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78 Strategies for Promoting Sustainable DOT EIPs Agencies, divisions, IT managers and program leaders that are establishing portals and work- ing to make them more sustainable may face several challenges. These challenges, described in Chapter 7, will relate to communicating the value of change for the organization and educating and engaging the right people to implement the changes. The following steps serve as a guideline for implementing new concepts in an organization that utilizes EIPs as a tool to share data and information with users. 8.1 Continually Educate DOT Staff on Emerging IT Capabilities Awareness is often a first hurdle to implementing new technologies. There is little desire to learn new approaches if an institution has embraced one approach for decades and the orga- nizational infrastructure has grown up around this one approach. As described in Section 4, a microservices architecture is a novel, modular, and interoperable approach that allows for scal- ability and automation to deliver applications, data, and information to users. It is important for executives and other DOT staff to understand how this architecture works and the advantages and disadvantages associated with implementing this approach. Over time, more detailed tech- nical knowledge will be required. Initially, this may mean that a small group of staff, maybe even one person, educates them- selves because of enthusiasm about new technologies or to solve a very particular problem. With time, it is important to share this knowledge, sometimes in depth and sometimes at a general level, depending on the audience. Through this process, knowledge should spread from the initial catalyst to various segments of the organization. This process is discussed in later steps, but includes staff development activities and fostering intra-organizational relationships. The following are some resources that may be useful to individuals who want to learn more about the IT concepts reported herein: ⢠Infrastructure as Code (Morris, n.d.) ⢠Microservices Resource Guide (Fowler, n.d.) 8.2 Identify Stakeholders and Champions There are a variety of stakeholders who play an active role in overcoming barriers to imple- mentation and, among these, identified champions can be especially influential in promoting change. Within a DOT, executive-level champions are usually required to ensure buy-in from different segments of the organization; other stakeholders and potential champions may include S E C T I O N 8
Strategies for Promoting Sustainable DOT EIPs 79 staff in IT, technical program areas, human resources, and procurement. These individuals need to understand the desired change and its value to the organization. Other stakeholders may come from outside organizations, such as AASHTO and TRB, who can share lessons learned from multiple states and agencies that have implemented new technologies. 8.3 Always Lead with the Business Need for IT Change Initially, IT change may be viewed as costly and time consuming. Thus, it is important to identify a clear business need directly tied to the objectives of the EIP. This case should be made usually before identifying the underlying technology itself. Technical experts and IT staff should collaborate on understanding the limits of current IT solutions and what emerging IT practices might benefit the organization. Executive-level champions and other stakeholders must first understand the business needs to understand the value of the recommended IT changes. Under- standing business needs can also help the organization design performance measures to track the success of the change. 8.4 Recognize and Respond to Institutional Factors That Need to Be Overcome Factors that might inhibit change include cultural attitudes toward learning and skill develop- ment, rigid hiring policies, inflexible procurement policies, and legal issues. Stakeholders need to start a dialogue to facilitate change in these areas; this dialogue could involve a range of approachesâfrom establishing awareness of new needs to rallying for new procurement and legal policies and techniques. 8.5 Design and Convey Persuasive Messages Once it is clear who the stakeholders are, what they value, and the issues that need to be over- come, it is important to start designing messages that will resonate. Messages might be structured around the following: ⢠Safety. Every transportation agency wants to run a safe transportation system. Updated tech- nologies have the potential to bring transportation system improvements. ⢠Congestion relief. Like safety, updated technologies can help reduce congestion and increase travel time reliability. ⢠Problems as potential opportunities. When a problem is presented by the senior manage- ment, staff can find ways to work EIP development and maintenance into the solution. In this way, the problem is solved and something is being done to meet a need of the workforce. ⢠Institutional knowledge. It is more beneficial to train existing employees and retain them than to bring in a new work force and hire consultants. ⢠The importance of training. Encourage or require mature workers to take existing training and make them understand why training is important. Efficiency can be improved by cross- training so that teamwork increases and staff can work in multiple areas. ⢠IT as the backbone to all other DOT efforts. IT is necessary for building bridges, roadways, tunnels, and other transportation infrastructure. ⢠The importance of keeping up-to-date with fundamental technology developments. The alternative to keeping up-to-date with technology developments and exploiting them is to have technologies get more and more antiquated and to risk having systems fail. ⢠The danger in failing to recognize and address change. Change may make the existing work- force obsolete and make it difficult to find new people.
80 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals 8.6 Establish and Maintain Policies and Processes Policies and processes are most easily established when there is a focused effort to open dia- logue among different functional areas of a DOT (e.g., IT, human resources, and procurement). Instead of letting acute, time-critical problems arise, an ongoing sharing of ideas, potential roadblocks, and brainstorming of mitigation strategies can result in readiness to deal with new technologies. 8.6.1 Governance It is important to understand who is responsible for developing and implementing new tech- nologies. There needs to be a culture of governance built in from the top of an organization all the way down through the different levels. Policies need to be set, and standard operating procedures must be put in place regarding governance. Executives and staff must understand that effective governance will lead to consistent data and information across the agency. Steps to implementing governance include the following: ⢠Approach the development of governance strategy in a decentralized but organized way, such as convening a steering committee. ⢠Consider items related to project teams, work plans, schedules, and budgets. ⢠Document rules, decisions made, policies implemented, agreements, and standards. ⢠Ensure that constraints for projects are limited but well understood. ⢠Define success criteria before a project starts. ⢠Make compliance with the corporate governance policy a part of everyoneâs performance plan. ⢠Provide data governance training and require it, just as people are required to take workplace harassment training. 8.6.2 Hiring and Training Ensuring that existing staff have access to training and are encouraged to take training and hiring staff with needed knowledge are essential to maintaining a strong workforce that under- stands the need for new technologies. New policies may need to be implemented that remove years of experience requirements for hiring new staff, classify data-related positions appro- priately so that they draw in the right job applicants, and minimize the replacement of older workers with contract staff by giving these workers more training and workforce development opportunities. Steps to improving the training of the existing workforce and the hiring of new workers include the following: ⢠Determine who knows what in the organization and where gaps exist. ⢠Understand the history of existing data and systems, how it was developed, and why. ⢠Encourage staff to talk to professional organizations, take training provided by these organiza- tions, read relevant articles, and find other training opportunities. ⢠Develop user groups based on specific issues and learning. 8.6.3 Procurement Procurement staff must understand that procuring IT is different from procuring services or âwidgets,â and procurement policies must be made more flexible to account for IT procurement needs. This will require IT staff and procurement staff working closely together to understand each otherâs needs and limitations.
Strategies for Promoting Sustainable DOT EIPs 81 Steps to developing new procurement policies include the following: ⢠Get executive-level champions in procurement, human resources, and IT to work together to understand each otherâs needs. ⢠Reach out to and educate procurement staff about IT needs. Communicate what IT is trying to do and why it is needed. ⢠Develop a communication plan and a risk plan to oversee the implementation of new procurement policies. ⢠Embed IT procurement specialists in business teams so that they understand potential purchasing issues. 8.7 Define and Implement Changes to IT Practices This step refers to the period surrounding the actual procurement, development, and deploy- ment of a new technology (i.e., the conduct of a project). However, as described in earlier steps, implementing new IT practices is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing activity. Education is needed to ensure that staff are aware of changes and know how to use new technology and what benefits it provides. Establishing new IT practices also requires significant documentation to ensure that staff turnover will not eliminate knowledge about the technology, how it was devel- oped, and how it was implemented. Monitoring of new IT practices over time is required to determine what is working well and what isnât, where changes are needed, and where updates to technology may be available or needed. Effective follow-through once new IT practices are imple- mented will ensure that the technology continues to be useful and relevant and that workers are using the technology to its maximum potential. 8.8 Evaluate Performance Performance related to implementing new IT practices can be evaluated using two key cri- teria. The first criterion is technical performance. Did the technology perform as desired and meet the technical specifications set forth for speed, reliability, security, and other features? Were there unanticipated advantages and difficulties? The second criterion is institutional response. Were needed policies and processes adopted? Was there buy-in across the organi- zation, and were stakeholders satisfied with the outcomes? Is the change repeatable in future projects? 8.9 Share Outcomes As mentioned earlier, venturing into a new technological domain can be advanced by hav- ing examples to follow. As well, the organization that leads in trying new technologies has the distinction of being a role model that others can follow. Therefore, it is important to share the outcomes of implementation so that others may see the advantages of change, educate them- selves about technological capabilities, and understand how barriers can be overcome. There are several ways to share outcomes. These include the following: ⢠Organization or government awards for recognizing innovation, ⢠Internal publications and outreach (e.g., newsletters and brown bag lunch sessions), and ⢠Professional publications describing case studies. Ultimately, and when legal environment permits, share findings and developed tools with other organizations.
82 Guidance for Development and Management of Sustainable Enterprise Information Portals 8.10 Conclusion EIPs offer a tremendous opportunity for state, county, and city DOTs to more efficiently and successfully achieve their mission. Sustainable, resilient EIPs can help an agency achieve its goals for safe and secure transportation, system preservation, quality of service, environmental stewardship, community vitality, and economic prosperity by offering unparalleled customer service to internal and external users. Seizing this opportunity will mean much more than the adoption by a DOT of a new technology. Implementing microservices-based, sustainable EIPs comes with profound and systemic changes in the way DOTs and states have been managing their IT systems and their personnel. These changes affect IT management and acquisition, workforce acquisition, and team organi- zation and responsibilities as well as enterprise culture. This is no minor undertaking; in most cases, the implementation of these changes would be understood as taking years and perhaps decades to be completed. Fortunately, the modular and adaptive nature of microservices-based, sustainable EIPs lends itself to gradual implementation and migration rather than requiring large-scale enterprise reorganization. DOTs can begin by making small changes, experimenting with pilot projects to show value, avoid disruption, and find champions within the organization. As agencies learn, grow expertise, and evolve culture, they will find greater efficiencies as well as opportunities to serve their overarching mission through smart, sustainable EIPs.
