TECHNOLOGY PROJECT OVERSIGHT
Administrative Rule Adopted by Office of Management and Finance Pursuant to Rule-Making Authority
ARB-BTS-1.07
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’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO). 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, assessment of a project in relation to the criteria identified below and a recommendation whether the project should include oversight by TOC as well as include independent Quality Assurance review. Bureaus will submit this information via the project intake process described in Bureau of Technology Services (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 Technology Oversight Committee (TOC), and will document the rationale for their determination. The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) will be the final arbiter, if needed. Technology projects monitored by an existing Council-approved oversight committee do not need to be reviewed by the TOC.
BTS will send to the TOC a list of all projects received through its 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 Council or the Commissioner-in-Charge;
• 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 needed, 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. TOC projects that involve more than one City bureau as the primary customer must have a Mayoral-appointed "lead" member of City Council responsible for that project’s successful completion.
The TOC will be comprised of five citizens, one selected by each member of City Council. Each citizen member will have professional and/or academic experience in a relevant field of information and communication technologies. In making appointments, the Mayor and City Council shall strive to have a committee which reflects the diversity of thePortlandcommunity, especially regarding cultural, ethnic and gender identity. For the initial appointments to the committee, two members will be appointed for two-year terms and three members will be appointed for three-year terms. Subsequent members shall be appointed for three-year terms. The staggered expiration of appointments will help support continuity of the committee. Each member will be required to sign a conflict of interest and confidentiality non-disclosure statement and will be eligible for reappointment.
City Council or the CAO 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 CAO 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 CAO. 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 CAO will serve as the City Council-appointed advisor to the TOC. The CAO will receive recommendations and input from the TOC which the CAO will review, analyze and determine the weight of impact to the City. The CAO will report to Council his/her own recommendations.
The TOC will be staffed by the OMF Business Operations Division. 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 OMF and the TOC from the time of project intake through TOC monitoring to project completion.
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. In order to provide transparency and accountability to the general public, the CAO or his/her designee will schedule quarterly City Council work sessions or regular agenda items on City Council meetings which may include participation of the TOC members and detail the work plan of City technology projects under their review.
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. OMF will pre-qualify QA firms for applicable projects. QA firms will serve the TOC and communicate status reports to the TOC, project management and City Council. Bureaus are responsible for responding to QA recommendations and to comments from the TOC in a timely and thorough fashion.
HISTORY
Approved by Chief Administrative Officer of Office of Management and Finance June 20, 2011.
Emergency Ordinance No. 184713, passed by City Council and effective June 29, 2011.