Cisco Systems, Inc., IBSG All contents are Copyright © 2005 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U DY

Cisco Systems, Inc., IBSG All contents are Copyright © 2005 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) devel-oped an enterprise-wide IT governance model thataligns its business and IT strategy, which when fac-tored into driving the Authority’s financial planningprocess will drive millions of dollars in cost savings,improve employee productivity, increase residentsatisfaction, and deliver strategic IT projects ontime and on budget. NYCHA’s Virtual IT ProjectManagement Office integrates comprehensiveprocess flows, templates, online tools, and col-laborative techniques to standardize IT projectselection and management throughout the organi-zation, driving innovation through governance andhigh performance.

Business Challenge

More than 420,000 of New York City’s low income andelderly citizens look to the New York City HousingAuthority (NYCHA) to provide affordable housing in asafe and secure living environment. NYCHA is the largesthousing Authority in the United States with 14,000employees overseeing nearly 2,700 buildings and 181,000apartments. NYCHA’s mission is to preserve its aginghousing stock located throughout Queens, Manhattan,the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island through timelymaintenance and modernization of developments.However, like many in the public sector, NYCHA—whose operating budget is comprised of rent collectionand federal funding programs—must meet constituentdemands with shrinking resources.

Prepared by Cisco Systems, Inc.Internet Business Solutions Group

Executive Summary

The New York City HousingAuthority (NYCHA) provideshousing to nearly 420,000 ofNew York City’s low income andelderly residents throughout2,698 buildings with more than181,000 apartments. Seekingan enterprise-wide process to help align its business andtechnology strategy, NYCHAreached out to Cisco Systems,Inc.®, to help develop an IT governance model that wouldprovide a repeatable and predictable framework forinformed, intelligent IT invest-ment decisions. Launched inJune 2004 as the EnterpriseVersion 1.0 release, the IT governance model has alreadyled to increased productivity,reduced costs, improved resident satisfaction, and hasenhanced NYCHA’s ability tomake informed decisions aboutstrategic, business-aligned IT programs.

New York City Housing Authority Teams with Cisco to DevelopInformation Technology Governance Model

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C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U DY 2

NYCHA’s lack of an enterprise-wide IT governance process prevented strategic alignment of its busi-ness and technology investments and strategies. Compounding that problem, a lack of standard-ized business processes and limited enterprise analysis and review of IT funding and programrequests made it difficult to identify, initiate, and execute strategic, multi-million dollar IT pro-grams. In addition, NYCHA’s lack of technology and data standardization had led to multipletechnology platforms and solutions that supported similar business functions in different depart-ments—an expensive and inefficient environment to support.

“Recognizing these deficits, we realized that we needed a governance process that included amethodology for making sound IT investment decisions,” says Avi Duvdevani, NYCHA CIO.“We also needed to put a solid IT project management discipline in place to minimize the risk of those IT investments.”

New IT Governance Model

The Authority’s senior management team, led by NYCHA General Manager Douglas Apple, setout to identify opportunities that would drive higher levels of efficiency into the organization,reduce operational costs, and increase the quality of service provided to NYCHA’s residents.

“We needed to develop a consistent, repeatable strategy and methodology to help us select andprotect our IT investments,” says Helene Heller, senior director, project and information man-agement, Office of the CIO, NYCHA. “This was critical because fiscal realities dictate selective

IT investment. We wanted a process that would guarantee that the selected technology works,the business problem has been solved, and the investment is contained.”

Duvdevani and his team reached out to the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) toact as a trusted advisor across multiple initiatives, one of which was to develop an enterprise ITgovernance model. The model would provide an end-to-end project delivery and project manage-ment process as well as create standards, best practices, and tools to help NYCHA achieve farhigher levels of performance, deliver big wins quickly, and achieve positive financial impact.

“Cisco technology had become the de facto standard here at NYCHA,” Duvdevani says, “IBSGhad assisted in the early development of the city’s e-government initiative. We knew they couldbring some resources to the table as well as a best practice approach in terms of things that weredone in other governmental organizations.”

Solution

Heller and Duvdevani worked closely with Cisco IBSG to develop the concept and design of anenhanced Virtual IT Program Management Office (PMO) governance structure, and then part-nered with IBSG to implement the initiative. NYCHA’s model was developed based on industrybest practices, but customized to address issues specific to the organization.

“Understanding the drivers for making an IT investment, identifying the metrics by

which the success of that implementation will be measured, and then committing to

that investment enables us to realize the benefits.”—Avi Duvdevani, CIO, New York City Housing Authority

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C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U DY 3

NYCHA’s new Virtual Project Management Office was created to manage the IT portfolio selection and management methodology, project lifecycle approach, and project management discipline through an IT governance model. The Virtual IT PMO includes comprehensive processflows and templates that standardize IT project selection and management throughout the orga-nization. An enterprise-wide governance portal leverages a shared server environment to createan online repository of tools and materials to support project managers. The next evolution ofthis portal will leverage the Microsoft EPM suite and other products to provide a Web-basedproject management application, including collaborative tools and techniques such as a projectdashboard, repository, planning and tracking, risk management, and reporting/issue management.

With a support structure that monitors and facilitates best practice transfers, IT issues such asreuse, methodology, and business performance measurements are addressed. The governancemodel will help NYCHA select the right technology projects dictated by the business and inte-grate technology with business priorities and improvement opportunities set by the programrather than by the CIO.

“We can no longer afford to focus on point solutions that are specific to a single department,”Heller says. “We focus on projects that are a priority for the business, owned by them, and ofbenefit to the enterprise.”

A Disciplined, Repeatable Approach

NYCHA has leveraged the enhanced IT Governance Model in the development of its Five-YearInformation Technology Strategic Plan. NYCHA identified three primary goals which IT neededto enable. “First, we wanted to improve our relationship with our residents,” Duvdevani says.“Second, we wanted to drive cost out of future operations. And third, we wanted to optimize ourexisting resources and improve employee productivity. It was clear to us where we needed to focus.”

After conducting an initial analysis of various projects to consider, NYCHA learned that byimplementing projects such as an automation of repair appointment scheduling, they could avoid50 percent of tenant ‘not at home’ situations. “This will allow us to increase productivity by cre-ating a scheduling process where, together with the tenant, we could come up with a specificdate and time range (to visit the home),” Duvdevani says. “These kinds of initiatives help createopportunities for cost take-out and optimization of scarce resources. By leveraging the VirtualIT PMO and its process and templates, we now have a method by which to measure the value of thisinitiative against other prospective projects and evaluate them against our primary business goals.”

Not only has the governance model allowed NYCHA to analyze, track, and measure IT projects,it has provided a method of evaluating opportunities to establish partnership ecosystems—a keystrategy for NYCHA’s IT Department. Out tasking functions to other organizations helps tostreamline operations and reduce cost. “With Cisco’s help, we were able to undertake a ‘core vs.context’ analysis to make a change in the organization,” Duvdevani says. “One such studyfocused on our traditional telephony, which was previously outsourced and managed by ouradministration department. Through the deployment of IBSG’s ‘core vs. context’ methodology,telecommunications became part of IT’s infrastructure department through the implementationof voice over data telephony.”

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C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U DY 4

IBSG also helped NYCHA develop a strategy to enhance its Authority Productivity TrackingSystem (APTS), a manually intensive, paper-driven approach that NYCHA senior managementuses to review the organization’s performance against key indicators. The enhanced APTS willleverage executive information system (EIS) portal technology and process re-engineering todeliver a streamlined data analysis/data collection solution that can dramatically increaseemployee productivity. Combining this close-looped business improvement tool and real-timemanagement reporting with the Virtual IT PMO helps to improve the success of IT projects andprotect NYCHA’s IT investments.

Business Value

NYCHA has recently completed the fifth of the quarterly reviews that are a part of the IT governance model and the second annual enterprise IT business portfolio review. “We used the process to collaborate with our CFO and Department of Budget & Financial Planning to allocate capital IT funding for the fiscal year that started in January of 2005,” Heller says. “So, while we’re still at the early stages of adoption, the process has already proven its usefulness and credibility.”

Although governance is often associated with bureaucracy, NYCHA has established the model as a virtual process with very clear rules and a high level of automation and collaboration. Thishas strengthened the Business-to-IT relationship within NYCHA, says Faisal Hanafi, Cisco IBSGExecutive Advisor. It is now clear within the Authority the impact that information technologywill make to NYCHA’s long term success.

Among other benefits, NYCHA has seen the following results:

• Generated US$1.2M in cost reductions through staff avoidance via Virtual IT PMO.

• Increased business unit satisfaction and collaboration with IT.

• Streamlined NYCHA business and IT five-year strategic planning process.

• Improved level, quality, timeliness, and cost effectiveness of strategic IT programs.

• Significantly increased the amount of capital spending allocated to IT projects.

Recently, NYCHA assembled a consortium of technology leaders representing government andeducation who have expressed the same need for an enterprise-wide IT governance model. “Wewanted to share the NYCHA Virtual IT PMO lifecycle process templates and tools,” Heller says.“But we also wanted to provide a support group of folks who have these issues in common andneed a way to validate issues around IT governance, portfolio management, investment decisions,and project management.”

This virtual community of Government and Education government leaders, known as theGovernment and Education Technology Portfolio Management Consortium or GETPMc havecome together to share best practices and collaborate to provide a continuous improvement program approach to public sector IT governance. IBSG and NYCHA, in collaboration with the Consortium and the National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council, are also in theprocesses of developing a handbook to help other public sector organizations learn how to benefit from this experience.

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C U S T O M E R C A S E S T U DY 5

Next Steps

NYCHA is in the process of fully automating its Virtual IT PMO, providing greater scalabilityto the process and ensuring a high level of compliance and transparency. “We’re going to workthe details of the IT procurement process into the ePMO tool,” Heller says. “Then we’re goingto take a step back and look more closely at the sixth phase of the process, which is the supportand maintenance phase.” This is especially significant since 85 percent of the work performed bythe technology staff centers on production applications and systems.

Cisco Systems, Inc., IBSG All contents are Copyright © 2005 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

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