates accompanying January, 2000. Russ indicated ITS would be working with customers to identify scheduling that agencies wish to complete for additional backup or expedited actions in anticipation of January,2000. John Cullor is the principal contact for ITS.

It was also indicated that Cathy Cullor was completing similar planning for network servers and that agencies wishing to discuss the plans that were occurring in this area should contact Cathy.

Agenda Item #3 - Iowa Communications Network

Mike Bacino reported on recent rate actions which will occur effective July 1, 2000. The actions include a five-percent increase in the video rates.

Mike also reported on steps that were being taken to reduce "sluggishness" on the Internet access. Mike indicated that upgrades were planned for the weekend of October 2-3 which will address this issue.

Agenda Item #4 - Information Technology Transition Team

Rich Varn reported on the status of the Transition Teams progress and indicated that a series of agreements had been reached including:

• Action would occur in one phase

• One CIO would be a result of this initiative

• Common standards would exist for enterprise

• A tiered incident management process would be used to manage problems

• Processes would be developed to assist the change management that was going to occur as the result of the process

Rich also reviewed the time line for the process and commented that a final report from the Consultants who were hired to assist the Transition Team should be available in a week. A review of the report by ITMC members was encouraged. Copies of the report as well as information developed by the Transition Team is available at http://www.info.state.ia.us/transitionteam.

Agenda Item #5 - Fujitsu Personal Systems

Jim Merrill provided an excellent presentation for the committee of the Pen Based Computing hardware available from Fujitsu. The products available provide end users with the capability to use lightweight computing resources for field and other remote uses. A variety of products were demonstrated and questions answered by Jim and Judy St.Clair of Fujitsu and Mike Gottsacker of Directsource, a reseller of Fujitsue products from Minneapolis. Thanks to all three for an excellent presentation.

Agenda Item #6 - Information Sharing

As part of the information sharing, the members of the ITMC took time to share congratulations and remembrances with Lorrie Tritch. Under Lorrie's leadership the ITMC has assisted State Government in providing an improved technology environment and dealt with a number of challenging issues. Lorrie will be missed by her friends of the ITMC and we wish her good luck in her new responsibilities.