BTS-1.07 - Technology Project Oversight

Purpose

City technology projects can have widespread financial and operational implications to the City’s business practices. The City will adopt an approach to these projects that applies project management, citizen oversight and quality assurance. A component of project oversight will be addressed through ongoing review from an independent citizen Technology Oversight Committee (TOC) that serves in an advisory capacity to the City Administrator. A component of quality assurance will be addressed by having City bureaus contract for services with a qualified, external quality assurance firm for technology projects overseen by the TOC.

Administrative Rule

Technology Oversight Committee

Bureaus will inform the Bureau of Technology Services (BTS) of any projects that have significant technology components during the conceptual and design stage, prior to a request for proposal (RFP) or request for information (RFI) being drafted. Bureaus will document projects detailing the business case, including an assessment of each project in relation to the criteria identified below and a recommendation whether the project should receive oversight by the TOC and independent quality assurance review. Bureaus will submit this information via the project intake process described in BTS Administrative Rule 4.01 – Technology Project Intake.

The director of the customer bureau and the Chief Technology Officer will confer and recommend whether a project should be overseen by the TOC, and will document the rationale for their determination. The City Administrator will be the final arbiter, if needed. 

The Chief Technology Officer will send to the TOC a list of projects received through the TOC intake process, indicating which ones are recommended as falling under the purview of the TOC. The TOC will make the final decision as to which projects it will oversee, and will document the rationale for their determination.

Projects appropriate for TOC oversight are those that would likely have widespread impact and significant risk to the City’s financial and operational practices. Projects will be evaluated in regard to some or all of the following factors:

• Implication to the City, its finances and its operations;
• Impact to City infrastructures;
• Project budget, estimated and actual;
• Ratio of technology costs to overall project costs;
• Level of community interest;
• Anticipated technical staff resources required;
• Inclusion of complex hardware and software technology components;
• Public safety implications;
• Number of non-City partners;
• Rates or fees that may be generated for City operations;
• Rates or fees that may be assessed to City users or others;
• Specific factors requested for consideration by the City Administrator;
• Any other factors considered significant to the City’s financial and operational practices.

For projects in the conceptual stage, the TOC will review these projects to ensure they are reasonably scoped, adequately resourced and feasible. The TOC will monitor projects under its purview through to completion to ensure adherence to the project’s scope, quality, timeline and budget. 

The TOC will be comprised of five citizens that the Mayor appoints in consultation with the City Administrator and Chief Technology Officer. Each citizen member will have professional and/or academic experience in a relevant field of information and communication technologies. In making appointments, the Mayor will strive to have a committee which reflects the diversity of the Portland community, especially regarding cultural, ethnic and gender identity. TOC members will be appointed for three-year terms. Each member will be required to sign a conflict of interest and confidentiality non-disclosure statement and will be eligible for reappointment.

The Mayor or the City Administrator may at any time create a sub-committee of the TOC for specific projects including members representing specific users of these technologies. At least one member of the TOC will participate in any sub-committee.

The City Administrator or the Chief Technology Officer may add outside technical and/or business expertise to the committee on a project-by-project basis.

Responsibility

The TOC is an advisory body that makes recommendations to the City Administrator and the Chief Technology Officer. Neither a quorum nor a vote is required by the TOC to provide recommendations. Recommendations should be made as a group; however individual recommendations may be submitted as well.

The City Administrator will serve as the Mayor's appointed advisor to the TOC. The City Administrator will receive recommendations and input from the TOC which the City Administrator will review, analyze and determine the weight of impact to the City. The City Administrator will report to the Mayor their own recommendations.

The TOC will be staffed by the BTS Project Management Office. BTS will provide expertise to support the TOC through the duration of projects overseen by the TOC. Customer bureaus will be responsible to provide accurate and timely project information to BTS and the TOC from the time of project intake through TOC monitoring to project completion. Customer bureaus will provide a project manager to manage business requirements, technology components of bureau-owned systems, and coordination with bureau stakeholders. Responsibilities of the project manager include creating monthly TOC presentations, presenting project status to the TOC, coordinating with the quality assurance (QA) consultant, managing project organizational change management, and reviewing and paying invoices for QA services. A BTS project manager may also be required to oversee the technical aspects when it involves existing BTS managed or owned technology infrastructure and will coordinate with BTS teams.

The TOC shall discuss matters of City technology, security measures, business records, proprietary software/hardware, copyright and other sensitive records. The TOC is not a public body for purposes of Public Meetings Law and is allowed to hold closed meetings. The Chief Technology Officer will provide a quarterly memo from the TOC to the City Administrator and the Deputy City Administrators highlighting the most recent project statuses. 

Quality Assurance

Bureaus with technology projects under the purview of the TOC are required to include contractual services for external QA. Project budgets must reflect this QA expense. BTS will pre-qualify QA firms for applicable projects. QA firms will serve the TOC and communicate status reports to the TOC, project management, bureau leadership and the City Administrator. Bureaus are responsible for responding to QA recommendations and to comments and recommendations from the TOC in a timely and thorough fashion.